About Cicada Exchange

About Cicada Exchange Limited

Cicada Exchange Limited is based in Dublin, Ireland, and is incorporated in Ireland.

Seeing the constraint mobile operators were experiencing in their work of negotiating and renegotiating roaming agreements between each other, Tony, back in 2016, started off with the idea of creating an online and more flexible trading platform that could complement the current ways of working.

Cicada Exchange Limited was formed in January 2019 and decided to use the well proven platform, today used by the European Energy Exchange, as a starting point for Cicada Exchange. Cicada therefore outsourced the development and management of the trading platform to a subsidiary of EEX, and built on this platform to get to the online marketplace we have today.

The Cicada Exchange trading platform is today in live operation and is helping the members of the exchange to reduce their roaming commitments by allowing them to trade quarterly and yearly contracts as required from the comfort of their offices.


Our mission is to simplify the trading of wireless capacity so that wireless capacity can be used more efficiently.


Going forward the Cicada Exchange team’s main focus is to build our membership base and continue the development of the trading platform based on our members’ needs.


Cicada Exchange is an Associate Member of the GSMA, the primary industry association.


Our Management Team

 
 
 
Tony-Shortall.png

Anthony Shortall

Chairman

 

Scan for contact details:

Goran-B-Aasen.png

Gøran B. Aasen

Chief Executive Officer

 

Scan for contact details:

Brian Collins

Chief Operating Officer

 

Scan for contact details:

Ian Marwood

Head Of Bus. Dev.

 

Scan for contact details:

 

Our Board

  • Mr. Anthony (Tony) Shortall

    Chairman

  • Ms. Åshild M. Bendiktsen

    Non Executive Board member

  • Ms. Eileen Maher

    Non Executive Board member

  • Mr. Gerry Fahy

    Non Executive Board member

  • Mr. Goran B. Aasen

    CEO and Ex-Officio Board member

About The Boardmembers

 

Mr. Anthony (Tony) Shortall

Founder and Chairman of Cicada Exchange

Tony-Shortall.png

Tony is an experienced telecoms professional and is an acknowledged expert on telecommunications policy and regulation. Tony has written extensively on these matters and has advised governments, regulators and firms. Tony Shortall founded Telage, a consultancy in the field of telecommunications economics and regulation. Tony previously worked as senior economist at the European Commission and at the Irish Competition Authority. Tony has worked in the telecommunications industry having worked with both fixed (eir) and mobile (Vodafone) operators.

Tony acted as the senior economist in the European Commission when regulation in European roaming markets was first introduced and since then he has advised the OECD, ASEAN, WTO and individual firms and countries on the treatment of wholesale roaming and roaming markets.

He holds degrees in economics (M.A.) and computers (B.A.) from University College Cork, Ireland and a degree in law (LLM) from the BSC in Brussels, Belgium. Tony is a Member of the Institute of Directors.

 

Ms. Åshild M. Bendiktsen

Non Executive Board member

Ashild-Bendiktsen.png

Åshild M. Bendiktsen was Deputy Chairperson of the Board of Telenor, previously she held the position of Non Executive Director in Telenor. Åshild was elected to the Board in June 1994 and was a Board member until November 1999. She was re-elected in May 2000 and from July 2000 she served as Vice-Chairman of the Board. She was again elected on 18 June 2002 and functioned as Chairman from 3 December 2002 to 6 March 2003.

Åshild Bendiktsen has also been Chairman of the Board of NHO in Troms County, and sat on NHO’s Executive Board. She has also been Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Norut Group, and was Junior Minister (State Secretary) at the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications in 1986-88 and 1990-91.

Åshild also served on the board of SND (now a part of Innovation Norway) from 1993-1995. Åshild has in addition served two periods on the board of Scandinavinan Airlines (SAS),  and been a board member of several other financial and technology companies. Åshild has a degree in economics.

 

Ms. Eileen Maher

Non Executive Board member

Eileen-Maher.png

Eileen Maher is an experienced strategic advisor and leader having spent the past 30 years in the telecoms industry. She was the Director of Strategy and External Affairs in Vodafone Ireland. She has strong strategic, commercial, transformation, regulatory and legal experience.

She has a record of accomplishment for developing and executing key strategic infrastructure projects. She also has a history of negotiating commercial joint ventures, partnerships and acquisitions.  

She is a Non-executive Director of Nama and is the Chair of Nama’s Finance and Operating Committee and the Chair of their Risk Committee.

She is  also a Non-executive Director of Eirgrid and member of the Eirgrid Audit committee and a member of their Innovation Committee. She is a Member of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Compliance Committee.

Eileen holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Master of Business Studies from University College Galway. Eileen is a member of the Institute of Directors of Ireland.

 

Mr. Gerry Fahy

Non Executive Board member

Gerry-Fahy.png

Gerry Fahy has spent most of his career in leadership roles in the Telecommunications industry.

An engineer by training, Gerry has 35 years’ experience in the telecoms industry. Gerry started his career managing the planning and oversight of the construction of Ireland’s national radio link and fibre-based transmission networks. He oversaw the rollout of the first mobile network in Ireland.

Following the takeover of Eircell by Vodafone in 2001 he served as Director of Strategy and as a Board member, filling those roles until his departure in 2011.

In 2013 Gerry was appointed as a  Commissioner of ComReg, the Irish telecommunications regulator and was made Chairman of ComReg in 2017.

Gerry is a qualified engineer and holds a Master’s in Business Administration from University College Dublin.

 

Mr. Goran B. Aasen

CEO and Ex-Officio Board member

Goran-B-Aasen.png

Goran B. Aasen has held many senior leadership positions in various companies in Norway and Ireland.

He has IT and telecommunications experience from working in start-up companies such as Alatto and Xelector  and large multinationals such as IBM, Oracle and Ericsson.

Goran has extensive international experience from working with customers mainly in Europe, Middle East and Africa. 

Goran is the founder of GaaTec Ltd, an Irish based company which provides IT services, webdesign and email solutions to small and medium sized companies.

He is also Chairman of BenAas Eiendom and BAA Eiendom, Norwegian based companies specialising in property development and commercial rental and storage.

Goran holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Narvik, Norway.