About Us

Takahiro Sumimoto was appointed CEO of Pacific Crossing in January 2011. He also serves as Head of Submarine Cable & Carrier Relations at NTT Ltd. since July 2019.  Sumimoto was formerly a VP of NTT America, Inc. and also serves on the Board of Directors of Pacific Crossing.  He previously served as Director of Global Business at NTT Corporation focusing on global telecommunications service planning for enterprises and Tier 1 IP Transit services sales.  He held senior positions at NTT where he was in charge of Global Business Strategic Planning.  He also started NTT Global Telecommunications Services in France while he was with NTT Europe Ltd.  He holds a B.A. degree in Human Geography from the University of Tokyo and an MBA from HEC in France.

Ichiro Kato was appointed Chief Technology Officer of Pacific Crossing in July 2019. He has more than 20 years of experience in the subsea cable industry. He joined NTT in 1996. He has been responsible for the operation and maintenance, design and installation and procurement of its international cables. He started his subsea cable career with China-US,  where he was in charge of Operation and Maintenance of subsea cable systems. The systems he has been involved with include; China-US, Japan-US, APCN2, ASE, APG, and Jupiter. He holds a master’s degree in physics from Keio University in Japan.

Jeff Hunt was appointed Vice President of Operations for Pacific Crossing in May 2011. Mr. Hunt has more than 30 years experience in the Electronics, Computer and Telecommunications industry, spanning many different technologies including Automated Test and Manufacturing, Microwave Transmission, Terrestrial DWDM Fiber Optics and Submarine Cable Systems. He has served in several key positions since joining the PC1 project team in January of 2001 including General Manager of Cable Station Operations, Technical Support Engineering Liaison and Director of Provisioning Services. Mr. Hunt also served in key roles previously while at IXC/Broadwing communications including the implementation of new fiber optic network equipment and infrastructure builds and project management of critical system restoration projects.

Paul Fernes was appointed Senior Vice President of Pacific Crossing in May 2007. Fernes has more than 20 years of experience in technology, as well as extensive leadership experience in the North American telecommunications market. He served in key roles at Level 3 Communications Inc. in the New Ventures group as well as Sales and Marketing within the Government, Asian business and Content business units. Fernes has held leadership positions with some of Silicon Valley’s leading companies such as Sun Microsystems and Cypress Semiconductors. Fernes started his career at Alcatel-India as an engineer working on the first digital telephone exchange. He holds a Master of Computer Engineering degree from LC Smith College of Engineering from Syracuse University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management from North Western University.

Masaki Sakamoto was appointed Senior Vice President of Pacific Crossing in July 2019. Sakamoto has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunication industry. He joined NTT in 1993 performing various telecom services for enterprise customers until 1997 when Sakamoto started his global business career at NTT  International Transmission Maintenance Center (ITMC). In 2011, he was put in charge of the submarine cable business for the Carrier Relations team in the Global Business Department. He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Yokohama National University in Japan.