Thinxtra co-founder Tugberk Bekri returns to IoT firm

IoT specialist Thinxtra has named Tugberk Bekri as technology and operations director to bolster its leadership team.

Bekri, who was one of the company’s original founders, returns after an almost three-year stint away at Optus.

As technology and operations director, Bekri will lead Thinxtra’s operations, services, presales, solution delivery and customer support teams.

He is also tasked with helping the 0G network expansion as part of his role.

Bekri was part of the Thinxtra founding team as a director from 2015 to August 2020, leading a team of engineers that designed the company’s backhaul network, network management system (NMS) and Network Operations Center (NOC), among others.

While at Thinxtra, he also joined the company’s vendor partner Sigfox from 2019 to 2020 as its client solutions and success leader for its EMEA region.

He later worked at Optus as a senior technical specialist, managing and supporting the telco’s IoT solution offerings, and later became a solution architect in 2022.

Prior to co-founding Thinxtra, Bekri also worked at NetComm Wireless from 2015 to 2016 and Optus from 2012 to 2014. He also worked at Alcatel-Lucent Turkey, Turk Telecom, Sisecam and Dogus University prior to moving to Australia.

Bekri's appointment comes after Thinxtra announced that it had raised $5 million ahead of going public, in June this year.

Thinxtra co-founder Loïc Barancourt left the company in July last year, moving to IoT service provider Unabiz, taking on the position of chief commercial officer.