Find out more about the speakers you will hear from at Market Focus this year.
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Meet this year's Market Focus speakers
Justin Abbott
Justin Abbott is a Senior Director of Product Line Management at Coherent, where he is responsible for strategy and roadmap development for the company’s forward-looking optical interconnect portfolio, including co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optics (NPO). He brings more than 20 years of telecommunications industry experience spanning analog IC design, high-speed optical transceivers, and product line management. At Coherent, Justin initially led the PLM team responsible for high-speed optical transceivers from 200G through 1.6T. He now leads a team focused on next-generation solutions, including CPO technologies aimed at addressing the power, density, and scalability challenges associated with AI and cloud data center networks.
Andy Bechtolsheim
Andreas "Andy" Bechtolsheim is Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Arista Networks. He is responsible for advanced AI, silicon and optics initiatives. Previously Andy was a Co-Founder and Chief System Architect at Sun Microsystems, responsible for next generation server, storage, and network architectures. He has been a founding member of the Open Compute Project (OCP) Board of Directors since 2011.
Matthew Burns
Matthew Burns develops go-to-market strategies for Samtec’s Silicon-to-Silicon solutions. Over the course of 25+ years, he has been a leader in design, applications engineering, industry standards, technical sales and marketing in the telecommunications, medical and electronic components industries. He currently serves as Secretary at PICMG. Mr. Burns holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.
Pan Cao
Dr. Pan Cao received his Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and has nearly 20 years of extensive experience in optoelectronic R&D. As a Technical Expert and Technical Leader within Huawei's Optoelectronic Department, he currently heads an innovation team dedicated to advancing next-generation optical technologies for high-density AI interconnects. Extending from optoelectronic chips and advanced packaging to module architectures, his work spans the industry’s generational shifts: including lane speeds from 100G/lane to future 400G/lane, form-factor transitions from traditional pluggables to NPO/CPO solutions, and module bandwidth scaling from 800G up to future 3.2T/6.4T+. Dr. Cao has delivered about 10 oral presentations at international conferences, authored 30+ papers in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings, and held over 20 active patents.
Frank Chang
Frank Chang is Senior Director of Product Line Management at Ciena, responsible for the company’s Interconnects portfolio, including WaveLogic coherent products and intra-data-center co-packaged optics. With more than 20 years of experience leading strategic portfolio development for premier networking companies and guiding product lifecycles through multiple generations of optical innovation, Frank has gained a front-row perspective on the evolution of networking technologies. Today, he leverages this expertise to anticipate AI opticalization and help define next-generation optical portfolios that enable connectivity for scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across AI applications. When not charting product roadmaps, Frank can often be found on park trails running, cycling, or cross-country skiing.
Frank Chang
Frank Chang is an expert in photonic IC technologies, optics transceivers, and optical networking. He is currently corporate CTO of Source Photonics. Previously he served as a senior principal engineer and director for optics interconnect within the CTO Optics Office at Inphi Corporation for over 5.5 years after 12 years of service at Vitesse Semiconductors. In addition, he also held various project and management positions with Cisco/Pirelli, and JDS Uniphase, working on the design, development, and commercialization of fiber optics components. Frank recently published the industry first DCI book entitled “Datacenter Connectivity Technologies: Principles and Practice” in 2018. He is a frequent conference speaker, co-authored 100+ regular journal and conference papers/book chapters, and has served in ECOC and OFC technical committees for several years in a row. Frank was the president and now among the board and advisors at Photonic Society of Chinese-Americans (PSC) as well as IPEC. He is the Industry Forum & Exhibition (IF&E) Chair for Globecom 2015 in San Diego, Globecom 2019 in Hawaii and ICC 2024 in Denver with IEEE Communication Society. Frank obtained his Ph.D degree in Optoelectronics from the Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal, Canada for his research thesis on ultrafast optical generation of 1550nm tunable solid-state lasers. Besides Frank is IEEE and Optica/OSA Fellow.
