In his new role Heard is responsible for leading the integration of Coriant, the development of new innovative solutions and the overall operation of the company.
The deal was subject to the terms in the definitive unit purchase agreement that was announced back in July. In relation to the purchase, Infinera issued 20,975,384 shares of its common stock and will pay a combined amount of cash consisting of approximately $230 million, of which approximately $154 million was paid upon closing.
“As an accomplished and trusted leader, David is uniquely qualified to drive operational excellence across the organization and accelerate Infinera’s industry leadership as we scale to address the next wave of global spending,” said Tom Fallon, CEO, Infinera. “David’s appointment reinforces our commitment to customers and the unique value they can realize with our broad set of end-to-end packet-optical solutions and world-class service offerings.”
Heard has been with Infinera since June 2017 and was responsible for leading the company’s product and solutions team serving as its senior vice president and general manager. Before that he served in numerous executive leadership roles, transforming companies and positioning them for growth including: Lucent, Santera Systems (Tekelec), Somera (Jabil), Bigband (Arris) and JDSU (Viavi).
In addition, he also serves as the chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The trials achieved new records for trans-Atlantic real-time spectral efficiency, peaking at:
21 bits per second per hertz (b/s/Hz) over 6,644 km, translating to a fibre capacity of 26.2Tbps
46 b/s/Hz over 13,210 km for 18.6Tbps fibre capacity.
