Telephony manufacturer Avaya Inc. has lured Kevin Kennedy away from JDS Uniphase Corp. to become its president and CEO in January. He will remain with JDSU until joining Avaya. The current holder of the post, Charles Giancarlo, will become chairman of Avaya's board when Kennedy assumes the CEO position.
“Kevin Kennedy brings to Avaya a deep understanding of the enterprise communications industry and extensive senior management experience,” said Giancarlo in a press release. “He will join Avaya at a time when we are strongly positioned in our industry. Kevin will lead Avaya to even greater success and further our strategy and execution to be the premier enterprise communications partner for our customers.”
Before joining JDSU, Kennedy served as chief operating officer of Openwave Systems, Inc. He also spent eight years at Cisco Systems, Inc., most recently as senior vice-president of the service provider line of the business and software technologies division. Kennedy spent 17 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1987, he was a congressional fellow to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Kennedy is a member of the board of directors of Polycom, Inc. and KLA-Tencor Corp. and a member of the board of regents of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He holds a bachelof of science in engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Rutgers University.