Christopher Rogers: A Model Entrepreneur

This article is written by Jeremiah Uke, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Christopher Rogers has a vast range of experience as he was the co-founder of Nextel Communications which was acquired by Sprint for $35 billion. Christopher has 30 years of mobile industry experience in a number of positions including founder, advisor, and operator. He served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Spectrum, at Sprint where he was in charge of strategic initiatives.

Christopher was also responsible for the management and supervision of wireless spectrum licenses and Sprint's portfolio of emerging technology investments. Prior to the acquisition of Sprint in 2005, Chris was Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of Nextel Communications, Inc. In this role, Chris helped to spearhead the roll-up of local carriers that transformed Nextel into a major national operator. He also led the series of transactions in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil that resulted in the creation of Nextel International which is now an independent public company. Chris was also responsible for negotiations with regulators, investors, and carriers in a number of countries including Saudi Arabia, China, India, Jordan, and Pakistan, amongst other countries.

Chris has belonged to the boards of numerous venture-backed companies across five countries. Additionally, Chris has served as a director on multiple public company boards and as a director for several Washington, D.C. based philanthropic organizations. He currently sits on the board of Mandalay Digital (NASDAQ: MNDL) and was recently elected as the lead independent board member at LightSquared to help oversee the company through its bankruptcy.

Christopher has a record for growing startups by finding value that can be created by that startup, his involvement in mobile and telecommunications makes him pick interest in exchange of data on mobile devices through voice, SMS or data, having studied the trends over the years, the internet has become a space with most people getting involved, and exchanging data through a number of mediums like websites and social media, this has also driven revenue to telecommunications as more money is being spent on data communications  than the traditional voice and SMS, Chris advises startups to get involved in this space as it is a space that can increase revenue if used in the right way.

At Startup Istanbul 2016, Christopher Rogers started his speech by taking a picture of the audience, saying he will be sending the picture to some of his friends in the United States because the quality of the event is amazing, adding that the region needs to see the presence of more venture capitalists because the number of entrepreneurs and the number of innovative ideas is very high.

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