Lex Wilkinson and Don Reinhart founded LATRO more than a decade ago when the two came together following successful careers at Verizon Wireless and Tektronix, respectively. Today LATRO is a recognized and trusted brand within the international telecom revenue assurance and fraud management (RAFM) sector. As the company looks to the future, the two partners and sole shareholders have announced that Don will assume CEO responsibilities effective July 1st of this year, while Lex will continue to serve as a strategic advisor for the company as Chairman of the Board.

Lex was an early pioneer in combatting cellular fraud in the early 1990’s co-launching the first Wireless Fraud Task Force (WFTF), organized and funded by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA).  The WFTF primarily focused on prevention of costly handset cloning in the North American markets.  During that period, Lex also performed over 50 Revenue Assurance Assessments around the world for mobile network operators.  He later joined Rural Cellular Company (RCC) as a VP and corporate officer with RAFM and BSS oversight. After Verizon acquired RCC in 2008, Lex became a Director at Verizon with primary responsibility for the company’s integration of international GSM roaming and acquisitions.  He left Verizon in 2010, focused on entrepreneurial business opportunities through the founding of LATRO.

Don started his career at Tektronix in a technical sales role. Over the course of ten years, he built a successful sales track record, having helped open business for Tektronix to integrate its test systems with major RF and Fiber communications infrastructure manufacturers in the Eastern region of the USA. Don completed his Finance MBA and several executive development programs before ultimately deciding to leave for entrepreneurial opportunities in the telecom market with Lex. Don is a graduate of Bucknell University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Master of Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins University. 

“Don and I have been working side-by-side at LATRO since we founded the company together more than a decade ago. When I left Verizon and started LATRO, I knew the international telecom market would experience strong demand for revenue assurance and fraud management functions similar to those my team established through the CTIA and at RCC prior to the acquisition. Don owned that vision and worked hard to build the LATRO brand worldwide. As LATRO’s business is now predominantly with the international RAFM sector, it’s a natural transition for him to take a greater leadership role of the company and our future,” says Lex.

While serving as Vice President and COO/CTO since the company’s inception, Don led LATRO’s strategy to invest and focus development resources on the international RAFM telecom market. Don expanded the global reach of LATRO outside the United States by relocating to Dubai, UAE and establishing affiliate companies in Dubai and Kabul, Afghanistan. Today, LATRO’s international team based in more than ten countries delivers the company’s solutions in more than fifty international markets.    During his tenure as COO/CTO, Don oversaw nearly all of the company’s day to day functions across the international business including finance, sales, marketing, operations and product development. 

“It’s my privilege to serve and lead the highly talented, diverse, and professional team at LATRO. The combined experience of our expert team members across a range of telecom, analytics, and technology domains allows us to deliver innovative solutions to our RAFM customers. We have already started building on our success as we look to the future where we will leverage our proven Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) capability to deliver even more business value to our customers within the communications sector,” comments Don.

LATRO was the first technology company to apply AI/ML processes through signaling analytics in order to proactively detect and stop costly bypass “SIM Box” fraud. The company’s patent-pending approach, called Protocol Signature™, analyzes patterns deep within the signaling control plane of mobile networks to defeat spoofing and other usage pattern manipulations employed by sophisticated SIM Box fraudsters. As a result, mobile operators protect revenues while securing their networks and eliminating poor voice quality.

Since then, LATRO has expanded more broadly into Revenue Assurance (RA) solutions which also help telecom and mobile operators protect their revenues by identifying and stopping leakages in near real-time. LATRO’s RA systems are built on big data architectures required to speedily process today’s massive data streams produced within the operator enterprise.

Under Don’s leadership as CEO, LATRO will continue to focus on the RAFM sector including markets across the Americas, Africa, Middle East, Europe, and Asia while further expanding into other telecom and communications segments where the company’s core analytics competencies can solve business challenges that drive value for its customers and their communities.

The LATRO team looks forward to its future under Don’s leadership as he assumes CEO responsibilities this month!