Ayar Labs Leadership

Executive Team

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

Charlie joined the company as Chief Executive Officer in November 2018. He has had a long career in the industry as a growth-oriented executive with both large public and smaller venture-backed companies. He most recently was VP/GM in the Intel Data Center Group where he realized that integrated optical communication can enable dramatic capabilities in new system architectures.

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

About Mark

Lisa Cummins Dulchinos

Chief Financial Officer

About Lisa

Amelia Thornton

Chief People Officer

About Amelia

Chen Sun

Vice President Silicon Engineering and Co-Founder

About Chen

Matt Sysak

Vice President Laser Engineering

About Matt

Garth Thompson

Chief Information Officer

About Garth

Terry Thorn

Vice President Business Development

About Terry

Board of Directors

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

About Charlie

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

About Mark

Will Graves

Board Member

About Will

Matt Hershenson

Board Member

About Matt

Advisors

Vladimir Stojanovic

Chief Architect and Co-Founder

About Vladimir

Daniel Armbrust

Investor and Advisory Board Member

About Daniel

Rory McInerney

Executive Advisor

About Rory

Milos Popovic

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

About Milos

Rajeev Ram

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

About Rajeev

Alex Wright-Gladstein

Advisor and Co-Founder

About Alex

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

Mark is the Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder of Ayar Labs. Prior to founding Ayar Labs, he led the group that designed the optics in the world's first processor to communicate using light. He holds a PhD from University of Colorado.

Lisa Cummins Dulchinos

Chief Financial Officer

Lisa joined Ayar Labs as Chief Financial Officer in January 2019 after overseeing the successful sale of Penguin Computing as CFO. Prior to that, she was CFO at Adept Technology, a publicly traded robotics company. Earlier in her career, she was a Senior Auditor at Ernst & Young. Lisa brings over 25 years of experience as a growth oriented financial executive in global high-tech organizations. She holds a CPA (inactive status), an MBA from St. Mary’s College, and a BA from UCSB.

Amelia Thornton

Chief People Officer

Amelia is a seasoned industry executive who joined Ayar Labs as Chief People Officer in December 2021. Her prior background includes executive roles at Hyperion Solutions, where she led a two-year turn-around of the company; Ernst & Young; Oracle; and Federal Express. Most recently, she spent almost 20 years as President of The Thornton Group, Inc., a global consulting firm working with CEOs and their teams to improve leadership performance and organization effectiveness.

Chen Sun

Vice President Silicon Engineering and Co-Founder

Chen is the Vice President Silicon Engineering and Co-Founder of Ayar Labs. Prior to founding this company, he led the group that designed the electronics and optical device drivers in the world’s first processor to communicate using light. He holds a PhD from MIT.

Matt Sysak

Vice President Laser Engineering

Matt joined Ayar Labs in 2019. He has had a distinguished career as a technologist and leader in photonics and lasers and is the chief editor of the CW-WDM multi-source agreement. Before joining, Matt spent more than 10 years at Intel working in silicon photonics where he led the System Modeling and Architecture Team and was responsible for developing and qualifying the hybrid silicon laser technology that ramped from graduate research into >1 million units shipped. Matt holds MS and PhD degrees from University of California Santa Barbara and a BS degree from Penn State University in Chemical Engineering.

Garth Thompson

Chief Information Officer

Garth joined Ayar Labs in December 2019 as the Vice President of IT and Support. Before Ayar Labs, he was the Chief Digital Officer at Penguin Computing where he ran the IT, support, security and internal software development teams. He has over 20 years of experience as a business and technical leader for fast-moving, technical companies. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Terry Thorn

Vice President Business Development

Terry joins Ayar Labs after 24 years at Intel Corporation where he held a variety of leadership positions in product line management, marketing, global cloud strategy, new business development and sales. Most recently, Terry was the GM of Global Accounts in the Cloud & Enterprise Sales Group with direct ownership of some of Intel's largest customers. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Alabama.

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

Charlie joined the company as Chief Executive Officer in November 2018. He has had a long career in the industry as a growth oriented executive with both large public and smaller venture backed companies. He most recently was VP/GM in the Intel Data Center Group where he realized that integrated optical communication can enable dramatic capabilities in new system architectures.

