Management Team

Bardia Pezeshki, President & Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Pezeshki was previously the main founder of Santur Corporation (2000-2008), and acting as the President, Director, VP of Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer of the company at various times he developed the key ideas and managed their transition to manufacturing. These included the tunable laser that dominated the transition of long haul and metro networks from fixed wavelength lasers to tunable, and more recently the parallel transceiver that now leads the world in 100Gb/s Ethernet.

Prior to Santur, Dr Pezeshki managed the Development group at SDL (now part of JDS Uniphase) and a similar group at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights. He obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University and has approximately 30 patents and 100 peer reviewed publications and presentations.

Art Stein, Chief Financial Officer

Art Stein joined Kaiam in 2013. His experience spans both major publicly traded companies and high tech startups.  Most recently, he was CFO/COO at BridgeWave Communications, a high-capacity wireless radio manufacturer.  Previously, Art held various senior and executive level positions at Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies, and Guide Technology. He has  specific strengths in M&A transactions, fundraising, strategic planning, offshore manufacturing, and overall financial management. Art holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Washington.

John Heanue, V.P. of Technology Development

Dr. Heanue has managed the development of numerous innovative optical devices that span the industry, from very long wavelength laser modules using quantum cascade sources, to optical storage components. His background includes senior positions at Block Engineering, Redshift Systems, Santur Corporation, Xros / Nortel Networks, Quinta/Seagate, and Optitek. Dr Heanue received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Applied Physics developing holographic storage technology.

Ron Kaneshiro, V.P. of Engineering

Most recently, Dr. Kaneshiro was COO and VP of Systems and Integration at Glo, a venture-backed company focused on the development and commercialization of advanced LED products using nanotechnology. Before that, Ron was Senior Director, Product R&D at Avago Technologies, managing the development and commercialization of optical modules ranging from the low cost VCSEL-based active optical cables to complex single mode transceivers. Ron holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Karen Liu, V.P. of Sales & Marketing

Karen Liu joined Kaiam in 2014. She has more than 25 years of experience in optics and communications. Prior to joining Kaiam, she was Principal Analyst at Ovum, having joined through its acquisition of RHK. In her decade as an analyst, her research focus was on emerging technologies in high bandwidth communications markets, most notably innovative optical components. She also provided strategic consulting to vendors for competitive analysis, market sizing, and roadmapping. Previously, Karen was responsible for product planning and optical architecture of the initial release of Tellabs’ 7100 telecom optical transport system, and optical design of IBM 9729, the first DWDM datacom multiplexer. Those experiences gave her an appreciation for the interaction between enabling component technology and advances in networks and systems architecture. Karen received a PhD in applied physics from Stanford University in the field of fiber optics, and a BSE in mechanical engineering from Princeton University.

Dietmar Zapf, V.P. of Operations

Dietmar Zapf brings 20 years of Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Operations management experience to Kaiam. He has held positions in both startups and large publicly traded companies producing ASICs, optical components and LED lighting. Prior to joining Kaiam he was managing operations at Soraa, Coherent, and at Santur he ramped up production 2-3x quarter over quarter for 1 1/2 years. As Senior Supply Chain Manager at JDSU, he was responsible for transferring multiple product lines to offshore manufacturing sites. He is passionate about transitioning startups into revenue generating companies. Mr. Zapf was born and raised in Germany, but has lived in the Bay Area for 30 years, he graduated from UC Berkeley where he was a member of the Crew team.

Russell Childs, V.P. of Engineering (PLC Products)

Russell Childs joined Gemfire in May 2004 as Director of Manufacturing/Operations from Avanex where he had been Director of Operations. He spent 5 years at Kymata / Alcatel / Avanex setting up the FHD process and manufacturing engineering functions. Prior to Avanex, Russell was with NEC Semiconductors for 12 years in various process engineering and manufacturing roles, finishing that portion of his career as the Wafer Fabrication Engineering Manager. Russell has a degree in physics, with honors, from Edinburgh University.