Fast Lane Management

WORLDWIDE Management

Torsten Poels, CEO & Chairman of the Board

Torsten has worked in the IT Industry in Europe for 25 years. He started with Technical Training and Consulting Projects and founded his first company specializing in high-end networking services in 1990. Since then he has gained comprehensive Executive Board and …Read moreSales experience leading several Cisco Learning Solutions Partners and IT Training companies. He has a proven track record of growing companies quickly and profitably and developing successful strategic partnerships. Torsten joined Fast Lane in 2003 and is responsible for Fast Lane’s outstanding growth in Europe, Russia/CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Americas and Japan. Torsten has a degree in Computer Engineering from PTL Physikalische Technische Lehranstalt, Fachhochschule Wedel/Hamburg.

Chuck Terrien, SVP Americas & EMEA, Member of the Board

Chuck founded Fast Lane Americas in May of 2005. He has been in the Cisco Training Business for over 10 years. Mr. Terrien was responsible for the general management of a large multi-national …Read more Cisco delivery business as well as a WW Cisco training business development position. Prior to that, he held various technical and managerial positions in the IBM Networking Hardware and Software Divisions. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business from Michigan State University and a Masters of Science in System Science from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Eckhart Eichler, VP Cisco Line of Business & VP CEE / RCIS

Eckhart Eichler has an education as well as strong working experience in communications engineering and he has worked in the IT industry in Europe for more than 25 years. He started as a system engineer for telecommunications and …Read morefounded his own company in 1991 offering consulting and training services. Since then he’s also involved in the Cisco training business.
Working for his own company as well as some high-tech consulting & training companies, he has more than 15 years of management experience ranging from company management to director of business development on a global basis. Based on his understanding of advanced technologies he has a track record of developing and expanding the high-tech services business and is very well known in the Cisco training industry. Besides that, he is the author of a book about routing and routing protocols and of numerous articles published in a variety of technical magazines. Furthermore, Eckhart has been chairman, speaker and instructor at a number of international events.

Alan Lee, VP NetApp Line of Business

Alan has been involved in sales and sales management for his entire career. He entered the IT industry in 1989 managing a regional sales team for a US computer manufacturer and network integrator. In 1995, he joined a US-based IT training organization …Read morethat grew into an international operation. As a National Accounts Director, Alan was responsible for managing relationships with several of their largest accounts on a national and international level. He joined Fast Lane in 2005 as VP of US Sales. In 2009, Alan was asked to take his current role having worldwide responsibility for Fast Lane's business relationship with NetApp.

James Furneaux, VP APAC & Wordwide BLP Management

James has been working in IT for 15+ years. He began running sales in 1998 for a high tech start up in APJC that was purchased by a large Networking vendor in 2000. At that company over his 7 years he served as Product Manager, Sales and Business Development in various technologies for the whole of APJC …Read morewith particular geographic focus on China, Japan, India and Australia. James started his own professional services company that worked with many of the leading IT vendors across the theatre. Since then he has served as the GM of APJC for a number of US and European based companies entering the APJC region. His last role before ITLS was GM, APJC for a high end Data Center Consultancy outfit.

Andy Turner, Managing Director UK |

Andy has worked in the Telecommunications and IT industry for over 20 years. Initially with the Philips Electronics Group responsible for the Commercial & Business Development of mobile and …Read moredata products in Western Europe, Middle East and the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and India. During this period a multitude of business experience was gained in driving Product Business Units and associated Sales & Marketing programmes achieving positioning Philips as the new market entrant and taking to market leadership in many of the developing markets of Eastern Europe by negotiating multi-million dollar contracts with Service Providers & intermediaries via both a direct and an indirect sales channel. Over the past 10 years Andy has held Senior Commercial Director roles with a number of IT Education and Consultancy businesses in the UK and EMEA. This has encompassed periods of rapid growth, mergers & acquisitions as well as assisting companies to sell their business. Andy has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electronics from Brunel University, a post graduate diploma in Sales & Marketing and a Fellowship from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Rüdiger Weskamm, Director Germany |

Rüdiger has worked in the IT Industry in Germany since 1980 including management roles for Nixdorf Computer, Siemens Nixdorf AG and Siemens Business Services.
…Read more He has worked in the training and educational sector as Line Manager for customer and employee training, as project manager for European community projects and as the responsible manager for the Siemens Internet Academy. As Business/Managing Director Germany since 2005, Rüdiger is responsible for Fast Lane’s Business Development and major key accounts Germany.