Hacene Chaouch
Hacene Chaouch is a Distinguished Engineer at Nexthop AI, focused on next-generation optical solutions for AI networks. His work explores the best technology options to balance power efficiency, cost efficiency, and reliability for scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across architectures. Most recently, he served as a Distinguished Engineer at Arista Networks, where he worked on next-generation optical connectivity. He holds a Ph.D. in Optics from the University of Arizona.
Ilse de Graaf
Ilse de Graaf is Talent Acquisition Lead at SMART Photonics, where she builds the teams behind next-generation photonic chip innovation. With a background in scaling talent for high-growth tech environments, she brings a practical, no-nonsense perspective on hiring in one of Europe’s most competitive deep tech sectors. Ilse is known for challenging traditional hiring mindsets and making talent strategy effective.
Carl Delaney
Carl Delaney is Head of Products at euNetworks, a European bandwidth infrastructure provider focused on data centre and cloud connectivity. He leads product strategy and development across the company’s high-performance fibre, wavelength and Ethernet portfolio, spanning both metro and long-haul networks.
Julie Eng
Dr. Julie Sheridan Eng is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Coherent. Prior to becoming CTO, Dr. Eng served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Optoelectronic Devices and Modules Business Unit. Before Coherent, Dr. Eng held various senior management positions at Finisar Corporation, including Executive Vice President and General Manager of 3D Sensing, and Executive Vice President of Datacom Engineering. Over the 15 years she managed datacom transceiver engineering, her teams production-released hundreds of fiber optic transceiver products and achieved numerous industry firsts. Dr. Eng began her career at AT&T Bell Laboratories/Lucent/Agere. She is a Fellow of Optica and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Eng holds a B.A. degree summa cum laude in Physics from Bryn Mawr College and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering with honors from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Shawn Esser
Shawn is the Director of Product Management at Coherent Corporation for coherent optical components and transceiver modules. He has worked in the fiber optics communications industry for 38 years. For the last 15 years, Shawn has been employed at Coherent, formerly Finisar and II-VI, outside of Philadelphia, PA. Previously, he worked at Motorola Broadband segment focused on RF optical systems for MSO access networks, and before that, Lucent Technologies on optoelectronic components and subsystems.
Mark Filer
Mark works at Oracle as architect and area tech lead in optics and photonic interconnect for AI and public cloud systems. Immediately prior, Mark was at a stealth startup where he served as area tech lead in photonic architectures for GW-scale AI systems, focusing on driving innovations and ecosystems to support power-/cost-optimized and operationally resilient AI networks. He has spent much of his career at hyperscalers (Google, Microsoft and AWS) where he worked across diverse areas of optical networking including DC-fabric and AI backend systems, metro/DCI, long-haul and subsea. Mark has consistently participated in industry standard and consortia organizations to specify and deliver open platforms (such as 400ZR), and he had the honor of serving on the OIF Board of Directors as Vice President. He has served on OFC technical committees, Optica Executive Forum committee, and as a reviewer for IEEE and Optica journal publications. Mark has authored several publications and patents in the areas of photonic integration, cloud-scale network architectures, open line systems, long-haul transmission, and DWDM system impairments. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA.
Benoit Fleury
Benoit Fleury is Commercial Director for Photonics Connectivity Solutions (PCS) at Corning Optical Communications. Prior to this he led the OEM business including the micro-optics product team. Benoit holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, is a Senior IEEE member, and serves as an annual judge at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business international MBA case competition. Outside of work, he is an avid sailing and motorcycling enthusiast.
Jeff Hutchins
Jeff Hutchins works in the CTO's Office at RANOVUS focused on next-generation energy efficient optical interconnect solutions utilizing silicon photonics. He is the OIF’s vice chair of the Energy Efficient Interfaces efforts at the OIF as well as a past board member and has led various standards efforts. He previously held a variety of positions at Cisco, CoreOptics, Intel, iolon, HP, and Agilent, and holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from Stanford University.
