Avaya Names New President/CEO

Avaya yesterday announced that Kevin Kennedy will join the company in January as president and CEO.
 
Kennedy is currently CEO of JDS Uniphase, a provider of communications test and measurement solutions for telecommunications service providers, cable operators, and network equipment manufacturers; and optical solutions for medical/environmental instrumentation, semiconductor processing, display, brand authentication, aerospace and defense, and decorative applications. He will remain with JDSU until joining Avaya.
 
Avaya also said Charles Giancarlo, the current president and CEO, will become chairman of the board when Kennedy assumes his new position.
 
"Kevin Kennedy brings to Avaya a deep understanding of the enterprise communications industry and extensive senior management experience," said Giancarlo. "He will join Avaya at a time when we are strongly positioned in our industry. Kevin will lead Avaya to even greater success and further our strategy and execution to be the premier enterprise communications partner for our customers."
 
Before joining JDSU, Kennedy served as chief operating officer of Openwave Systems. He also spent eight years at Cisco Systems,  most recently as senior vice president of the Service Provider Line of Business and Software Technologies Division. Kennedy spent 17 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1987, he was a congressional fellow to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
 
Kennedy is a member of the boards of directors of Polycom and KLA-Tencor and a member of the board of regents of Loyola Marymount University. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and master's and doctoral degrees in engineering from Rutgers University in New Jersey.