30 September 2015

Silicon photonics firm Luxtera hires VPs of worldwide sales and finance

Fabless silicon CMOS photonics firm Luxtera of Carlsbad, CA, USA has hired Brad Byk as VP of worldwide sales and Kelly Perez as VP of finance. Luxtera says that it will leverage their experience and knowledge as it accelerates its global commercial expansion.

"Luxtera has transitioned into an extreme growth phase, as we're delivering products to hyper-scale data-center operators and system OEMs that rely upon Luxtera's silicon photonics technology," says president & CEO Greg Young. "We've now built an executive leadership team capable of driving Luxtera to become a multi-billion-dollar company," he reckons. 

Byk comes to Luxtera with over 25 years of experience in industry leading communications semiconductor companies and an impressive track record of scaling sales organizations while creating and executing high growth plans and delivering solid results.

Prior to joining Luxtera, Byk served as senior VP of worldwide sales for Skyworks Solutions Inc, where he led the firm to new markets and significant sales growth ($1.1bn to $2.4bn over four years). Previously, Byk served 13 years at Broadcom, most recently as senior VP of sales for the Americas and Strategic Accounts with responsibility for over $3bn in annual revenue. Prior to this, he held sales and management positions at Advanced Micro Devices, FEI Microwave and TRW. Byk received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Long Beach State University and a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California.

"Luxtera has tremendous potential to be the next large-scale public semiconductor company," believes Byk. "The market opportunity in front of us is unparalleled in my experience."

Perez has over 20 years of experience in semiconductor and biotechnology companies, including expertise in global financial operations and controls, strategic planning and analysis, supply chain finance, IT systems and applications. Perez will oversee Luxtera's global finance function, information technology and human resources.

Perez spent eight years at Sequenom Inc, where she was most recently VP corporate development & administration as well as serving other functions such as VP finance & treasurer. There, she was involved in raising more than $400m in equity, debt and strategic transactions including Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE), accelerated book build offerings, a convertible notes offering, a sale of a business unit, and strategic partnerships. She was also responsible for the financial and strategic planning and analysis, treasury, corporate risk management, human resources and project and portfolio management functions. Perez's background in semiconductors includes 11 years in companies including Nvidia Corp, Applied Micro Circuits Corp, QuickLogic Corp and Altera Corp. In her seven years at Nvidia, she grew the finance organization to support the company as it went from a $300m to a $2bn annual revenue run-rate.

Tags: Luxtera Silicon CMOS Silicon photonics

Visit: www.luxtera.com