Pacific Telecommunications Council

At ITW in mid-May 2026, BTW interviewed PTC CEO Brian Moon and Board Chair Tony Rossabi about the organisation's next phase. Their remarks frame PTC as more than a January conference in Honolulu: a year-round platform for research, professional development, policy exchange, and community building. The core signal is that talent shortages, AI-driven demand, fibre deployment, undersea cables, and policy engagement are becoming part of the same digital infrastructure agenda.

• Brian Moon (CEO) and Tony Rossabi (newly elected Chairman of the Board of Governors) outline PTC's strategy for development
• PTC is moving beyond a single annual event toward year-round research, professional development, and community building

At the ITW conference in mid-May 2026, BTW correspondent conducted an interview with Brian Moon and Tony Rossabi, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Governors, respectively, of the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC). In this interview, the new leadership said they want to take the organisation to the next level. In practice, it has morphed into something broader in recent iterations, from a yearly gathering to a year-round platform for research, talent development, and community building. As Moon put it:

"Our history was built on connecting islands. Our future is about connecting ideas, industries, and innovators to bridge the next digital divides."

So, let's hear what they have to say about the past, the present, and the future of the PTC under their helm.

Moon: 48 years, one mission, expanding beyond January

People Before Programmes

Rossabi is a few months into his role as Chairman of the Board of Governors. When asked about his priorities, he made it clear from the start that his priority is people—the ones who will actually run this industry.

Rossabi: "We don't have enough people to handle the workload"

It's a concern that rarely makes the headlines at infrastructure conferences. Everyone talks about fibre capacity and data centre build-outs. Nobody talks about who will design, operate, and maintain them in ten years' time. Rossabi doesn't treat the Columbia mini-MBA and the PTC Academy as side projects. They're core to the organisation's future.

Trends, Not Just Numbers

Every year, PTC's programming team has to answer the same question: what will the industry actually care about next January?

Rossabi: "Not just growth in numbers"

At PTC'26, the trends were visible everywhere: AI workloads reshaping data centre demand, fibre becoming critical infrastructure again, undersea cable networks facing geopolitical pressure. But the leadership's real interest isn't in what everyone's buzzing about today. It's in what they'll be talking about in five years.

Rossabi puts it simply: "A challenge is not a problem—it's about how you fix it."

Bringing the Right People Together

Moon's emphasis is on a different kind of infrastructure: the rooms where people meet. In addition to the main annual conference at Honolulu, Hawaii, PTC has extended to other locations around Pacific Rim: PTC Japan is doubling its attendance this year. PTC DC takes place in Washington DC, where the industry meets the people who write the rules.

Moon: "You don't want decisions being made without properly

Still, the January timing is not accidental. PTC Annual Conference in January is the first major industry gathering of the year, when budgets are discussed, partnerships are formed, and the tone for the rest of the year is set.

Neutral Ground in an Increasingly Diverted World

What ties both leaders' visions together is PTC's not-for-profit status. In an industry where a handful of hyperscalers and cloud providers increasingly control the infrastructure everyone else depends on, and in an area where conflicting interests increasingly collide, a neutral convener is a structural necessity.

Moon: "We're a neutral party in all areas"

The industry that PTC was built to serve is changing faster than at any point in its 48-year history. AI is reshaping demand. Geopolitics is rewiring the undersea cables that hold it all together. Moon and Rossabi's answer is straightforward: stay neutral, stay curious, and keep bringing the right people together. It's not a grand plan. But after nearly five decades, it's worked.