As the principal and founder of Lopez Research, Maribel Lopez offers deep industry knowledge and expertise to provide research, analysis, and strategic insight to the communications industry. During the past two decades, she has observed, commented on, and engaged in the massive shifts in communications technologies. She has worked directly with the service-provider community as well as with equipment, device, and software vendors. Her perceptions are gained through direct industry involvement and interaction where she has an opportunity to listen and speak to the customers that are the ultimate beneficiaries of her clients’ technologies. Often-quoted for her industry insight, Maribel is a sought-after conference speaker and facilitator. Since founding Lopez Research, Maribel has been called upon to provide strategic analysis of global markets, undertaken message testing, analyzed product positioning, and helped companies to understand where they play in new markets--all for a marquis list of clients. Prior to founding her company, Maribel was a respected analyst for more than 10 years at Forrester Research, most recently as vice president of the tech industry strategies group, providing analysis on multiple topics such as network and service strategies, enterprise communications, and consumer markets for voice, video, and data. She also worked as an analyst for IDC and gained practical marketing and operations experience while at Motorola and Shiva Corp.