Herman Goedman, Managing Director Benelux |

Herman has worked in the IT Industry in The Benelux since 1983. He worked as software developer, project manager and business manager at different System Integrators.
…Read more As of 1998 Herman has been involved in Networking training as General Manager of a Cisco Learning Partner and UNIX Consulting Company. Before starting Fast Lane Benelux he was board member for a large International Training Company, responsible for business and partner development, sales and marketing management in many areas including Cisco, Microsoft, and Linux/UNIX.

Francesco Dell’Apa, Managing Director Italy |

Francesco has worked in the IT Industry in Europe for 15 years. He started his professional career in Italy as Project Manager and then spent 10 years at a large international training company where he held different positions, he started as Sales Support Manager of Italy and then …Read more became Operations Manager of Italy & Spain. Francesco joined Fast Lane in 2009 through the acquisition of GKI, where he was Director of Operations. Before taking the position of Managing Director he held the position of Sales Operation Manager. Francesco has a degree in Electronic Engineer from University Politecnico di Torino.

Jesús Álvarez Gallego, Managing Director Spain & Portugal |

Jesús has 25 years of experience as Sales Account manager, Sales group manager, Managing Director and member of different Boards. Before he started the position as Managing Director for Fast Lane Spain, he held several Managing director positions in France, Italy, Portugal, …Read moreSwitzerland and Spain during 20 years in international companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Dow Jones Corporation or Global Knowledge Network.

Richard Nowak, Sales Director France |

Richard has 35 years of experience as an Account Manager, Sales Manager, Alliance Manager, Business Development Manager, Marketing Manager, and Member of the Board. Before he started the position as Commercial Director for Fast Lane France, he held several …Read moresales management and business development positions in international companies such as Digital Equipment, Peregrine Systems, and Network Associates, and Xerox.

Torsten Poels

Torsten Poels, Managing Director Switzerland |

Michael Zipfelmaier, Director Large Enterprises DACH |

Michael has worked in the IT industry in Europe since 1993. After his academic studies of commercial science at the Vienna University of Economics and Business he started as Product Manager. After 5 years, he became an instructor and delivered many sales related Cisco courses to students …Read moreall over Europe. After working for Alcatel, PRO IN, Synergy Professional Services, NIL, avodaq AG and Global Knowledge he is now bringing his industry experience into his role as Director Strategic Accounts at Fast Lane.

Anders Oxelcrantz, Managing Director Scandinavia |

Anders has worked in the IT Industry in the Nordics since 1990. He started as a salesman in the Telecom area and then became Sales Manager in the area of value added services. He also worked as Maintenance Manager for one of the Swedish market leader System Integrators …Read morewhich led him into the training area.
Anders founded a Cisco and Nortel training division in 1994 and expanded that business across the Nordics over the following five years. Anders has spent the last 13 years in different leading roles for Nordic and Pan European training organizations primarily focused on Cisco Training.

Paul de Reuck, Managing Director South Africa |

Paul has been working in the IT industry for 17 years, initially in technical roles, including time as a trainer on IBM hardware systems. He has worked for Dell and IBM, as well as locally listed IT companies. He has been involved as a sales executive, mostly in the Telco and …Read moreBanking environments in South Africa, and has run the Storage business as Platform Manager for IBM in Sub-Saharan Africa for several years. Paul is joining Fast Lane as MD for South Africa in July 2011.

