Gary B. Smith is a British-American executive, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of

Ciena Ciena Corporation is an American telecommunications networking equipment and software services supplier based in Hanover, Maryland. The company has been described by ''The Baltimore Sun'' as the "world's biggest player in optical connectivity." T ...

, an American

telecommunications network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, message ...

ing multinational.

Early life and education

Smith was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and received an MBA from the Ashridge Management College, now part of

Hult International Business School Hult International Business School (also known as Hult Business School or Hult) is a private business school with campuses in Cambridge, London, San Francisco, Dubai, New York City, and Shanghai. Hult is named for the school's benefactor Bertil ...

.CEO Profile, Institutional Investor, March 2011
/ref>

Career

From 1995-1997, Smith served as vice president for sales and marketing at

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...

, a global provider of fixed satellite services. He also previously served as vice president of sales and marketing for Cray Communications, Inc.

Ciena

Smith joined Ciena in 1997 and has served as president and CEO since May 2001. Prior to serving as CEO, Smith served as Ciena's chief operating officer; and prior to that, senior vice president of worldwide sales. Smith joined Ciena in November 1997 as vice president of international sales. He has served on Ciena's board of directors since October 2000.TheStreet.com, January 2011
/ref> During his tenure as CEO, Smith has led the acquisition of seven companies. Most recent is the acquisition of the Optical Networking and Carrier Ethernet assets of bankrupt

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec, ...

's Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) for $774 million. This acquisition, which closed on March 19, 2010, doubled Ciena's size from around 2,100 to 4,000 employees and significantly increased total revenues. In November 2011, Smith was interviewed by Light Reading about Ciena's acquisition history. Since the first full year of Smith's tenure as CEO, Ciena's revenues have gone from $361 million in fiscal year ended 2002 to $2.1 billion in fiscal 2013.

Additional affiliations and memberships

In January 2011, the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

named Smith to its National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). NSTAC's mission is to provide the president collaborative advice and expertise regarding telecommunications national security and emergency preparedness issues. Smith is also a commissioner of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, a confederation of communications technology business executives engaged in telecommunications policy. In addition, he is a Broadband Ambassador to the Internet Innovation Alliance, a coalition of business and nonprofit leaders devoted to making broadband universally accessible. Smith is a member of the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

CEO Council. Smith serves on the

Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...

Advisory Council for Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. In addition to Ciena's board of directors, Smith also serves on several other corporate boards. On December 7, 2011,

Avaya Avaya Holdings Corp., often shortened to Avaya (), is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includ ...

, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, appointed Smith to its board of directors. Smith also serves as a director of CommVault Systems, a provider of data and information management software applications and related services with a market capitalization of $2 billion.Forbes company profile - CommVault Systems
/ref> Smith has served as a director of CommVault since May 2004 and as lead director since May 2006.CommVault Corporate Governance Biography: Gary Smith
/ref>

Awards and recognitions

In November 2011, industry publication ''Light Reading'' inducted Smith into their Light Reading Hall of Fame, based primarily on his achievements and "staying power" during his 10 years as CEO of Ciena.

Personal life

Smith now resides in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

with his wife and two sons, and has dual citizenship in the United States and United Kingdom. He is an avid photographer.WSJ: A CEO's Stable Regimen Without the Horses
/ref>

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Gary British businesspeople American businesspeople Hult International Business School alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)