Top 30 5G influencers on Twitter

By
published

Twitter is a go-to platform when looking for tech insights and trends. These 5G influencers have some of the most influential and interesting accounts in the sector.

(Image credit: Future)

Twitter is the go-to platform for business people and prosumers looking for informed opinion, news or comment on technology. Much of this focuses on 5G or related innovations, and recent rollouts of 5G networks in the UK and US have sparked considerable debate on the next-generation network. The following 30 influencers work in fields as diverse as education, government, media and advertising; but all share useful information and opinion on the next generation network. Prepare to be informed and entertained.  

1. John Legere (6.6m followers)

T-Mobile’s outgoing CEO John Legere is outspoken and eccentric, and he uses social media to connect with customers and employees from whom he gleans market intelligence which feeds through to company strategy. He regularly disparages his competitors (including their 5G plans) on Twitter. And he has 6.5m followers, demonstrating that these spats are of interest to the wider public as well as tech enthusiasts. 

2.  Glen Gilmore (301k followers)

Glen Gilmore provides digital marketing strategy and training to the Fortune 500.  He has collaborated with some of the biggest tech companies and organisations in the world including Amazon, Huawei, Verizon, IBM and Nato. He also advises on trends, digital marketing and transformation best practices, as well as online community building, influencer relations, online reputation management, compliance, and governance.

3.   Dr. Sarah-Jayne Gratton (177k followers)

As a producer, author, and a former theatre performer, UK-based Dr. Sarah-Jayne Gratton is not your typical 5G influencer, however this social media strategist puts her communications skills to good use as a member of the Siemens influencer community and is a key opinion leader for Huawei. She speak and writes regularly on 5G and related technologies.

4.  Diana Adams (150k followers)

Atlanta-based Diana Adams works as a technology journalist, an Ericsson influencer and is the co-founder of Adams Consultancy Group. Her self-declared passions are digital transformation with a focus on IoT, AI, mobility and big data. She teaches in tech and is outspoken on the ethical benefits of widespread 5G rollout. 

5.  Mike Quindazzi  (141k followers)

Mike Quindazzi is managing director and US digital alliances leader for PwC. He is a regular keynote speaker on the trends shaping the future for business and society, including fintech, AR, AI, robotics and digital transformation. Quindazzi currently serves on the executive committee at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, leading a number of important economic development initiatives. 

6.  Michael Fisher (133k followers)

Michael Fisher is respected for his mobile technology reviews, perhaps best known for the YouTube videos he made as reviews editor for Pocketnow. Any mobile tech reviewer worth their salt will be well briefed on the pros and cons of 5G, and he is no exception.  Fisher is now operating as MrMobile, an independent reviewer, and has extended his remit to gadgets and smartwatches as well as phones.

7.  Dr. Sally Eaves (97k followers)

Sally Eaves is CTO for Intrepreneur International and a member of the Forbes Technology Council. She is a thought leader on innovation and digital transformation, with a specific interest in types of technology enhanced by 5G – including AI, machine learning and robotics. 

8.  Antonio Grasso (91k followers)

Founder and CEO of Italian start up Digital Business Innovation, Antoinio Grasso has been working in IT for more than 35 years. Perhaps best known for his ethical vision and interest in how digital transformation can help developing countries, he uses Twitter and other social media platforms to spread content on new, emerging technologies and how they can be used to transform the world for the greater good.

9.  Kevin L. Jackson (67k followers)

Jackson is the CEO and founder of the GovCloud Network, a consultancy formed to assist agencies and businesses make best use of cloud computing. He writes regularly on 5G and its impact on healthcare, retail and financial services.

10.  Ajit Pai (67k followers)

Ajit Pai is a lawyer and chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Before being appointed to the FCC, Pai had a career spanning government and telecoms, where he held positions with the Department of Justice, the US Senate, and Verizon Communications. 

11. Graham Cluley (92k followers)

If you think the world of cyber security is a dull place, then you've never met Graham Cluley (or seen his Twitter feed). Cluley has been working in cyber security for almost 30 years, and is an award-winning speaker, writer, and podcaster. And as edge computing and 5G open a whole new world of vulnerabilities, you can be sure that Cluley will have an insightful take on the issues at hand.

