10 September 2018

POET appoints senior VP of strategic marketing & product management

© Semiconductor Today Magazine / Juno PublishiPicture: Disco’s DAL7440 KABRA laser saw.

POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Canada and San Jose, CA, USA — a designer and manufacturer of optoelectronic devices, including light sources, passive waveguides and photonic integrated circuits (PIC) for the sensing and datacom markets — has appointed Rich Zoccolillo as senior VP of strategic marketing & product management.

“Rich brings a vast network of executive, technical and operational relationships to POET that he’s developed over a 30-plus year career in the photonics industry [including senior management roles at Infinera, Opnext and Lucent Technology’s optical networking business], dating back to Bell Labs in the late 1980s,” comments CEO Dr Suresh Venkatesan. “Rich will be a tremendous asset to the company’s marketing and growth initiatives by leveraging POET’s highly differentiated Optical Interposer Platform across expanded opportunities in both the datacom and telecom markets,” he believes.

Zoccolillo will report to Venkatesan, with responsibilities including strategic marketing to customers, management of product sales activities as well as driving a growing pipeline of new business opportunities and prospective partnership engagements.

“I am excited to join POET during this period of dynamic growth in the photonics industry, which is largely being driven by demand from cloud data centers and next-generation 5G communications,” says Zoccolillo. “By leveraging its disruptive technology platform for the integration of electronics and optics, POET is redefining the fundamental economics of high-performance optical communications. This has the potential to represent a significant value proposition to both strategic partners and leading suppliers seeking differentiation,” he comments. “I look forward to leading the company’s marketing efforts to identify and capitalize on these transformational opportunities.”

Zoccolillo most recently served as the VP of systems manufacturing at Infinera, responsible for overseeing both internal and contract manufacturing. Previously, he held multiple roles at Opnext (acquired by Oclaro), including president of the Pluggables business unit and general manager of Optical Subsystems. Prior to Opnext, Zoccolillo held a number of management positions during his almost 16-year tenure at Lucent Technologies, AT&T Bell Laboratories. These included general manager of the Lucent Metro WDM business, director of product management for both Lucent’s SONET systems and SDH systems, and a roles in Lucent's consumer product organization. Previously, he served in various roles in planning and product development at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Zoccolillo served on the advisory council for Monmouth University’s School of Science and Technology. He holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Computer Science from Polytechnic University of New York.

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