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primarysourced Photonics sector POET
POET
~6 min read · 1,493 words ·updated 2026-04-29 · confidence 93%

Confidence legend: ✓ verified-primary (20-F Item 6 / press release) · ◐ partial · ⚠ inferred.

This page is the canonical reference for any thesis claim that turns on POET’s executive bench. All bios trace to Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31 (accession 0001493152-26-014253, Item 6 — Directors, Senior Management and Employees) unless explicitly cited otherwise. The directors listed in governance are not duplicated here unless they hold a concurrent management role.

Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Board

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan — Chief Executive Officer (since 2015-06-11), Chairman, and Chair of the Ad Hoc Strategy Committee

  • Tenure: Joined POET in 2015 as CEO and director (~10.5 years as of April 2026); concurrently Chairman of the Board. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Age: 59 (per 20-F Item 6.A table). ✓
  • Prior career: Senior Vice President, Technology Development at GlobalFoundries (2009-onward) — led the development and ramp of the 28nm node and was instrumental in the technology transfer / qualification of 14nm; oversaw qualification and ramp of multiple mainstream value-added technology nodes. Earlier held leadership positions at Freescale Semiconductor (Austin, TX). ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Patents / publications: 25+ US patents, co-author of 50+ technical papers. ✓
  • Education: BTech Electrical Engineering, IIT (Indian Institute of Technology); MS and PhD Electrical Engineering, Purdue University. ✓
  • 2025 compensation (per 20-F summary table): base salary $539,498, equity awards valued at $6,000,000, options awarded 1,107,011 (vesting tranche), $400,000 other compensation; total ~$6.94M. Notably, the Venkatesan options outstanding span vesting expirations 2030–2035, with the 2035 tranche of 1,107,011 options carrying an exercise reference value of $7,007,379.63. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.B
  • Service contract: Employment contract provides for 12-month severance on termination by the Company (other than for cause); unvested options cancel; one year to exercise vested options post-termination. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.C

Chief Financial Officer

Thomas (Tom) R. Mika — Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer (since 2016-11-02)

  • Tenure: ~9.5 years as of April 2026; appointed Officer 2016-11-02. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Age: 74 (per 20-F Item 6.A table). ✓
  • Prior career: Executive Chairman of Rennova Health, Inc. (one year), the successor company to CollabRx and its predecessor Tegal Corporation (NASDAQ: TGAL, semiconductor capital equipment, spun out of Motorola in 1989). On Tegal Board from 1989; CFO 2002, CEO 2005, Chairman & CEO 2006–2015. IMTEC co-founder 1980 (boutique M&A / investment / consulting firm; clients in US, Europe, Japan; Mika held CEO of multiple ventures over a 20-year span). Earlier: managing consultant at Cresap, McCormick & Paget; policy analyst at the National Science Foundation. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Education: BS Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; MBA, Harvard Graduate School of Business. ✓

Kevin Barnes — VP Finance & Administration, Corporate Controller and Treasurer (since 2008; briefly CFO 2012–2016)

  • Tenure: 17+ years; first appointed 2012-12-01 in the officer disclosure schedule. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Age: 54.
  • Concurrent role: CFO of VVC Exploration Corporation (minerals exploration company) since 2006. Earlier: Corporate Controller / Business Performance Manager at EC English (2006–2014); reporting manager at Duguay and Ringler Corporate Services (2000–2006). ✓
  • Education: MBA; member of the Institute of Certified Management Accountants of Australia; Accredited Chartered Secretary. ✓

President & General Manager

Note (2025-06-27 resignation): Mr. Vivek Rajgarhia, who had served as President & General Manager since 2019-11-04, resigned from the role on 2025-06-27. The 20-F still includes his bio as the prior holder of the role and does not name a successor in Item 6.A; the role appears unfilled as of the 20-F filing date (2026-03-31). ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A footnote 6

Vivek Rajgarhia — Former President & General Manager (2019-11-04 to 2025-06-27)

  • Prior career: SVP & General Manager of the Lightwave Business Unit at MACOM (NASDAQ: MTSI), where he led a portfolio built through acquisitions including Optomai (his prior company; co-founder & CEO). Earlier: Director of Sales & Marketing (Asia) at Lucent Technologies optical components (started Lucent’s Asia business); VP Product Marketing & Business Development at OpNext (former Hitachi Fiber Optics, now Lumentum); Director of Product Management & Marketing at JDS Uniphase (now Lumentum); VP Global Sales at GigOptix. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Education: BE Electrical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ. ✓
  • Relevance: Rajgarhia’s MACOM Lightwave roots are reflected across POET’s senior product team (Mo Jinyu, Raju Kankipati, Dan Meerovich are all MACOM Lightwave alumni). The 2025 resignation removes a key MACOM-network anchor.