12. Kathrin Buvac (2.5k followers)

Kathrin Buvac is president of Nokia Enterprise, and is a prominent ambassador for Women in Tech. Buvac leads a team that provides enterprise networks, industrial automation and digital solutions to customers in a number of sectors. And as industrial 5G begins to gain traction, Buvac will provide a unique view from the world of the enterprise.

13. Michael Dell (665k followers)

Not many people have done more to push a company forward than Michael Dell. Whilst at Austin's University of Texas in 1984, Dell launched a computer company that would go on to become one of the world's best-known brands. As well as spear-heading Dell's growth, he also played a huge hand in transforming Austin into one of America's most tech-savvy cities. And having moved beyond selling PCs, into developing enterprise-level servers and other equipment, Dell now has a serious focus on edge-computing, and an interest in how data can be manipulated in the cloud, via technologies such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6.

14. Dalith Steiger (105k followers)

Dalith Steiger is one of the co-founders and a managing partner of SwissCognitive, the Global AI Hub, which was founded in 2016. It is one of the world’s leaders in providing solutions relating to AI. And since its inception, SwissCognitive has connected to over 150 companies spanning 30 different industries that represent over two million employees. Steiger has a keen interest in how AI and 5G will complement one another, and open up new opportunities over the next decade. 

15. Cristiano Amon (31k followers)

If you're looking for a company with a lot of skin in the 5G game, look no further than Qualcomm. Qualcomm Technologies developed the first 5G NR modem, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G, and continues to develop 5G chips for mobile devices. Cristiano Amon is Qualcomm's president, and is an outspoken advocate of 5G and its capabilities.

16. Tommi Uitto (1,219 followers)

Tommi Uitto is currently President, Mobile Networks, and a member of  the Group Leadership Team at Nokia. Unless you're fluent in Finnish, you'll have to hit the translate button on most of Tommi's tweets, but as Nokia's head of mobile networks, he's perfectly placed to deliver ongoing insight across the 5G landscape.

17. Marc Allera (11.1k followers)

Marc Allera is currently CEO of BT’s Consumer division: BT, EE and Plusnet. And since joining the Twitter platform in 2016 Allera has built up a considerable audience, thanks to the regular updates and insight he shares via his account. Having spent a decade working at Three UK, Marc joined BT in 2011.

18. Mats Granryd (38.1k followers)

Mats Granryd is Director General at the GSMA, the global industry organisation that represents the interests of mobile network operators (with a membership of more than 750 mobile operators). In this role, he leads the GSMA in supporting its global membership through a range of industry programmes, advocacy initiatives and industry-convening events. Granyrd's Twitter feed is a fantastic place to get a snapshot of what's going on in the mobile industry, thanks to his extensive list of connections, and he also shares his own views from time to time.

19. Michael Sievert (64.6k followers)

With John Legere stepping down from the top spot at T-Mobile, Michael Sievert  is now the president and CEO of T-Mobile US, and a member of the company's board of directors. In November 2019, T-Mobile announced that Sievert, then-COO, would step up to the CEO position in May of this year. However, as the T-Mobile Sprint merger was finalized, the company took the opportunity to promote Sievert a month early.

Following on from Legere will be no small feat, especially when it comes to social media, but – juding from previous posts – Sievert's approach is likely to be similar, and you can expect some ruffled feathers along the way.

20. Caroline Chan (1,884 followers)

Caroline Chan is General Manager of the 5G Infrastructure Division, Network Platform Group, Intel. Thanks to her role at Intel, Chan is immersed in the world of 5G, and regularly attends industry events related to 5G technology, sharing her insights with her followers. You may also get some Texas Longhorns tweets thrown in for good measure.

21. Peter Linder (4.3k followers)

Peter Linder is one of the original evangelists for Ericsson’s Networked Society. During the first 5 years of the program he has contributed more than 150 blogs, as well as compiling  major industry trends (published every two years). Since joining the Networked Society initiative Peter’s role has been to help articulate and predict important shifts for Society, Industries, Users, Devices, Video, Networks and Business models. 

22. Camille Mendler (4.6k followers)

Over the last 25 years Camille has worked with network operators, governments, technology vendors, investment houses and enterprises to help empower them through technology. Now working as chief analyst at Omdia, she is focused on the democratization of spectrum, and the emergence of private networks as they reshape enterprise empowerment. 