Andrew Kam
As part of the Photonic Systems Performance team at Ciena, Andrew has been studying and characterizing new and emerging fiber technologies such as, hollow-core fiber and multi-core fiber, for use in fiber optic telecommunication systems. During his 8+ years of experience in the fiber optic telecommunication industry, Andrew’s focus has been in optical link engineering, including contributions to photonic line system design, characterization and model development, ranging from terrestrial data centre interconnect, terrestrial long-haul, and all the way to subsea applications. Andrew received his Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Physics at Carleton University, and Master of Applied Science from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.
Julia Larikova
Julia Larikova is a Vice President of Product Line Management with extensive experience leading product strategy, systems and subsystem development, and automation initiatives in complex technology environments. She has a strong track record of guiding cross-functional teams through the full product lifecycle, from concept and development through commercialization and market delivery. Her expertise includes product lifecycle management, systems integration, and driving operational excellence across engineering, operations, and business teams. She is known for aligning technology innovation with customer and business needs to deliver scalable, high-impact solutions. Julia Larikova holds graduate degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Physics from universities in Russia and the United States, providing a strong multidisciplinary foundation for her work in advanced technology and systems-driven industries. With a leadership style grounded in collaboration and execution, Julia Larikova focuses on building strong teams, advancing technical capabilities, and delivering results in fast-paced, competitive industries.
Massimo Leo
Massimo is Sr. Product Line Management at Jabil, where he covers Photonics product strategy for optical transceivers. Previously he held sales, product marketing, and R&D positions at different companies in the optical networking industry, including Alcatel-Lucent, Xtera, and Marconi.
Youxi Lin
Youxi Lin is the Chief architect of DCN optical interconnect in Datacom Product Line, Huawei. He has more than 10 years of experience in short reach optical interconnect. He contributes to R&D device design, system optimization and next generation technical planning. He currently focuses on the integration of high-density optical interconnects with switch ASICs towards near package optics. He has authored 10+ patents.
Karen Liu
Karen Liu is currently at Nubis Communications, Inc. Previously she was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Lightwave Logic, Inc.and Kaiam Corp. As Principal Analyst at Ovum/Informa/RHK she covered markets as an industry analyst and advised vendors of advanced optical components and a broad range of other emerging technologies. Dr. Liu initially moved from technical R&D to Marketing at Tellabs in order to introduce customers to the then-new approach of DWDM optical networking. She was involved in architecting the first optical networking products and their required components at Tellabs and IBM. She received a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in the field of fiber optics, and a BSE in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University.
Yuyang Liu
Dr. Yuyang Liu is a R&D senior engineer at the China Telecom Research Institute and one of the first recipients of the China Telecom “Excellent Talent Program”. He has received “Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program 2025~2027” by China Institute of Communications (only 10 scholar were selected per year). He has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers and delivered keynote and invited talks in OFC 2026, ECOC 2025, and ACP 2023~2025, etc. His research has earned multiple Best Paper Awards, Best Paper Award in Industry Innovation, and a prestigious Post-Deadline Award at ECOC 2025 Industry Award. He is also server as TPC in ACP 2026 N2 track, chair of optical communication in OGC 2025/2026, committee member of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI) Youth Working Committee. He has led and co-led multiple international standards and white papers in ITU, ETSI, and CCSA. For instance, he is editor of GSTR.ION-aiDC in ITU-T and rapporteur of Ultra-reliable WSON and F5G-A architecture in ETSI. He is leading a National Key R&D project with funding exceeding 22 million RMB, focused on next-generation optical communication systems. He also heads strategic research initiatives supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). His work was recognized in the “Top Ten Industrial Technology Advances of 2024 in China” by CAST.
Mark Lutkowitz
Mark Lutkowitz, Principal and co-founder of fibeReality, LLC, has 40+ years of experience as a consultant, gathering and analyzing worldwide intelligence on optical components and systems, including in datacom, telecommunications, consumer, automobile, and other businesses. With an intense concentration on demand-side, primary research, he is one of the most objective, no-nonsense analysts in the industry. Mark has consulted to some of the largest manufacturers in the world and has authored countless studies. His blog articles have set a new standard for comprehensive and thought-provoking insights in the optics space. Mark is also a frequent speaker and contributor at optics events.