James Dixon, EMEA Marketing Director |

James studied Marketing at Birmingham University for 4 years before undertaking his first executive role at Westcon UK Ltd, the distributor of leading-edge networking technology products. Providing marketing support for a number of Westcon’s leading vendors such as …Read moreBritish Telecom, Nortel Networks, Extreme Networks, 3 Comm and Packeteer. After 2 years James moved into the IT Training industry and has never looked back with 10 years experience under his belt. James joined Fast Lane in February 2010 and is ultimately responsible for all of Fast Lane marketing activities including strategic decisions, engaging with vendors and partners and overseeing the execution of the marketing plan ensuring it’s on time and within budget.

Emma Lobley, EMEA Business Development Director Cisco LoB |

With over 15 years experience in the IT industry, 12 of which directly involved with Cisco Training, Emma has a wealth of experience building relationships with large corporate and Cisco Partners. Her key strength is to build relationships at various levels within …Read morean organisation and help them design and execute training programs for their staff or end customers. She has directly managed a host of training programs involving sales staff, pre-sales and post sales engineers whether this is through on-line learning or a traditional instructorled classroom experience.

Oleg Feldman, Managing Director Russia/CIS |

Oleg has 10 years of experience in the Cisco training business with several of the world’s leading CLSPs. He has worked as Sales Manager, Partner and Key Account Manager and Partner Development Manager. Also, he has managed 2-Tier partners (CLPs and Sponsored Organizations) across EMEA for over 4 years. Oleg knows the Russian and CIS market very well and worked also for years in the development of all CEE countries. He is fluent in Russian, German and English.

Tilen Rozman, Managing Director CEE |

Tilen brings over 10 years of experience in IT education field with extensive international experience in educational program development, business development, sales & marketing, customer relations, business operations and new technology initiatives. His professional path began with Compaq educational services where he was in charge of delivery and development of programs for European and African regions and continued with Program Management for Micro-soft and Hewlett Packard Educational Services through European Learning Partners. Tilen was in the past working for a Hewlett Pack-ard and Microsoft Training center as well as for Cisco Learning Solutions Partners. Tilen is now on a position of Managing Director at Fast Lane Slovenia, responsible for Central and Eastern Europe. His current position combines all his previous experiences and gives him an opportunity to develop new business, such as IBM (implementation of N-series courses), VMware (implementation of training into Central and Eastern European region), etc.

Bogdan Stashchuk, Managing Director Ukraine |

Bogdan Stashchuk has an exceptional experience in IT. He worked as a network engineer at National University of Taras Shevchenko, Kiev, before he entered IT training business as a Cisco Instructor. After gaining his CCIE certification, Bogdan had been involved in numerous complex integration projects as an architect. He also held an executive director position at one of ukrainian IT training providers. Bogdan’s excellent management and planning skills allow him to develop successful and profitable business strategies.

Alexey Melnikov, Managing Director Kazakhstan |

Alexey Melnikov has 13 years of experience in IT business. He started his career as a sales manager. He used to work in some large system integration companies, as well as in various international IT branches in Kazakhstan. In his portfolio, Alexey has a leading role in one of the largest training centers in Kazakhstan. During his career, he became a key IT manager on the Kazakhstan’s IT-market. He had been awarded as the company's most valuable employee several times, for his passion about work and personal attitude. Alexey has an excellent knowledge of the IT-market in the Central Asia region and is responsible for Fast Lane´s sales and business development in Kazakhstan.

Chuck Terrien, Managing Director US |

Dan O´Brian, COO US, Managing Director Canada |

Dan O’Brien joined Fast Lane in Oct of 2010 as the COO Americas, responsible for business operations in Canada and the USA. Dan has an extensive background in training operations and services, …Read moreprior to Fast Lane he held the Position of VP Managed Learning Services at MicroTek a provider of learning solutions. While in that role he was responsible for building a global service line of business and for launching many new service offerings that supported high quality training delivery. Dan also spent 10 years at a very large global technology training company from 1996 to 2006. He started in Canada running Canadian Operations then spent 3 years running US operations and then 2 year running European operations; he left the company as the Global VP of Operations and Planning. In the past 17 years in the private training industry Dan has been instrumental in defining plans and strategies to manage growth and to drive efficiency and profitability in all countries where he has had management responsibility.

