Chief Technology Officer and SVP of Strategy and Technology Enablement
Santiago (Yago) Tenorio serves as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Technology Enablement at Verizon. In his role, Yago leads Verizon’s work in advancing new 5G use cases, works with partners to lead new technology advancements and map out the next generation of technologies that Verizon will bring to customers where they live, work and play.
Prior to joining Verizon, Yago spent more than 25 years at Vodafone building high-performance teams and is recognized for his expertise in architecting Vodafone’s Open RAN, Cloud Networking and Network APIs. He and his team oversaw all Network technology related decisions and defined the company’s technology roadmap across mobile and fixed networks. He served as CTO for Vodafone Ireland and Chief Network Officer in the UK, successfully leading Vodafone’s network coverage for the 2012 London Olympics.
He is widely respected as an innovator and thought leader in mobile networks, pioneering concepts including Single RAN and Open RAN. Yago has invented and patented technologies including a revolutionary small cell, a novel location system, and the first cloud-based smartphone. He has deployed several world firsts, including the first 5G non standalone call and the first 5G commercial smartphone connection.
Yago is known for driving innovation throughout the industry during his tenure as Chairman of the Telecom Infra Project and Chairman of UK start-up Lime Microsystems. For his contributions to the industry, Yago was recently elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, one of the most prestigious industry honors across all fields of engineering that very few professionals achieve in their technical careers.