News: Optoelectronics
19 May 2025
POET appoints Ghazi Chaoui as senior VP – global manufacturing & digital transformation
POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and light sources for the hyperscale data-center, telecom and artificial intelligence (AI) markets — has appointed Ghazi M. Chaoui PhD MBA as its senior VP of global manufacturing & digital transformation. An industry veteran of nearly 40 years, Chaoui recently concluded a multi-year assignment as chief procurement officer of Coherent Corp.
POET is gearing up manufacturing in Penang, Malaysia, where Ghazi will be stationed, reporting to chairman & CEO Dr Suresh Venkatesan. He will plan, direct, coordinate and oversee all operations tied to order fulfillment, and ensure the development and implementation of efficient operations and cost-effective systems to meet the high demand for 800G and 1.6T transceivers needed by hyperscalers and AI cluster operators. Sundar Natarajan Yoganandan, POET’s director of external manufacturing and NPI (also a resident of Malaysia) will report directly to Ghazi.
“Our relationship with Globetronics in Malaysia is off to a strong start, with a suite of wafer-level assembly and test equipment installed and operational,” says Venkatesan. “With full production capacity expected to be on line this quarter, this is the ideal time for Ghazi and Sundar to staff an organization in Penang and establish the systems we need to ensure delivery of optical engines to customers,” he adds. “We have established POET Technologies Sdn Bhd as a wholly owned subsidiary and have begun resourcing it accordingly.”
Ghazi holds PhD and MS degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering and an MBA. He began his career as an R&D lead designer and manager with AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Microelectronics in Reading, PA. Over the next 40 years Ghazi held key manufacturing and supply chain roles in several countries with Lucent Technologies, Corvis Corp/Broadwin Communications, Infinera, Oclaro, Teraxion, Kaiam Corp and Macom Technology Solutions Holdings.
“I am pleased to be joining POET at this time to help build a great company in photonics and optoelectronics, serving many customers that I know well and interacting with many suppliers with whom I have strong relationships,” comments Chaoui. “By semiconductorizing optical engine assembly, I am confident we can supply high-performance optical engines at high volumes on time to customers.”
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