Erik Pennings

Erik Pennings started his career in R&D working at Bellcore (now Telcordia) and at Royal Philips Electronics where he pioneered several optoelectronic components and during which time he published around 70 papers.

In 1995, he moved to sales and marketing at Philips Optoelectronics, where he was responsible for the business development for WDM lasers, tunable lasers, and high-speed EML's. Partly as a result of the growth that was achieved, Philips sold this business unit in 1998 to JDSU for well over $1 billion. Dr. Pennings continued his career being responsible for sales and marketing at ThreeFive Photonics, which grew through a number of mergers into ASIP, then into Apogee Photonics, and finally into CyOptics. During this time, he grew revenues by 50% or more each quarter.In 2007, Dr. Pennings joined Eudyna Devices Inc, where he was responsible for marketing in the US.

In 2009, Dr. Pennings started his own consulting company (www.7pennies.com) specializing in sales, marketing, and business development. He is working with high-tech startups as well as large corporations in order to grow their business and/or by providing targeted advice.

Dr. Pennings has a M.S. in Physics (cum laude) from Groningen University, a Ph.D. (distinction) from Delft University of Technology, and an executive MBA from the Simon Business School in Rochester.