3 December 2002 -- At the Lightspeed Europe conference in London, Scottish integrated III-V optoelectronic component supplier Essient Photonics announced that it has appointed Ken Jones, former vice president and general manager of semiconductor supplier Vitesse's Advanced Transmission Division, as president, chief executive officer and member of the board of directors.
At September's National Fiber Optic Engineering Conference (NFOEC 2002) in Dallas, Essient announced its first product, the indium phosphide-based EA-MDA-10G (Electro Absorption Modulator-Detector with Integrated Amplification at 10Gbit/s).
Essient's technology is based on eight years of research at the nearby University of Glasgow. Early stage commercialisation support was obtained from Scottish Enterprise. Essient recently closed first round funding of US$7m, led by Pond Venture Partners.
At Vitesse, Jones was responsible for marketing, design, and product release of network core and metro physical layer devices. Within the last year his teams released three distinct families of high-performance products. He also staffed and directed the design, marketing, and sales for a successful internally funded start-up using proprietary III-V technology.
Jones has also developed strategic customer relationships with major OEMs, subassembly module suppliers, and contract manufacturers. Through these relationships, he has negotiated co-development agreements with tier-one companies in the US, Japan and Europe.
Jones also worked as director of marketing & sales for MicroModule Systems, where he managed accounts from the initial design win through product qualification and repeat business. Reporting to the CEO, he was responsible for more than 90% of a total USD50m 1998 revenue. Previously, he tackled a variety of business responsibilities as a senior design engineer, North American applications engineering manager, and marketing manager for LTX Corp.
* At Lightspeed Europe, chief technology officer Dr Simon Hicks is presenting "Unlocking Transponder Value using Ultra-Low Power Integrated Optoelectronics & Electronics" as part of the "Tomorrow's Technology Hot Startups" Track on Wednesday, 4 December, 10:15-11:30am.