Ofcom gets new CTO as UK regulator welcomes Amazon Alexa Smart Home exec

Ofcom is to get a new full-time CTO this autumn in Sachin Jogia, who has spent the last nine years at Amazon and is currently GM of the Alexa Smart Home product management and business teams. Jogia will take up the position behind a shiny new desk in October, roughly two years after Mansoor Hanif left the role at the UK comms …

[Mike 137]

<sarc>Excellent choice of regulator lead</sarc>

"...spent the last nine years at Amazon and is currently GM of the Alexa Smart Home product management and business teams"

My eyebrows hit the ceiling on reading this, until I remembered that commerce now drives government and "the consumer" exists merely to be exploited. So it's actually entirely predictable.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: pent the last nine years at Amazon

This can go one of two ways

1) He'll cozy up to Bezos Inc and play hardball with everyone else.

(a case of I didn't get where I am today.... syndrome)

or

2) He'll play hardball with his now ex mates at Bezos Inc just to show that he is independent of any influence.

I hope that it is the latter but the cynic in me says that it will be the former.

Either way, Big Brother Bezos and their pals at Google will continue to dominate our lives. Stop the world, I wanna get off.

[Howard Sway]

This experience – as well as his senior technology roles at AOL and advertising.com

make him sound like one of the last people who should be regulating these industries.

Poachers turned gamekeeper have a nasty habit of turning blind eyes to what their old friends get up to.

[Yet Another Hierachial Anonynmous Coward]

Re: This experience – as well as his senior technology roles at AOL and advertising.com

My thoughts entirely. A regulator needs to be someone who can see both side of the picture and is able to protect the consumer from exploitation when required.

Someone who has spent 9 years putting creepy spy microphones into folks homes and slurping their personal data is not that person.

[Gordon 10]

Hmm.

A long standing career as a product manager seems a slightly odd choice for a CTO but maybe Im expecting too much for the T to stand for Technical.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjogia/

[Tomato Krill]

Re: Hmm.

Well, it doesn’t to be fair it stands for Technology generally…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm.

In this case it might stand for "Takeover", meaning said home spy speakers getting a regulatory boost...