23. Michael Fisher (87.7k followers)

Michael Fisher is a senior systems analyst at Whitcraft Group, an aerospace manufacturing company, where he specializes in network security, infrastructure architecture, VMWare vSphere, Cisco iOS/ASA, Microsoft Windows, Linux and Unix. Other areas of expertise include technologies such as cyber security, IoT, 5G, VR, and fintech. 

24. Kishen Mangat (20.1k followers)

Kishen Mangat currently works at Cisco, where he is the vice president and general manager of Service Provider Mobility and Automation, which is focused on 5G. According to his Twitter profile, he is a ‘serial entrepreneur’, and in the past he was co-founder of HotelNet, a cloud services platform for hotel guests; and he also co-founded BroadHop in 2003, which handled network policy management for wireless networks, and was purchased by Cisco in 2015. Kishen shares regular posts on the development of 5G, especially at the enterprise level. 

25. Helen Duncan (2.8k followers)

Helen Duncan runs MWE Media, which provides media services to the electronics and wireless communications industries. Following an early career in microwave electronics R&D, Helen has a breadth of experience as a marketing manager for global OEMs, as a market analyst, as an account director for a leading tech PR agency, as a technical conference organiser, and as editor of technical publications including Microwave Engineering Europe and the EPN RF&Wireless Blog. 

26. John Saw (6.5k followers)

John Saw, Ph.D., is the executive vice president of advanced and emerging technologies at T-Mobile, where he and his team of technologists look for new and innovative ways to disrupt wireless.

Saw was previously the chief technology officer at Sprint, where he transformed its network performance and oversaw the company’s 5G rollout. John was also the chief technology officer at Clearwire before the company was acquired by Sprint in 2013. 

27. Bryan Beal (5.3k followers) 

Bryan Beal is a chief evangelist and leads a global team of Solution Architects in the Telco and Edge Cloud business unit at VMware. Bryan started his career two decades ago at Verizon and then AT&T before moving into the networking industry.

Beal and his team are building the next generation of 5G, Edge, MEC, NFV, RAN, EPC, IMS, IoT and container-based Kubernetes multi-cloud architectures. And Bryan has a 20-year career in Networking and Enterprise Software for industry leaders like VMware, Microsoft and Juniper Networks.

28.  Diego Scotti (8k followers) 

Diego Scotti is executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon. And over the last five years, he and his team have led the widely recognized transformation of the Verizon brand from a phone company to a technology and experience brand.

Previously, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer of J. Crew, and Scotti also spent 15 years at American Express, where he led several functions including global advertising and brand management. Selected by Business Insider for their "Most Innovative CMO" List in both 2018 and 2019, Scotti was also named one of the "World's Most Influential CMOs" by Forbes in 2019.

29. Hans Vestberg (25.6k followers) 

Hans Vestberg is a Swedish businessman and CEO of Verizon, where he has worked as executive vice president of the company's network and technology team, and as chief technology officer.

Before joining Verizon in April 2017, Vestberg served for six years as president and CEO of Ericsson, where he was instrumental in developing the company’s industry-leading services organization, which grew three-fold during his five years of management. In 2007 he became Ericsson’s chief financial officer, and he was named CEO in 2009. At Verizon, he has focused on transforming the businesses 2.0 customer-centric strategy, leading the company to be first in the world to deploy 5G home and mobile technology.

30. Neville Ray (45.6k) 

Neville Ray is the president of technology at T-Mobile, where he is responsible for the management and development of T-Mobile’s wireless network, the company’s information technology services, and technology operations. 

Previously serving as chief technology officer at T-Mobile, Ray and his team helped position T-Mobile as a leader in 5G, by launching the first nationwide 5G network in the U.S. in 2019. Before joining T-Mobile in 2000, Ray was the vice president of network at Pacific Bell Mobile Services, where he helped build out the network T-Mobile users rely on in California and Nevada.



Nicola Brittain
Nicola Brittain

Nicola Brittain is a freelance journalist with expertise in technology, telecoms, media and finance. She worked as news and analysis editor at Computing Magazine, and more recently has freelanced for Diginomica, Investment Week and Portfolio Adviser. She is currently writing a novel.