Avaya Announces New President and CEO

(Business News & Technology News, 11 Nov 2008)

Intelligent communications solutions provider Avaya Inc. announces that Kevin Kennedy will join the company as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective January 2009. Kennedy is currently CEO of JDS Uniphase Corp. and a member of its board of directors. He will remain with JDSU until joining Avaya.

Avaya has also announced that Charles Giancarlo will become Chairman of the Board when Kennedy assumes the CEO position. "Kevin Kennedy brings to Avaya a deep understanding of the enterprise communications industry and extensive senior management experience," says Charles Giancarlo, President and CEO, Avaya. "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 (COO) of Openwave Systems Inc. He also spent eight years at Cisco Systems Inc., 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 board of directors of Polycom Inc. and KLA-Tencor Corp. and a member of the Board of Regents of Loyola Marymount University. He holds a B.S. in engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Rutgers University.

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