Mingyang Lyu
"Mingyang Lyu is a Senior Principal Analyst at Omdia, specializing in optical components for telecom and datacom markets. He empowers clients with expert insights into silicon photonics, transmission systems, and hyperscaler strategies, enabling them to navigate evolving optical technology roadmaps and complex investment trends. Mingyang brings extensive experience to Omdia, having previously served as optics chief technical specialist at Nokia Shanghai Bell. He also held a role at SiFotonics, where he gained end-to-end expertise in optical modules and developed strong connections within the Chinese supply chain. Mingyang earned his PhD in electrical and electronics engineering from Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. He has presented at key optical industry events, including ECOC, showcasing his deep knowledge and research in optical technologies."
Mingwang Mao
Dr. Mingwang is an Optical Network Architect at Meituan, where he leads the architecture and solution design for optical interconnection products, covering product selection, certification testing, technical pre-research, and roadmap planning. With over 15 years of R&D and technical management experience, he specializes in optical interconnection architectures for AI data centers, with deep expertise in ultra-high-speed optical modules (400G/800G/1.6T), Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), LPO/NPO solutions, and end-to-end link design for large-scale AI infrastructure. His work focuses on bridging the gap between emerging optical technologies and the evolving network demands of AI workloads, driving the adoption of next-generation optical interconnect solutions for hyperscale data centers.
Francois Moore
Francois Moore is an Optical Architect & Advisor Fujitsu Networks Communications, specializing in DWDM Optical Transport. He is a recognized Optical Networking expert and has recently received the title of Global Distinguished Fujitsu Engineer, a designation only awarded to few experts within Fujitsu. Previously, he worked in product planning, product management and marketing within the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE product family. Francois has over 30 years’ experience in various optical transport areas, including ROADM & DWDM, G.709 & OTN, as well as SONET & Ethernet. As a lifelong learner, he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Texas in Dallas in Telecommunications Engineering with a special interest in Open Optical Networking research.
Jianwei Mu
Jianwei Mu leads global R&D and innovation in 1.6T optical transceivers, NPO (Near-Packaged Optics), silicon photonics, and next-generation optical interconnects for AI and cloud infrastructure at LIGENT. As an IEEE Senior Member, he brings deep expertise in high-speed optical architecture, signal integrity, multi-physics co-design, and system-level product engineering. He has authored over 100 journal and conference publications and holds multiple U.S. patents in optical communication technologies. Jianwei Mu focuses on bridging advanced photonics innovation with scalable, manufacturable solutions, enabling higher bandwidth density, improved power efficiency, and robust interconnect performance for AI-scale computing system
Gary Nicholl
Gary is a Distinguished Engineer in Cisco’s Optics and Optical Systems Group, with a focus on optical interconnect technology and strategy. Gary is currently the Physical and Link Layer Working Group – Management Co-Vice Chair in the OIF, responsible for the development of the Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS), which is widely used throughout the industry for next generation pluggable optical modules. Gary also serves as Architecture and Logic Track chair and lead logic editor for the IEEE 802.3dj project (800Gb/s and 1.6 Tb/s Ethernet) and is an IEEE Senior Member. During his more than 40 years in the telecommunications industry, Gary has held a wide range of hardware development and system architecture roles in both optical transmission and data switching products. Gary holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manchester (UK).
Rajan Pai
Rajan has more than 25 years of experience in mixed-signal design development and has served in various leadership roles in applications, marketing, and sales for numerous customer product designs. As Credo’s Vice President of Optical Systems, Rajan is responsible for leading the strategy, development, and productization of Credo’s ZeroFlap optical transceivers, designed to enhance network reliability. Previous to this, Rajan was Vice President of Systems Applications Engineering at Credo. Prior to joining Credo, he led the Storage Business Unit at Marvell delivering storage solutions for hard-disk drive and solid-state drive market. Rajan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from the University of California, Irvine.
