Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the formation of a Partner Advisory Council in support of its global BizConnect Partner Program. The council brings together an elite group of networking executives to provide collaborative market knowledge on the state of the communications industry, as well as to offer direction on the strategic alignment of Ciena’s BizConnect program with the needs of its partner and end-user communities.

Ciena will leverage the expertise of the Partner Advisory Council to tailor its BizConnect program to provide a compelling set of solutions and sales support tools, empowering participants to compete in high-growth markets with a rich portfolio of Ciena platforms, software and services. The council will offer guidance on the ongoing development of Ciena’s BizConnect program, in order to ensure that it continues to target key markets and provide substantial business value and revenue opportunities for partners. Additionally, the council will present views on market trends and end-user needs as Ciena continues to evolve its portfolio to best meet the industry’s most pressing challenges.

Partner Advisory Council Members

The Ciena Partner Advisory Council is comprised of global technology thought leaders from different sectors of the communications industry. Certain Ciena executives, including Chief Operating Officer Arthur Smith and Chief Technology Officer Steve Alexander, will also participate on the council. The initial members of Ciena’s Partner Advisory Council include:

• John Breen is Assistant Vice President of Design Engineering for AT&T’s Equipment Solutions Engineering organization. He is a twenty eight year veteran of the computer and data communications Industry, fifteen of those years within the family of AT&T’s data companies. Most of his years have been in managing the pre-sales engineering and consulting organizations. In his current role, Mr. Breen manages AT&T’s Pre-Sales engineering team, which designs some of the most complex equipment and services solutions to meet customer needs in IP Telephony, Security, Tele-Presence, Optical transport, Enterprise VPN and Wireless LAN solutions.
• Carlos Busso V is Executive President of Adexus. Mr. Busso has more than 30 years of experience in the communications industry. He also currently serves on the board of directors of the Chilean Association of Information Technology Companies (ACTI). Mr. Busso’s experience includes extensive studies of design and installations of microwave and data transmission technologies at the National Electronics and Telecommunications Center (Cenet) at the University of Chile. Additionally, he has studied computer design of X.25 networks in “Telenet” while simultaneously approving the course “Selling the Tandem Solutions” at Tandem Enterprises.
• Kevin Delane is Vice President, Global Accounts at EMC Corporation. Prior to his current role, his positions at EMC included Divisional Vice President for New York/New Jersey, where he managed new vertical market development and opportunities; Area Manager; District Manager; and Account Executive, where he successfully grew and solidified EMC’s business with Wall Street customers and large accounts. Mr. Delane joined EMC in 1994 from Interboro Systems Inc., and was previously an Account Executive at Automatic Data Processing.
• Angus Flett is currently Director of Customer Service Management at BT- Wholesale. Mr. Flett joined BT Wholesale as Director of Product Management in January 2005. He has spent his entire career in the IT and telecoms industry, including 13 years in various management roles with Mercury and Cable & Wireless. Mr. Flett has also represented BT on NGN UK, the industry body responsible for oversight of the introduction of next-generation networks into the UK market.
• Angelo Germani joined AboveNet in 2000 and, in his role as Vice President of Sales Engineering, has been a key contributor to the success and growth of the organization. Mr. Germani’s technical leadership has helped make the company a leader in the sale of high bandwidth connectivity solutions, and in particular private optical networks delivering key WDM, Ethernet and IP services to some of the largest enterprises in the U.S. Prior to joining AboveNet, Mr. Germani managed a broad range of responsibilities across an array of technical leadership and management positions at Lockheed Martin.
• Glenn Johansen is currently President and CEO of LightRiver Technologies. Since founding the company in 1998, Mr. Johansen has grown the company to be North America’s largest multi-vendor transport systems integrator for independent network operators, with over 100 clients. He leverages 20 years of experience in telecommunications with a deep understanding of his clients’ business to drive LightRiver’s strategy and business partners as well as manage relationships with the company’s anchor clients. Prior to LightRiver, Mr. Johansen served in various marketing, sales, market development and management roles at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, and began his career at Singer-Kearfott where he helped pioneer the development and manufacturing of Laser Gyroscopes for Inertial Navigation Systems.
• Ingo Kierse is currently Managing Director, Co-founder and Partner of Xantaro Holding GmbH, where he is focused on leading strategic business development as well as international expansion. Since 1996, Mr. Kierse has almost exclusively been looking after customers from the carrier and service provider world, both within Germany as well as internationally. Starting with a small team in 2001, he successfully expanded the new Carriers & Service Providers business unit at NK Networks & Services GmbH, and then held several sales and business development positions at Alcatel, IBM and TDS AG. Mr. Kierse is also a sales director at Xantaro Deutschland GmbH.
• Gerhard Schrott is currently the Manager of Business Solutions Networks at Kapsch BusinessCom AG – part of The Kapsch Group, which is a market leader in the European traffic telematics and communications industries. Mr. Schrott’s specialties include project management, pre-sales, post-sales, product management, product marketing and alliance management. Previous to Kapsch BusinessCom AG, he served as Manager of Sales and Customer Care at Raivan.Voice-kom, Manager of Sales and Marketing at Aphona, and Manager of Strategic Projects at Kapsch AG.

“Ciena’s Partner Advisory Council is a key element to the continued development and success of our growing BizConnect Partner Program,” said Theresa Caragol, vice president, Global Alliances & Partners at Ciena. “This council will provide strategic insight and valuable guidance on industry trends to ensure our partners are armed with specialist expertise and next-generation solutions to effectively compete and satisfy their business objectives.”

Ciena’s BizConnect Program

With more than 50 elite partners across the globe, the BizConnect Partner Program enables partners to tailor every aspect of their relationship with Ciena – including portfolio offerings, promotions, training, incentives and more – customizing participation based on each member’s unique business strategy and revenue objectives. In addition to providing partners a wide portfolio of solutions and support, including access to an interactive online partner community, Ciena’s BizConnect program offers members industry-leading marketing support including targeted lead-generation campaigns, market development funds, co-branded events and seminars, joint collateral development and innovative media vehicles, as well as strong pre-and-post sales support, to maximize market opportunities.

About Ciena

Ciena specializes in practical network transition. We offer leading network infrastructure solutions, intelligent software and a comprehensive services practice to help our customers use their networks to fundamentally change the way they compete. With a global presence, Ciena leverages its heritage of practical innovation to deliver maximum performance and economic value in communications networks worldwide. We routinely post recent news, financial results and other important announcements and information about Ciena on our website at www.ciena.com.

Note to Ciena Investors

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 5, 2009. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.