Will Graves

Board Member

Will is the Chief Investment Officer at Boardman Bay Capital Management, an asset management firm focused exclusively on the global technology sector. Boardman Bay invests across a variety of public equity and venture funds. Prior to Boardman Bay, he managed global technology sector investing at Stark Investments and Talpion Fund Management LP. As a technology operator, Will was an early employee of Terraspring, a pioneer of cloud computing technologies, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems and he also assisted in the early development of FireEye. Will was a Board Member of Elenion Technologies (acquired by Nokia). He holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS, Engineering and Political Science from the United States Naval Academy.

Matt Hershenson

Board Member

Matt is a partner and co-founder of Playground Global. Prior to Playground he was Director of Hardware for Android at Google, where his work included the development of several generations phones and tablets, as well as the formation of Google’s Consumer Silicon team. Matt also co-founded Danger, Inc, where he worked from its founding in 1999 through its acquisition by Microsoft in 2008.

Vladimir Stojanovic

Chief Architect and Co-Founder

Vladimir is the Chief Architect of Ayar Labs. Prior to founding Ayar Labs, he led the team that designed the world’s first processor to communicate using light. Vladimir is also a Professor of EECS at UC Berkeley, and was one of the key developers of the Rambus high-speed link technology. He holds a PhD from Stanford University.

Daniel Armbrust

Board of Directors Observer and Advisory Board Member

Dan was formerly Vice President of 300mm Semiconductor Operations at IBM, and brings a wealth of experience in high-volume manufacturing to Ayar Labs. He also served as CEO of SEMATECH and was the co-founder and CEO of Silicon Catalyst.

Rory McInerney

Executive Advisor

Rory joined Ayar Labs as Executive Advisor focused on building world-class engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain organizations. Rory spent 29-years at Intel, where he served as Corporate Vice President responsible for the development of Intel® Xeon® processors and adjacent products for data-centric markets such as cloud, AI, HPC, and networking.

Milos Popovic

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Milos is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Boston University. Prior to founding Ayar Labs, he led the University of Colorado, Boulder lab that developed the optical devices in the first processor to communicate with light. He has authored or co-authored over 25 patents and 150 journal and conference papers. He holds a PhD from MIT.

Rajeev Ram

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Rajeev leads the Physical Optics and Electronics (POE) Group at MIT, where he is a Professor of Electrical Engineering. Prior to founding Ayar Labs, he led the MIT lab that made the optical devices in the first processor to communicate with light. He was the Program Director for ARPA-E at the United States Department of Energy from 2010 to 2012, and the Director of Center for Integrated Photonics at MIT from 2004 to 2012. He is also a Founder and Board Member of Pharyx Inc. He holds a PhD from UC Santa Barbara.

Alex Wright-Gladstein

Advisor and Co-Founder

Alex is a co-founder of Ayar Labs and was its founding CEO. In this role, she raised its first $27M in venture funding and recruited Charlie Wuischpard as CEO. Prior to founding Ayar Labs, she was the Energy Entrepreneurship Practice Leader at MIT.

Ayar Labs Leadership

Executive Team

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

Lisa Cummins Dulchinos

Chief Financial Officer

Amelia Thornton

Chief People Officer

Chen Sun

Vice President Silicon Engineering and Co-Founder

Matt Sysak

Vice President Laser Engineering

Garth Thompson

Chief Information Officer

Terry Thorn

Vice President Business Development

Board of Directors

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

Will Graves

Board Member

Matt Hershenson

Board Member

Advisors

Vladimir Stojanovic

Chief Architect and Co-Founder

Daniel Armbrust

Investor and Advisory Board Member

Rory McInerney

Executive Advisor

Milos Popovic

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Rajeev Ram

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Alex Wright-Gladstein

Advisor and Co-Founder

Success!

Mark Wade

Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Co-Founder

Lisa Cummins Dulchinos

Chief Financial Officer

Amelia Thornton

Chief People Officer

Chen Sun

Vice President Silicon Engineering and Co-Founder

Matt Sysak

Vice President Laser Engineering

Garth Thompson

Chief Information Officer

Terry Thorn

Vice President Business Development

Charlie Wuischpard

Chief Executive Officer

Will Graves

Board Member

Matt Hershenson

Board Member

Vladimir Stojanovic

Chief Architect and Co-Founder

Daniel Armbrust

Board of Directors Observer and Advisory Board Member

Rory McInerney

Executive Advisor

Milos Popovic

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Rajeev Ram

Technical Principal and Co-Founder

Alex Wright-Gladstein

Advisor and Co-Founder

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