Rajiv Pancholy
Rajiv Pancholy is Director of Hyperscale Strategy and Products for Broadcom’s Optical Systems Division, which he joined in 2021. He is currently responsible for the division’s product strategy and placement into all major cloud service providers. From 2014 to 2021, he was part of Broadcom’s Physical Layer Products Division, where he helped create and launch the division’s optical DSP product line, now being deployed at hyperscscale volumes for data center infrastructure. Prior to Broadcom, Rajiv held product marketing and engineering roles at Semtech, Sierra Monolithics, Mindspeed, and Sun Microsystems. He holds an Executive MBA and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara. When not traveling, Rajiv can often be found at first light surfing his local break in San Clemente, California.
Loukas Paraschis
Loukas has 26+ years’ experience in business development, sales, product management and technology leadership, for public companies and early-stage start-ups, with focus on data center and transport network infrastructure, and the management of global teams in system engineering, R&D, product, and business development. Since 2025, he has been the vice president for business development at Lumentum focusing on the new photonics ecosystem for AI system interconnects.
Nikita Parikh
Nikita Parikh is a Global Strategic Sourcing Lead at Google, where she develops and executes comprehensive global strategies for network infrastructure. With over a decade of experience across Meta and Google, Nikita specializes in de-risking complex supply chains and aligning multi-year technology roadmaps with resilient sourcing plans. Her expertise lies in leading high-stakes negotiations, driving Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) modeling for next-generation network structures, and fostering supplier innovation in the optical transport space. Nikita holds an MBA in Supply Chain Management from Rutgers Business School and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. By bridging the gap between technical infrastructure requirements and commercial scalability, she ensures the global network footprints she manages remain both cutting-edge and cost-effective.
Sanjai Parthasarathi
Sanjai is the Chief Marketing Officer of Coherent Corp. He joined Coherent in 2003 and has held various progressive senior leadership roles in R&D, product management, business operations, strategy and marketing. He was appointed the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer in 2019. Sanjai played a pivotal role in the charting the strategy and driving the execution of the company’s transformation into an industry leading photonics powerhouse. Over his 35+ year career he has broad technology industry experience across many markets, including datacenter, telecom, industrial, instrumentation, automotive and consumer. Prior to Coherent, Sanjai held senior business and technical leadership positions in Oplink Communications, TeraStor, Western Digital, and Concurrent Technologies Corporation. Sanjai has a B.Tech from IIT-Madras, M.S. from University of Virginia and Ph.D. from Penn State and has completed executive education at Stanford University.
Giuseppe Rizzelli
Giuseppe Rizzelli has been a Network Engineering Manager at Meta for over ten years. His team drives the global long-range backbone capacity planning and design, leading a cross-functional group of IP, Optical, and Physical Infrastructure engineers. Previously at Meta, he managed the engineering team responsible for DC networks operations, and prior to that, he led the network engineering team that designed and operated the backbone and metro networks in EMEA and APAC. He holds a PhD in optical networking from Politecnico di Milano and has co-authored 18 publications in peer-reviewed journals and at international conferences.
Andrew Schmitt
As the founder and directing analyst at Cignal AI, Andrew Schmitt draws upon more than two decades of comprehensive experience in the optical network industry, first as a talented engineer and manager in the field and then as an industry analyst. He uses this first-hand knowledge to bring a unique perspective to market research. At Cignal AI, Andrew directs all research activity on the networking market’s entire supply chain – from carriers and equipment manufacturers to chips and components. He is quoted and consulted by industry publications such as Lightwave and Lightreading and participates in the OFC planning committee. He is invited to speak annually at events such as OFC, ECOC, FOE, and IIR conferences as well as private events. He is also a consultant to startups, carriers, vendors, and the investment community, where he provides insight on developing business opportunities and market strategy. Prior to Cignal AI, Andrew was business unit director for Vitesse Semiconductor and was a principal analyst at Infonetics Research and then IHS/Markit. He holds multiple engineering patents and received his BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Andrew resides with his family in the New England area.
