About

Meir Lehrer Ltd is a private telecommunications and broadcast television consulting company started in 2009 which is owned and operated by Meir Lehrer. Meir’s experience ranges from software development, partnership/alliances management, business development and sales. His experience in the industry includes the following positions:

ETI Software Solutions (Atlanta, GA), Vice President, Corporate Development & International Sales, Oct 2009 – Nov 2012

ETI is one of the premier OSS/BSS (Provisioning/Mediation) products and services companies in the world, with nearly 100 operators using their Triad product line. Meir was responsible for all U.S. Cable Sales, as well as all International Sales. He landed ETI’s first U.S. cable sale and their first international sale. He defined sales strategy for growth of the company outside of previous main focus on Tier 3 telephony operators, and developed a strategy for distributors and resellers of ETI’s Triad product line and services in international markets. Meir specialized in IPTV and Cable customers (working with Microsoft Mediaroom, Minerva, Ericsson, and other IPTV middleware vendors), as well as a host of FTTH/GPON customers (working with Alcatel-Lucent, Allied Telesis, Adtran, Calix, Huawei, Zhone and other GPON providers). During his tenure at ETI, Meir worked closely with U.S. Embassies and Commercial Services organizations across the world to sell through export services facilitators. He was charged with relaying new OSS/BSS requirements and strategic directions to R&D team for targeting new markets. During his time at ETI, Meir regularly traveled around 150 days a year to customers and partners in the U.S., American Samoa, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Portugal, Romania, Belgium, Italy, Israel, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. Meir worked at ETI as a virtual employee (under contract) for 3 years under Meir Lehrer Ltd.

RaySat Broadcasting Corporation (Rehovot, Israel; McLean, VA; Dallas, TX), Vice President, Business Development, Sept 2008 – Oct 2009

RaySat Broadcasting Corporation was a Joint Venture between RaySat Inc. (a manufacturer of mobile DTH satellite equipment) and AT&T. With investments from two other Venture Capital firms, they launched the AT&T CruiseCast service to provide live satellite television to the U.S. automotive market for rear-seat entertainment consoles. Meir was responsible for all vendor partnerships, contract negotiations, product management with vendor supply chains, and relationship management. Meir was also charged with overall authority and management over next generation CPE (STB) product design, marketing requirements, vendor RFPs and contract negotiations. A key portion of his time was dedicated with expansion of the AT&T CruiseCast service to additional vertical markets in the U.S. Meir worked with content providers (including ESPN, Discovery, HBO, Fox and others) for licensing content to the AT&T CruiseCast platform. Additionally, he was responsible for “Round C” fund-raising with strategic investors (technology companies), venture capital firms and private equity groups.

NDS Ltd (Jerusalem, Israel & Costa Mesa, CA), March 1996 – September 2008

NDS, for many years part of News Corporation, and now wholly owned by Cisco, is the premier Conditional Access and Set-top Box Middleware (and iTV application) company in the world. Their customers include such well known service providers as: DIRECTV (USA), DIRECTV Latin America, Cablevision (USA), Cox (USA), BSkyB (UK), Sky Italia (Italy), Foxtel (Australia) and many more. Meir’s tenure within NDS spanned nearly 13 years in an evolving variety of roles.

Vice President, U.S. Technical Sales & Partnership Program

Meir was responsible for all Commercial and Technical Sales activities to Cable, IPTV and Mobile TV accounts in the North American market. Meir was head of sales and account manager for most of NDS’ large U.S. accounts. He frequently traveled (up to 160 days per year) as a normal part of ongoing duties from 1999. During his time as a Vice President for NDS, Meir also represented NDS in senior forums and in advisory capacities for the company, including advising for DIRECTV, Comcast, Charter Communications, RCN, SES Americom, BSkyB, and sitting on the News Corporation Vendor Diversity Board. He was a regular panelist at broadcast industry trade shows and provided interviews to industry trade publications on behalf of NDS. Meir also pioneered NDS’ U.S. Cable architecture, as well as their IPTV architecture, together with Product Delivery and R&D Management, and was responsible for NDS’ first full-featured two-way DOCSIS cable system to a U.S. customer, as well as its first full-featured two-way IPTV sale to a U.S. customer (both including NDS middleware, EPG, Conditional Access and iTV applications).

In parallel, Meir recognized a lack of coherent strategy for managing partner relationships, not just for the U.S. market, but on a global scale for NDS. Therefore, with approval from the CEO he founded the “NDS Partners” program to manage all global partner relationships and integrations under one program. NDS Partners ultimately managed product integrations, certifications, licensing and cooperative marketing efforts for approximately 75 technologies partnering with NDS (including STB manufacturers, chipset manufacturers, Billing companies, OSS/BSS companies, Access Network equipment vendors and more). Some of the key partnerships managed by Meir included: Harmonic, Tandberg, Cisco, RGB Networks, Thomson, Pace, Samsung, LGE, Humax, Kaon Media, ADB, Scientific-Atlanta, Intel, Broadcom, ST Micro, Sigma Designs, Qualcomm, Amdocs, Convergys, CSG, and ETI Software Solutions.

DIRECTV R&D Program Manager

Prior to migrating into the Sales, Account Management and Business Development side of NDS’ business, Meir was responsible for all Headend R&D for NDS’ VideoGuard Conditional Access System utilized by DIRECTV in the U.S. market. Meir’s Bachelor of Science degree from Bowling Green State University in Ohio was put to good use, managing a large team of product managers, developers and QC engineers responsible for a real-time system that protected Pay TV content to over 20 million U.S. subscribers. As part of his duties, Meir was involved with cryptography experts in the company to maintain the highest level of Smart Card based security for NDS customers. During his time supervising this group, Meir was also responsible for on-site installations and upgrades at the DIRECTV broadcast uplink facilities in Castle Rock, CO; Los Angeles, CA; Fort Lauderdale, FL (for DIRECTV Latin America). Meir also supervised the Billing System (SCMS) integration for NDS at BSkyB in Livingston, Scotland.

International Customer Experience

Meir’s experience with customers over the whole wolrd has given him invaluable insights into different market needs, competitive challenges and technical differentiators across Service Providers. The table below shows the Service Providers with whom Meir has worked since 1996.

Partner Alliance Experience

Meir’s experience with a wide variety of technology vendors/manufacturers has been extensive. Whether in the role of overseeing product integrations with these vendors, negotiating purchase agreements with them, or managing partner alliance relationships, he has worked with a wider array of vendors than most professionals. The table below shows the technology vendors/manufacturers with whom Meir has worked since 1996.