Rico va Laatum
Treasurer
In his role as treasurer, Rico is responsible for the finances and operations of the CDN Alliance. Rico’s work involves activities such as but not limited to: define and execute the financial strategy, finalizing sponsorship agreements, procurement, operational management, overseeing legal affairs, growing the organization and chair community meetings.
1. What is your role at the CDN Alliance?
My official role is Treasurer. In practice that means that I’m responsible for the financial, operational and legal aspects of the organization. Besides that I visit events, chair meetings, organize events and try to keep the other board members in line.
2. What is your motivation to set up an organization like the CDN Alliance?
I’ve been involved in the CDN industry for more than 15 years and have been on both sides of the table as a supplier and buyer/user of CDNs. In those roles I’ve seen a lot of under and over value and estimations, wrong expectations, no cooperation but most of all a lack of knowledge. So for me it’s education in and evangelization of CDNs, connecting the CDN industry and ecosystem to be able to build a stronger cooperating industry for her users.
3. What is your background and experience in the CDN space?
As a technical project/program/operational manager, architect and trainer my experience is quite broad. I have a background in IT, networking, broadcast and narrowcasting and worked with all kinds of file transport and streaming systems. I have managed projects in the evolving market from analog to digital video and with the internet this widened to the use of the very early CDNs and later the change to adaptive bitrate, multi device and cloud environments. During my career I have worked for and with suppliers, system integrators and users of CDN systems and services as a project/program manager, consultant, trainer, architect and educator.
4. What is the most beautiful highlight you reached with the CDN Alliance?
Every new step and milestone we make and reach is a highlight on its own. But the most beautiful until now are the CDN Alliance Connect events we organized at IBC 2022 and 2023. That vibe really pushes us forward and gives us confidence we are on the right track and we want to organize this more to support the CDN industry and everybody involved in that.
5. How do you envision the future of the CDN Alliance?
The CDN Alliance will grow to a self-sustainable organization driven by its members and supported by an internationally enthusiastic group of (permanent) employed people. The alliance will play a major role in supporting the collaboration in the CDN industry and Ecosystem and in facilitating and supporting education for the industry, users and individuals involved in CDNs. It will help to face and debate (inter)national political and other industry challenges. Eventually as one of the ‘parents’ of this ‘child’ I would like to step back and enjoy seeing it grow and evolve, write a book and tell my grandkids great stories about how it all started.
6. How do you spend your spare time?
If I have any, as my day to day job and the CDN Alliance basically take most hours, I love to cook, expand my cookbook collection, travel (particularly Scandinavia), play tabletop/card/video games, spend time with family and friends and watch movies and series with my wife and kids.