About us

About Cavell

Cavell provides the expertise that turns ideas into action.

The Cavell team have been in the telecoms and technology industries for most of our working lives and are passionate about exploring the ways in which new technologies can change our world.
We are curious and inquiring. We enjoy learning for its own sake but what really motivates us is using what we learn to inspire our industry to do new things.

For some, this means developing a new service, harnessing a breakthrough technology or exploring new geographies. For others, it’s about supporting them with investing in upgrading infrastructure or acquiring other businesses. If you are looking to take your business in a new direction, Cavell is here to help you to navigate that journey and out-manoeuvre your competition.

The best feedback we receive from our clients is that we have surprised them (in a good way). This pleasant surprise comes from both our deep knowledge of their market and our ability to get to the crux of what they are doing in their businesses.

A third-party view allows you to think more clearly about your requirements and some additional bandwidth to help on challenging projects never goes amiss. Ultimately, it’s simple: you bring the ideas and we help you turn them into action.

Our People

Meet the team

Director - Research Services

Director - Engineering Services

If you’d like to talk with anybody in the Cavell team, we’d love to discuss our work in more detail.

Why Cavell?

Our approach is very different to our peers. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

Meaningful Experience

Our founders have all held senior roles in the pioneering businesses that built the Internet age. We have walked in your shoes. Our team works closely, every day, with your peers around the world, with advice and practical support to navigate challenges.

Hands-on Philosophy

We are more than just consultants; as well as monitoring the industry, we also get hands-on with our clients. Whether it’s building the business case, physically rolling out a network or training your channels, we don’t just tell you what to do, we help you do it.

Action Orientation

Our aim is always to provide actionable and practical insights that enable you to make positive changes to your business. In doing so, we also help to de-risk major investments and circumvent the pitfalls associated with any new technology ventures.

Practice Approach

Our practice approach allows us to take a client-aligned view to how we work. That way, if you want to introduce a new service, we can help you with the full lifecycle of development, launch and rollout. From cradle to grave, our practice expertise illuminates your path.

Global Know-how

We are privileged to work with people like you across the world, discovering both similar challenges and local nuances. That means we can take what works in one market and apply it to others. Our learning is global so that you benefit from our broad worldview.

Access to our Network

As well as our own services, we have associates around the world and a unique collection of connections that add value to our clients. Whether it’s through events or personal introductions, we’re always happy to help by bring in others to support your initiatives.
Our founders have all held senior roles in the pioneering businesses that built the Internet age. We have walked in your shoes. Our team works closely, every day, with your peers around the world, with advice and practical support to navigate challenges.
We are more than just consultants; as well as monitoring the industry, we also get hands-on with our clients. Whether it’s building the business case, physically rolling out a network or training your channels, we don’t just tell you what to do, we help you do it.
Our aim is always to provide actionable and practical insights that enable you to make positive changes to your business. In doing so, we also help to de-risk major investments and circumvent the pitfalls associated with any new technology ventures.
Our practice approach allows us to take a client-aligned view to how we work. That way, if you want to introduce a new service, we can help you with the full lifecycle of development, launch and rollout. From cradle to grave, our practice expertise illuminates your path.
We are privileged to work with people like you across the world, discovering both similar challenges and local nuances. That means we can take what works in one market and apply it to others. Our learning is global so that you benefit from our broad worldview.
As well as our own services, we have associates around the world and a unique collection of connections that add value to our clients. Whether it’s through events or personal introductions, we’re always happy to help by bring in others to support your initiatives.
The bottom line for us is that what we do is about more than just numbers. By focusing our business on the practical challenges that our clients face, we aim to be a driving force for positive change in our industry and to change the way we all work and communicate.

If you'd like to discuss how Cavell can help turn your ideas into action

Michael Graham

Executive Director

Mike is a lifelong engineer and a computer science graduate. He spent 20 years at General Electric Information Services where he held various technical management roles. Since the late 90s, he has been in the Internet industry with several years at UUNet, Worldcom and MCI, where he was involved in the rollout of the first MPLS network with Juniper. Mike founded CF11, a technical consultancy focused on wireless networking, which would be a subsequent part of the merger that would form Cavell Group. Mike’s focus continues to lie with large-scale networking rollouts, technical advisory projects, and working with leading vendors on engineering and deployment.

Matthew Townend

Executive Director

Matt has always been involved in early-stage markets, beginning his career at Pipex, the UK’s first commercial ISP That would lead to roles at UUNet, Worldcom and MCI before working for the pioneering VoIP provider, Inclarity. Matt has held senior, commercial and market-facing roles managing hundreds of people in dozens of markets. Spotting a gap in the industry for good market data and insights, he founded illume in 2005, which would later become part of Cavell Group. Matt works with our clients on technology strategy, go-to-market frameworks, transformative consulting projects and due diligence exercises.

Gail Smith

Executive Director

Gail has held product management, sales leadership and board-level roles in leading technology companies like Motorola, MFS (Verizon Business) and Level3 (CenturyLink), where she was President for Europe and a member of the executive team. In 2002, Gail founded Cavell, originally focusing on consulting and working with service providers and vendors like Cisco. Subsequently, she would merge her business with those of Mike and Matt to form Cavell Group as it is today. With Cavell, Gail helps service providers with their enterprise strategies as well as working on channel enablement programmes to help technology providers to expand their geographical footprints.

Dominic Black

Director - Research Services

Dom has worked in the telecoms and technology sectors for his entire career. He is undoubtedly one of the world’s leading analysts in Cloud Communications and he continues to generate 20+ reports per annum in his research sectors. Dom has built a strong global reputation as an insightful speaker with profound market knowledge, making him an in-demand presenter at events around the world. His focus at Cavell is to ensure that our research output and reports are focused on insights that are actionable, not just theoretical, so that our clients can take practical steps to improve their performance in the market.

Antonio Sardinha

Director - Engineering Services

Antonio is an electrical engineering graduate with a technical background working on big networks and with large enterprise customers on their networking requirements. He has worked for two of our major types of client – service providers and technology providers – including Cisco, Verizon and Siemens. Antonio works on both consulting projects and in engineering services. For several years, he has also been a consultant for Riverbed, one of Cavell’s major clients. He believes that to be successful with network architecture and technical advisory work, a deep technical knowledge is needed, and that’s what he seeks to bring to his client engagements.

Getting the Most of a Virtual Cloud Comms Summit

Matthew Townend
Executive Director
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Francisca Dinga
Events & Marketing Manager
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