Barry Kaufman, Product Manager, Enterprise Networks & VMware |

Barry has been working in IT and Security consulting and training for 17 years, as well as holding a Master's Degree in Education. Over his career, Barry has had the experience of growing and selling a successful training business, …Read moredirecting and expanding professional services for an IT Security Firm, and continually working to innovate courses on security and advanced networking technology. He has a passion for bringing the "new" to market; this includes accelerating vendors' Go-To-Market plans by envisioning and delivering on cutting edge technology training. He is also the author of several publications, including co-author of the "Official Certified Ethical Hacker Review Guide".

Mike Warner, Product Manager UC & Collaboration |

Mike is a 25-year veteran of the telecommunications and collaboration industry. From software solutions development to product management to business development, Mike has experience in nearly every role involved in bringing these solutions to market. His employment history includes nearly a decade at Cisco in a variety of roles focused on unified communications and collaboration. Although based in the US, he has focused on global markets for his entire career, including serving a 3-year assignment in Europe. Mike holds a Computer Science degree from North Carolina State University.

Luis Campbell

Luis Campbell, VP Latin America

Luis has worked for Unisys Corporation most of his career in Executive Management positions, leading technical and consultant business groups and providing value add in complex technical Integration Projects in several Latin America countries. Also, he is an expert in business planning and organization, and a consultant expert in business process transformation in banks and business alignment. He also had direct sales roles coordinating sales groups of technological products across Latin America. Luis is a Computer Science engineer and has an MBA with a Marketing major and post-graduate degree in Tele-communications. He was appointed Information Services Director since 1999, Certified Principal since May 2000 and Certified Partner since 2003. In 2004 he was responsible for the consultant practice of Retail Banking for Latin America including Mexico and Brazil. He had the responsibility of over one hundred consultants and 23 managers, and had a total services quota over USD$7.5M.

Ricardo Matsui, Managing Director Brazil |

A thoughtful leadership is his style of business management and a truly believer of the power of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ricardo has over 19 years of experience in the IT industry and a proven record of successful business development and execution in the networking business around the globe. Prior to leading Fast Lane business in Brasil, he worked for Cisco for 13 years (former CCIE) where he led geographic dispersed cross-functional teams selling thru strategic partners. He graduated in Electronic Engineer with emphasis on Computer Systems at Faculdade de Engenharia Industrial – FEI, as a top performer.

Zayill Buenfil, Managing Director Mexico |

Zayill has been involved in the IT Industry since 2000, with over 11 years of experience in the training field, she began as the internal Nortel training coordinator, 3 years later she moved into Global Knowledge as sales executive with great public sector projects achievement. By 2005 she managed the Nortel training center for LATAM. Since 2010 her responsibility is Managing Director Fast Lane Mexico. She is leading Service Provider and Enterprise Sales as well as vendor relationships.

Jesús Sanchez Ferrer, Manager Peru |

Jesus is a System Engineer of the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria and Administrative Engineer of the Univeridad Inca Garcilaso de La Vega with more than twenty years of experience in the area of management and education of Information Technologies at level superior, he has experience on the management of development projects and implementation of Information systems with wide experience in the direction of training centers of Networking and IT with responsibility in the Commercial Corporate area. In the area of training centers of information and communication technologies, he has more than fifteen years of experience. He has taken part on the creation of the first Cisco Learning Partner in Peru in 1998 and he also participated in the creation of the first Cisco Networking Academy in Peru in 2003. Nowadays, Jesus is the Country Manager of Fast Lane, Peru with commercial responsibilities in the countries of Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

Eloísa Martínez Aguilar, LoB Manager IBM and Microsoft, LATAM

Eloísa is a highly skilled professional with over 15 years of experience in the IT industry; with a proven record of productivity, quality, and integrity. She graduated as Electronic Engineer at Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Nicaragua. Eloísa has a wide experience in working with TELCOs, Electric Distribution Company, Public Sector Institutions, Government, Banking, Industries, Call Centers and others; first as Mission Critical Engineer, later as Pre-Sales and Sales Account Manager, and finally as a Project Manager consolidating a broad and global vision of the IT business.