Xu Sun
PhD from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, CTO of Crealights Technology Co., Ltd. He has long been engaged in R&D and industrialization of silicon photonics products. His research focuses on silicon photonic device design and fabrication, advanced SiPh packaging & testing, opto-electrical co-design, and next-generation Silicon Photonics interconnect technologies.
Craig Thompson
Craig Thompson is the Vice President of Interconnect Products in the Networking Group at Nvidia, where he leads optical interconnect and photonics strategies supporting NVIDIA's AI factory solutions. He has over 25 years of experience in optical communications and is based at NVIDIA HQ in Santa Clara, California.
Nathan Tracy
Nathan Tracy currently serves OIF as president and during the past fifteen years he has also served OIF as vice president of marketing, co-chair of market awareness and education committee (MA&E), technical committee chair, and technical committee vice chair. As a senior principal engineer on the system architecture team for the Digital Data Networks business unit at TE Connectivity (TE), Nathan is responsible for driving standards activities and working with key customers to enable new system architectures. Nathan has more than 30 years of experience in technology development, marketing and business development for TE in areas including RF/microwave, and high-speed signaling technology for the networking, telecom, wireless, automotive and defense markets. Nathan is also an active member of other industry standards and associations. Currently he is a regular attendee and contributor to IEEE 802.3, and Ethernet Alliance. Additionally, he is active in a number of industry MSAs and forums where he has held leadership roles. Nathan earned his Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering Technology degree from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
Stefan Voll
Stefan develops Adtran’s packet optical business, shaping open transport solutions and strategic partnerships. With over 25 years in the optical networking industry, he has held leadership roles at Infinera, Coriant, and Nokia Siemens Networks. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Würzburg and a Master of Arts from SUNY Stony Brook
Jan Vydra
Dr. Jan Vydra is Executive Vice President of Fiber Optics at Heraeus Covantics, where he leads the company’s global fiber optics business and the development of next-generation optical communication technologies. With more than two decades of experience spanning materials science, telecommunications, and advanced manufacturing, he has played a key role in advancing innovations in optical fiber, specialty glass, and its scaled manufacturing. Dr. Vydra is particularly focused on enabling the future of AI, cloud computing, and data communications through breakthrough fiber technologies and strategic industry partnerships. He combines deep technical expertise with international business leadership to drive innovation from research through large-scale industrial deployment.
Jessica Wang
Jessica Wang（Wang Xiangfei）is R&D Director, transport engineering and technology of Coherent. Prior to transitioning into the transport sector, she spent over six years developing high-speed datacom transceivers. She led the transformation of traditionally complex, custom-designed transport modules and subsystems into compact, pluggable, and lightweight solutions, with a particular focus on miniaturized embedded EDFAs. Her work is dedicated to enabling high-density Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and satellite communication ground stations through simplified yet high-performance architectures that address diverse customer requirements. Notably, she led the integration of conventional transport functions—including EDFAs, OTDR, and Optical Protection Switches (OPS)—into a QSFP form factor. She also developed a standalone chassis platform that enables these pluggable modules to operate seamlessly either as plug-and-play solutions within routers and switches or as independent standalone systems. Jessica Wang holds a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Nanjing Tech University and an M.S. degree in Electronic and Communication Engineering from Tianjin University.
Richard Ward
Richard has 35 years of design, management, and executive experience to VP/GM and Chief Technologist levels, in high-speed electronics and electro-optics in companies including Plessey Research (UK), Phoenix VLSI, Texas Instruments, Inphi, Intel, and Astera Labs. He holds multiple patents on SerDes circuits and technology and was the Editor for the OIF High Bandwidth Coherent Driver Modulator and the 3.2T Co-Packaged Optics Module Implementation Agreements. Richard currently holds Technical Advisor/Consultant roles at 3M and Xscape Photonics, and is the Co-Chair for the Expanded Beam Optics (EBO) MSA.
