29 June 2012

First Solar appoints chief operating officer

First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA, which makes thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules based on cadmium telluride (CdTe), has appointed Georges Antoun chief operating officer. Antoun will initially have responsibility for manufacturing, R&D, quality and product management.

Reporting to Antoun will be Tymen DeJong, senior vice president of Global Operations; Raffi Garabedian, chief technology officer; and Tom Kuster, vice President of Product Management and Customer Support.

"Georges brings a depth of operational leadership experience that will help First Solar execute its strategy," said Jim Hughes, First Solar CEO.

Most recently Antoun was a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, a private equity and venture firm. Prior to joining TCV, he was the head of Product Area IP & Broadband Networks for Ericsson. He joined Ericsson in 2007, when Ericsson acquired Redback Networks, where he was senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations. After the acquisition, Antoun was promoted to CEO of Redback. Prior to Redback, he spent five years at Cisco Systems, where he was vice president of Worldwide Systems Engineering and Field Marketing, vice president of Worldwide Optical Operations, and vice president of Carrier Sales.

Antoun earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a master's degree in information systems engineering from NYU-Poly.

Tags: First Solar Thin-film photovoltaic CdTe

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