James Furneaux, VP APAC South |

James has been working in IT for 15+ years. He began running sales in 1998 for a high tech start up in APJC that was purchased by a large Networking vendor in 2000. At that company over his 7 years he served as Product Manager, Sales and Business Development in various technologies for the whole of APJC with particular geographic focus on China, Japan, India and Australia. James started his own professional services company that worked with many of the leading IT vendors across the theatre. Since then he has served as the GM of APJC for a number of US and European based companies entering the APJC region. His last role before ITLS was GM, APJC for a high end Data Center Consultancy outfit.

Tina Huang, VP APAC North |

Tina Huang has over 15 years of IT training and certifications management and industry experience. Tina joined Fast Lane in 2011 through the acquisition of IT Learning Solution Ltd, CEO and founder. Tina set up IT Learning Solution Ltd in 2006 ITLS is the biggest learning distributor for several vendors in Asia. Before ITLS she worked at a regional IT training company and was in charge of IT training and certification business across 13 countries in Asia Pac from Japan to New Zealand. Tina has been involved in marketing, consultant and management roles for IT Talent Development working at GKN, Training Partners, Hitachi Data Systems, KPMG Advisory Services and partnership with Accenture Learning Solutions. Tina holds a degree in Law School.

Linda Belina, COO Singapore |

Linda joined Fast Lane in 2010 as COO and Operations Director for ITLS South APAC out of Singapore. Previously she has been working in Singapore as Regional Manager for NIL Data Communications where she gained experience in the training industry. Linda has a strong business experience in Asia, she has worked as Project Manager and Operations Chief in China as well as Business Consultant for the APAC region. Linda worked for four years in Shanghai and was responsible for pavilion operations. Linda is fluent in Mandarin.

Madhu Sudhan, Director - India

Madhu has over 15 years of experience in IT Training, Banking & Service Industry, He is anElectronics & Communication engineer and has an MBA with Marketing major and holds Research degree in MPhil – Management. He has Previously worked in companies, that includes GTE, ABN AMRO Bank, India Bulls, Integrated Enterprises (I) Ltd &iRis Technologies in India. He has had direct sales responsibility for IT Majors, SME’s, Defence, global customers and all types of channels in the IT environment. As Training Head for GTE he was in charge for 3 countries [India, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh] and had management responsibility for Sales, field sales marketing, field sales finance and delivery. Madhu has been actively involved in building strategies and implementing across India, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh since inception of the training business in GTE.

Rachel Chan, COO North Asia |

Rachel served as COO for ITLS for the last 5 years before the merger with Fast Lane took place. She has over 15 years of experience in mul-tinational corporations and private enterprises Rachel is Managing Director for ITLS/Fast Lane in Hong Kong and leads sales and business development for Greater China.

Lisa Yang, Manager Taiwan |

Lisa had graduated in Law School and has over 12 years’ solid experience in IT Training Industry. She is familiar in providing IT training solu-tions to customers from telecommunication, multinational corporations, service providers as well as large enterprise companies. Lisa works as Regional Manager and in-charge of business development, learning partner recruitment and sales & marketing.

Hitoshi Tanaka, Managing Director Japan |

Hitoshi has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years. He held managerial positions for IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, EMC and Firefly. Hitoshi has project management experience including multinational environments as well as strong leadership and problem solving skills. Before joining Fast Lane as Managing Director Japan Hitoshi was Director Japan at Firefly Communications. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Keio University.