Zhao Wenyu
Dr. Zhao Wenyu obtained his Ph.D. in Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2002, and currently serves as Deputy Director of Institute of Technology and Standards Research at CAICT, while concurrently holding positions including Vice Chair of WG2 in ST7 at CCSA, Chair of the Private Line Working Group at the NGOF, and Vice Chair of IPEC. His primary work focuses on technology and industry research, standards development, as well as evaluation and verification in the fields of ultra-high-speed transmission, mobile bearer networks, optical modules, and quantum information.
Josh Wilken
Josh Wilken is Division Vice President, Lens Connectivity Program at Corning, where he leads strategy, commercialization, and execution of lens-based connectivity and scale-up architectures for next-generation AI data center deployments. Josh joined Corning in 1996 as a Development Engineer and has held leadership roles across product line management, marketing, and strategic development. He most recently served as Division Vice President, PLM, Data Centers. Over his career, he has led major fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) initiatives, including network architecture, product platforms, and large-scale deployment strategies supporting global broadband expansion.
Scott Wilkinson
Scott Wilkinson has worked in the communications industry for over 30 years. As Lead Analyst for Optical Components at Cignal AI, he conducts quantitative and qualitative research on the optical components market both inside and outside the datacenter. Prior to Cignal AI, Dr. Wilkinson held senior positions in product management, technical marketing, and systems engineering for a wide variety of established and startup companies. Wilkinson has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is the author of the book “Telecommedy”.
Tom Williams
Tom Williams is Vice President of Marketing at Acacia. Prior to Acacia, Tom spent 14 years at Optium and Finisar Corporations, where he held various management roles, including Director of Product Line Management for high speed (>100G) transmission products. Tom has also held positions at Lucent Technologies and Northrop Grumman Corporation. He has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Widener University.
Helen Xenos
Helen Xenos is Senior Director of Portfolio Marketing at Ciena, where she leads strategic marketing for the company’s optical networking and interconnect portfolios. She is responsible for shaping portfolio positioning, driving market strategy, and connecting complex network technologies into business value for network operators, cloud providers, and enterprise customers navigating the next era of AI-driven infrastructure transformation. With more than 30 years in the telecommunications industry, Helen has held roles spanning portfolio marketing, product management, systems engineering, customer program management, and manufacturing engineering. Her cross-functional background gives her a unique perspective on how technology innovation, operational realities, and market dynamics intersect to shape the future of networking. Helen joined Ciena following the Nortel Networks Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) acquisition.
Yu Xu
Yu Xu is a Senior Industry Development Expert at Huawei, where she leads the standard strategy in the field of opto-electornics, especially for AI short reach optical interconnet solutions. She works in IEEE 802.3, OIF standard organization. She also is one of the co-founders of IPEC and now works as BoD member, tasks with advancing organizational growth and collaborating on the formulation of technical standards. She graduated from Demark Technical University with a Master of Science degree
Li Xu
Li Xu is a Senior Standard Development Expert at Huawei, where she plays a pivotal role in advancing global standards across prominent organizations, including OIF, IEEE 802.3, ITU-T, IPEC, and ODCC. She is the initiator of the 7.2T NPO project at IPEC and the 448G project at ODCC. Additionally, she has served as the Editor for OIF FlexE 3.0. Li has profound insights into global technology trends and application requirements. Li holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from Peking University.
Rang-Chen (Ryan) Yu
Dr. Rang-Chen Yu is currently Vice President of Marketing for Terahop, also Co-Chair of XPO MSA and Open CPX MSA. Prior to TeraHop, he was Sr. VP for SiFotonics, an industry pioneer in development and commercialization of silicon photonics. He served as Vice President and General Manager for Oplink Communications (acquired by Molex), Global VP of product Development for Source Photonics, Sr. Director of System Engineering for Agility Communications. Dr. Yu earned his Ph D. in Solid State Physics at U. Penn, and B. S. in Physics at Peking University.