As of October 1, 2009, Douglas L. Gilstrap is Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy at Ericsson.

Gilstrap began his career at the telecommunications and IT industry in 1991, when he joined SITA (Societé Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques), a Paris based data network cooperative serving the airline industry.

He was appointed CFO, then COO to Equant Network Services, a spin-off of SITA which was funded by Morgan Stanley private equity. As member of Equant’s founding management team, he was instrumental in taking the company public and helped turn it into one of the world’s leading data/IP networking companies.

In 2000, Douglas was named CEO of Radianz where he led a team responsible for creating, building, and managing the largest financial extranet, providing a global IP network and hosting to the financial community. The company has been named Best Financial Network by a leading industry magazine for multiple years.

Later Gilstrap was strategic advisor for Cable & Wireless for three years, where he worked on turnaround issues which included UK development and acquisition activities.

Before joining Ericsson he was CFO of APEC (Asia Pacific Exploration Consolidated), dedicated to exploration and development of petroleum resources in Southeast Asia.

He received a BS in accounting from the University of Richmond and an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta and has also attended the select executive program at Insead, France.