Van de Weyer inherits a title that has changed hands twice since Ericsson closed the Vonage deal in July 2022, and this time the appointment carries a growth number attached to his name. Christophe Van de Weyer becomes Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform and CEO of Vonage on August 15, joining Ericsson's Executive Team in the process.

The Résumé Ericsson Wanted All Along

Van de Weyer joined Vonage in 2025 to run its Business Unit API. Börje Ekholm, Ericsson's chief executive, credited him with getting that unit back to growth, then handed him the entire Global Communications Platform business and the CEO title that comes with it. Before Vonage, Van de Weyer ran Telesign globally, held senior posts at Proximus, and spent close to two decades inside Bain & Company's telecom and technology practice.

The turnaround hire already had the job three levels down.

The Job Has Now Changed Hands Three Times

Rory Read ran Vonage through the acquisition close and its first eighteen months inside Ericsson, then stepped down in February 2024 to become an advisor before leaving the company entirely. Niklas Heuveldop, a three-decade Ericsson veteran who had just closed the $14 billion Open RAN deal with AT&T, took the role next. He spent the following year absorbing roughly $4.0 billion in combined writedowns against the business, first $2.9 billion in October 2023, then another $1.1 billion in July 2024. Heuveldop steps down August 15, with Ekholm crediting him for restructuring Vonage and restoring its growth.

Each successor inherited the same job description: prove the deal was worth it.

The Bet Has Narrowed, and the Specialist Fits It

The 2022 pitch for Vonage bundled three product lines under one roof. Unified communications gave Ericsson a UCaaS seat. Contact center software gave it a CCaaS platform. Network APIs gave it a way to sell carrier signals like SIM swap detection and silent authentication straight into enterprise fraud and identity workflows, a pattern already visible in Vonage's carrier-data rollout across Canada and the U.S. this year. Read and Heuveldop each managed all three lines from above, a P&L and a restructuring mandate handed to executives whose careers were built elsewhere in Ericsson. Van de Weyer's own statement named only one of the three: AI, data, and API work as the growth engine going forward.

Concentrating investment behind the line already producing results, instead of spreading it across three lines competing for the same capital, is a bet on focus over breadth. It also puts the business in the hands of the one executive who has run that specific layer and made it grow.

Fewer priorities, done well, beat three done under pressure.