Speaker Biographies

Pavel Gussev is the CEO of the KazNIC Organisation, operator of Kazakhstan’s .KZ and .ҚАЗ domain name registries, a role he has held since September 1999. A systems engineer by training from the Moscow Aviation Institute, he previously served as CEO of RelcomSL IXP (1992–1999).

Paulius Vaina is currently a part of the „Connectivity for Central Asian“ project team, where he coordinates activities related to ICT policy and regulatory framework for Central Asian countries. His professional career is linked with the public sector institutions in Lithuania and the European Union. From 2002, Paulius was an employee of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (Lithuania), working with ICT policy files, including the Law on Electronic Communications and the Broadband strategy. In 2009, Paulius was serving as Attaché for Telecommunications and Post. During his term in Brussels, he was dealing with digital policy drafting and implementation, including electronic communications and roaming. In 2012, Paulius joined the Communications Regulatory Authority, the telecom regulator of Lithuania. Paulius has experience in working with international organisations like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER), the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), the RIPE NCC and others.

Dmitry Vetlugin is Director, Market Access and Sales for the Central Asia region at Eutelsat-OneWeb (pre-merger OneWeb), where he has been working since 2019.

Prior to joining OneWeb, Dmitry Vetlugin worked at VEON Group, where he was involved in legal and regulatory affairs in the positions of Chief Regulatory Officer for CIS countries and Legal Director of VEON's subsidiary in the Kyrgyz Republic.

For more than 5 years, Dmitry Vetlugin held the position of a member of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Dmitry was also a member of the Board of Directors of a backbone operator in the Kyrgyz Republic, where he was responsible for strategic management of the company's projects and development of relations with international operators.

Dmitry's professional experience in legal support and regulatory matters in the telecommunications industry spans over 20 years.

Dmitry has experience in various regulatory issues in the CIS countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia). Dmitriy takes an active part in the work of the bodies of the Regional Commonwealth of Communications.

Dmitry participated in drafting a number of legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as interstate documents within the CIS on licensing, interaction of telecom operators with law enforcement agencies, and taxation of telecom operators.

Leonid got his Masters Degree in Computer Science at Peter the Great St.-Petersburg Polytechnic University.

In February 1995 joined “Business Petersburg” newspaper (owned by Bonnier Business Press of Sweden) and worked there until June 1998.

In July 1998 became a co-founder of ComNews Group. From that moment and up to now Leonid Konik is acting Editor-in-Chief of all media published by ComNews Group. From March 2015 he became a Group CEO as well.

Leonid Konik is also a Partner with ComNews Research, the research and consulting arm of ComNews group, and a constant moderator of various ICT forums in Russia and abroad, including the events produced by ComNews Conferences.

From November 2007 to May 2011, Leonid Konik acted as Tele2 Russia Advisory Board Member, and from December 2013 up to now, he has been the Transparency Council Member at Rostelecom.

In 2020, Leonid became a co-author of the book “Digital Transformation. Analysis, trends, global experience”.

Bayar Batjargal is an Internet Resource Analyst at APNIC. Before joining in 2022, he spent 17 years with Mobicom, Mongolia’s first mobile operator, working on IP network operations and network planning.

As a founding member of the Mongolia Network Operators Group (MNNOG), he is keenly interested in network measurement, learning from global best practices, and applying them locally. CAPIF offers him a great opportunity to share insights and strengthen regional collaboration.