Drew Smith is currently the Sector Director of Mobile PC Technology at Intel Capital. He leads Intel's corporate development efforts related to notebook PCs and related mobile platforms. Smith has invested in and supported multiple business units in a variety of industry sectors including communications components and systems, software, and services. In total, during his tenure with Intel he has led investments in over 20 companies. Prior to Intel, Smith was with McKinsey & Company where he focused on corporate, marketing and sales strategy for a range of industrial clients. His experience also includes marketing and sales administration positions with Advanced Micro Devices and NEC. Drew holds an M.B.A., summa cum laude, from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University.  Smith is currently serving as Auxora's chairman of the board.

 

Jean-Louis Malinge is currently CEO of Kotura, Inc. Malinge held numerous executive management positions with Corning, Inc. between 1988 and 2003, notably he held the position of V.P. and General Manager of the Optical Components division. Prior to 1988 Mr. Malinge held various research and management positions related to fiber optic technology at Amphenol and Thompson CSF in France. Malinge's credentials include an Executive M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School in Boston, Massachusetts. He also holds an Equivalent to a Master in Physics from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquees in Rennes, France.

 

William H. Diamond, Jr brings over 20 years of industry experience and executive management to Auxora's board. Diamond is currently the CEO of Xradia, Inc.  Prior to joinging Xradia, he served as president of Neptec.  Prior to joining Neptec, he was President of Technology Growth Partners, an executive management consulting company focused on venture-backed technology start-ups. He was CEO of DenseLight Semiconductors, a Singapore-based optical components company and CEO of WaveSplitter Technologies, a Silicon Valley firm focused on optical waveguides. Diamond was Vice President of Marketing through the IPO of E-Tek Dynamics and spent 6 years with AT&T and Lucent Technogies both in the US and Europe. Diamond holds a BA in Physics from Holy Cross College and an MBA from Georgetown University.

 

Xin Zhang is currently President and CEO of Auxora, Inc. He has more than 20 years of experience in Photonics. Before founding Auxora in early 2000 he was a manager of R&D at Corning OCA overseeing all aspects of R&D activities in DWDM filters and devices. Before joining Corning OCA, Dr. Zhang was involved in establishing a new R&D center for Melles Griot. Between 1991 and 1995, Dr. Zhang was a postdoctoral fellow/research associate at the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. He is the author of 40 technical publications and the holder of 2 U.S. patents. Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Boston College and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Physics from Xiamen University in China. 

 

Nick Economou brings valuable industry insight and experience gained from his more than 20 years of experience. Dr. Economou was formally the CEO of Confluent Photonics (recently acquired by Auxora).  Prior to Confluent Photonics, he was chairman, president and CEO of Micrion Corporation, a leading developer and manufacturer of focused ion beam (FIB) systems, where he led the company through several major events including seeing the company through a turnaround in 1990, IPO and a second round of public financing in 1994. During 1998-1999, he successfully completed merger negotiations with FEI/Philips (FEIC), culminating in the acquisition of Micrion by FEI/Philips in August 1999. He served as the COO of FEI until 2000, when he left to join optical components start-up AXSUN Technologies as COO. Dr. Economou holds a B.A. degree in physics from Dartmouth College, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Harvard University. In addition to serving on the board of directors for Auxora, Dr. Economou also serves as a director on the boards of several other technology companies.

 

Shoa-Kai Liu brings over 25 years of diverse technical and management experience from telecommunication networks and services, data and optical networking, and semiconductors. Liu is currently a senior advisor with Rustic Canyon Ventures, LP.  Most recently, Liu served as the Director of Network Technology Development at MCI, where he and his team evaluated emerging telecommunication technology. After he joined MCI in 1982, he spent 22 years focused on networking technology development and deployment for networks that today provide the backbone of the Internet. Liu is also a proven entrepreneur. From 1998 to 1999, he was the co-founder and VP of Market Development at Avanex, where he helped the company grow into one of the largest optical component suppliers worldwide.

 

Michael Kim is a partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, LP. He was formerly with Accelerator Venture Partners, LLC, a San Francisco-based partnership that invests in early stage technology companies. Kim, an investment banker, was with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's Technology Mergers and Acquisitions Group in Menlo Park. Kim was directly involved with 27 announced transactions worth over $77 billion for such clients as Hewlett-Packard, Ciena, Seagate, Bay Networks, Netscape and Texas Instruments. Prior to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Kim was an associate at The Chase Manhattan Bank in NYC and also worked at IBM. He is an honors graduate of Cornell University, has an MS from the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business