Nortel Appoints John J. Roese as Chief Technology Officer Industry Visionary to Lead Nortel Innovation Engine
Toronto (ots/PRNewswire)
Nortel(x) (NYSE/TSX: NT) today announced the appointment of John J. Roese as Chief Technology Officer.
Roese, a respected industry visionary and recognised authority on network convergence and emerging technologies, will be responsible for the Company's overall R&D strategy and execution, directing future research across all product portfolios. In addition, he will work closely with the Chief Strategy Officer on emerging technologies, market opportunities and strategic partnerships.
"I'm pleased to announce the final appointment to my senior leadership cabinet, signing up John Roese to the key position of Chief Technology Officer," said Zafirovski. "Nortel has a rich and powerful heritage in innovation. As CTO, John will represent the heart and soul of that innovation engine and become the spiritual leader for our more than 12,000 engineers and developers.
"In John I have found both a technology visionary and a results-oriented leader with a proven track record in driving technology strategy, product line rationalisation and engineering process realignment. He will play a pivotal role on the team as we work together to drive leadership in next-generation mobility, enterprise infrastructure, and services and applications," said Zafirovski.
Roese has almost two decades of experience in networking and security, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), wireless technology and machine-to-machine communications. In addition, Roese is the inventor on 16 granted and pending patents in the area of policy management, location based networking and other areas of communications.
Roese joins Nortel from Broadcom Corporation, where he was vice president and CTO for networking technologies with a focus on unified communications. Previously, as executive vice president and CTO at Enterasys Networks, he was the principal architect of Enterasys' User Personalised Networking and Secure Networking, and oversaw both long-term and tactical technology strategy. As CTO and Deputy CTO of Cabletron, Roese was one of the key architects of Cabletron's SecureFast Switching.
At Nortel, Roese will lead technology innovation for a company with a rich innovation heritage and a considerable wealth of technology assets. Nortel has more than 12,000 engineers and developers, more than 3,500 issued US patents and consistently ranks among the Top 50 companies globally for newly issued US patents, as reported by IFI Claims, an established source of US patent data. Nortel has been a major contributor to important recent industry standards for WiMAX, carrier Ethernet, security standards, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), packet-optical convergence and others.
Roese holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from the University of New Hampshire. He will report directly to the President and CEO and will be based in Nortel's R&D headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. His appointment is effective June 28, 2006.
About Nortel
Nortel is a recognised leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world's most critical information. Our next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications, and help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people with information. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.
Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different. Further, actual results or events could differ materially from those contemplated in forward-looking statements as a result of the following (i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and related matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements and related events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal investigations of Nortel in the US and Canada; any significant pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel's proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash payment and/or significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity positions resulting from the finalisation and approval of its proposed class action settlement, or if such proposed class action settlement is not finalised, any larger settlements or awards of damages in respect of such class actions; any unsuccessful remediation of Nortel's material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulting in an inability to report Nortel's results of operations and financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the time required to implement Nortel's remedial measures; Nortel's inability to access, in its current form, its shelf registration filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Nortel's below investment grade credit rating and any further adverse effect on its credit rating due to Nortel's restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect on Nortel's business and market price of its publicly traded securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to Nortel's restatements; Nortel's potential inability to attract or retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives; any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension or delisting procedures; (ii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's business including: yearly and quarterly fluctuations of Nortel's operating results; reduced demand and pricing pressures for its products due to global economic conditions, significant competition, competitive pricing practice, cautious capital spending by customers, increased industry consolidation, rapidly changing technologies, evolving industry standards, frequent new product introductions and short product life cycles, and other trends and industry characteristics affecting the telecommunications industry; any material and adverse affects on Nortel's performance if its expectations regarding market demand for particular products prove to be wrong or because of certain barriers in its efforts to expand internationally; any reduction in Nortel's operating results and any related volatility in the market price of its publicly traded securities arising from any decline in its gross margin, or fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; any negative developments associated with Nortel's supply contract and contract manufacturing agreements including as a result of using a sole supplier for key optical networking solutions components, and any defects or errors in Nortel's current or planned products; any negative impact to Nortel of its failure to achieve its business transformation objectives; additional valuation allowances for all or a portion of its deferred tax assets; Nortel's failure to protect its intellectual property rights, or any adverse judgments or settlements arising out of disputes regarding intellectual property; changes in regulation of the Internet and/or other aspects of the industry; Nortel's failure to successfully operate or integrate its strategic acquisitions, or failure to consummate or succeed with its strategic alliances; any negative effect of Nortel's failure to evolve adequately its financial and managerial control and reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its business, or create an effective risk management strategy; and (iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity, financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel capitalising on business opportunities because of credit facility covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt issues and the provisions of its credit facilities; any increase of restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal course business activities, or any inability of Nortel's subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks or inability of customers to fulfil payment obligations under customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel's ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further declines in the market price of Nortel's publicly traded securities, or any future share consolidation resulting in a lower total market capitalisation or adverse effect on the liquidity of Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
(x)Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
Contact:
For further information: Jamie Moody, +1-972-684-7167,
moodyjam@nortel.com; Patricia Vernon, +1-905-863-1035,
patriceve@nortel.com