Coriant announces new leadership to drive growth

Veteran Executive Shaygan Kheradpir Brings Deep Industry Experience and Expertise as Company Positions for Future Growth

NAPERVILLE, Illinois, 28 September 2015 – Coriant, a proven supplier of innovative networking solutions to leading network operators in over 100 countries, today announced that Shaygan Kheradpir has been named Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. Shaygan joins Coriant after having worked closely with the senior management team since earlier this year in the role of Operating Executive to Marlin Equity Partners ("Marlin"). Leveraging his active involvement in the company's strategic planning and operations, Shaygan assumes his new leadership position to drive Coriant's growth strategy and strengthen focus on solutions that matter most to its customers in today's highly dynamic and competitive end-user markets. He succeeds President and CEO Pat DiPietro, who will transition to the position of Coriant's Vice Chairman, as well as return to his role as Operating Partner at Marlin after successfully guiding the company through integration and portfolio development initiatives.

Shaygan is a proven leader with extensive industry, business, and operational experience. His leadership and expertise will play a critical role for the company as demand for data-intensive end-user applications drives expanded market opportunities, including 100G to multi-terabit coherent metro and long haul transport deployments, hyper-scale data center and cloud infrastructure build-outs, and mobile backhaul upgrades underlying the evolution to 4G and 5G.

"What attracted me to Coriant were its comprehensive portfolio of packet optical and data networking solutions, world-class technology innovation, global reach, and expanding customer base of top tier network operators as well as cloud providers and large enterprises," said Mr. Kheradpir. "As market drivers intensify the imperative for an entirely new level of efficiency and innovation in network architectures, operations, and service creation, Coriant will enable our customers with cost-disruptive networking solutions optimized for the highest degree of automation, programmability, and service agility."

"We are honored to welcome Shaygan to Coriant and fortunate to have an executive of his caliber leading the company," said Mr. DiPietro. "His strategic insight and guidance on focused operational execution have been invaluable since we began working together earlier this year, and we are confident in his ability to drive Coriant to the next level of growth."

Shaygan is a recognized business and technology leader with over 28 years of executive experience across the telecom, technology, and financial services industries. He began his career at GTE Corporation, and subsequently was appointed Verizon's EVP & Chief Information Officer and member of the executive leadership team driving the systems modernization, efficiency, innovation and pioneering product initiatives, including FiOS, one of the largest infrastructure programs in the U.S. with a capital investment of over $20 billion. Shaygan next joined Barclays as Chief Operations and Technology Officer and also served as a member of the bank's Executive Committee. At Barclays, he held a leadership role in the creation of the company's TRANSFORM program, a historical transformation of the bank for the 21st century across 50 countries with 150 thousand employees. Following this role, he became CEO of Juniper Networks, where he developed an Integrated Operating Plan for the company and focused execution on the strategic growth markets of Cloud Builder & High IQ Networking. Prior to his new role at Coriant, Shaygan held the position of Operating Executive to Marlin Equity Partners, where he focused on strategic telecom and technology sectors.

Shaygan holds a Ph.D., master's, and bachelor's in engineering from Cornell University. He has multiple patents spanning telecom, media, and payments, and was on the advisory board of the U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology and on the Cornell University Engineering Council.