Chief Revenue Officer

Raju Kankipati — Chief Revenue Officer (since 2022-05-01)

  • Tenure: ~4 years as of April 2026. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Age: 47.
  • Prior career: Senior Director of Product Management at MACOM (optical components and photonic solutions). Before MACOM: Senior Product Manager and Engineering Manager at Arista Networks (collaborated with hyperscaler customers on 40G/100G switching products and optical transceivers); earlier Product Manager at Cisco; started career as Optics Engineer at Opnext. ✓
  • Education: MBA, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business; BE Electronics, BITS Pilani, India. ✓

Senior Vice Presidents — Operations, Engineering & Product

Dr. Mo Jinyu — SVP, Global Product Development (since 2022-01-01)

  • Background: 22+ years across optical transmission systems, advanced modulation formats, tunable semiconductor lasers, DFB/FP lasers, PD/APD, optical-transceiver modules, high-speed integrated packaging. Previously Senior Director / Chief Scientist at MACOM Lightwave (Asia, Shenzhen site leader), and earlier at Bookham/Oclaro, Huawei, I2R Singapore, and Nexvave Photonics Technology Co. (founder & CTO). ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Education: PhD Optical Communications, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. Senior Member, IEEE; 11+ patents and 40+ tier-one journal/conference papers. ✓

Ghazi Chaoui — SVP, Global Manufacturing & Digital Transformation (since 2025-05-12)

  • Tenure: ~1 year as of April 2026; the most recent senior-management appointment in the 20-F officer table. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Age: 71.
  • Relevance: Chaoui’s appointment in May 2025 coincided with the formation of POET Technologies SDN BHD in Malaysia (April 2025) and signals POET’s intent to scale contract-manufacturing operations away from PRC concentration toward Malaysia/Singapore.

Dr. Robert Ditizio — VP, Intellectual Property (since 2021-12-01)

  • Background: Joined POET as a consultant in 2017 to build out the Optical Interposer IP portfolio; appointed VP December 2021. Earlier career as Chief Technologist at Tegal Corporation (semiconductor process equipment — plasma reactors, cluster tools for advanced etch/deposition). 10 patents in semiconductor patterning; numerous publications. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Education: BS, MS, PhD Engineering Science, Pennsylvania State University; MBA, Sonoma State University. ✓
  • Cross-link: Mika and Ditizio share Tegal Corporation as a common prior employer — a Tegal alumni cluster within POET senior management.

Yong Meng (James) Lee — VP, Interposer Engineering (since 2019-09-02)

  • Role: General Manager of POET Technologies Pte. Ltd. (the Singapore subsidiary). ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A
  • Prior career: VP of Logic Technology at IMEC (2015–2019) — defined the logic roadmap; developed FinFET/GAA scaling, advanced metallization, novel materials, and quantum-computing devices; brought in >€100M of research partnership funding. Before IMEC: 19-year career at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in technical and management roles spanning the US and Singapore. 60+ patents. ✓
  • Education: BE, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. ✓

Dan Meerovich — Former VP, Product Engineering (2020-03-02 to 2025-03-31; resigned)

  • Background: 30+ years in photonics product / process / test engineering at MACOM, Apogee (now Broadcom), Oclaro, Multiplex (now Hisense), and JDS Uniphase. At MACOM Lightwave, led test/product/process engineering for lasers, photodetectors, AWG waveguides, optical engines, and silicon photonic PICs; developed low-cost scalable laser-integration process onto silicon photonic ICs. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.A footnote 7
  • Resignation: Departed 2025-03-31; no successor named in the 20-F officer roster. ⚠ inferred role-vacancy from absence in officer table

Audit / Governance Note

POET’s foreign-private-issuer status means there is no DEF 14A proxy statement. All compensation tables, share-ownership disclosures, and named-executive-officer (“NEO”) detail are catalogued in Form 20-F Item 6 — Directors, Senior Management and Employees. The summary compensation table for the 2025 fiscal year names only Suresh Venkatesan as the explicitly disclosed NEO. ✓ Form 20-F filed 2026-03-31, Item 6.B

For the board-side governance picture (six-director structure, four committees, Lead Independent Director Jean-Louis Malinge, FY2025 board met 21 times including committee meetings), see governance.

Cross-section pointers

  • governance — Director roster and committee mechanics; explains the May-2025 Audit Committee Chair handoff and the June-2025 resignation cluster.
  • timeline — Dated event log; every appointment/resignation row above resolves to a timeline entry.
  • overview — The MACOM-Lightwave alumni cluster (Rajgarhia / Mo / Kankipati / Meerovich) is a meaningful ecosystem signal for product-development orientation; mapped in detail in the ecosystem section.
  • overview — Compensation expense (stock-based comp, finance advisory fees) tie back to the Item-6 disclosures cited above.
  • insider transactions log — Canadian SEDI insider-transaction tracking (Form 4 does NOT apply to FPIs).