Leadership

Amir Elbaz – Chief Executive Officer

Concurrent with his iPhotonix responsibilities, Mr. Elbaz serves as a Senior VP with Yorkville Advisors LLC, the parent company of iPhotonix. He specializes in corporate finance, operations and strategic planning for private and public companies. Amir has served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Board Member of Lithium Technology Corporation between 2005 and 2008. Prior to that, Mr. Elbaz served as a senior associate of Arch Hill Capital NV, a Dutch venture firm. Before moving to the venture capital world, Mr. Elbaz served two years with Yorkville Advisors as VP Corporate Finance, making principal investments in public technology companies. Prior to joining Yorkville Advisors, Mr. Elbaz served for several years as an analyst with the Economic Department in the Procurement Mission of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in New York. Mr. Elbaz holds a B.A. from the University of Haifa, Israel, and an MBA in Finance & Investments from Bernard Baruch College, CUNY, New York.

Chris Ryan – Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Ryan’s career spans over twenty years and encompasses a broad scope of financial expertise that includes building and implementing business and accounting systems, arranging financings, profit forecasting, budgeting, M&A activities and supervision of business units in the telecom sector. Most recently, Mr. Ryan was an executive at Tellabs where he led the financial activities of the broadband products division. From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Ryan was CFO of Chiaro Networks, Inc. a developer of infrastructure-class IP routing platforms. From 2000 to 2004, he served as CFO at Xtera Communications. For more than 12 years, Mr. Ryan held key positions in various divisions of Alcatel. Mr. Ryan has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Francis Marion College, South Carolina and an MBA from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Joel Z. Futterman, EE, MBA – Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Futterman has a long history in telecommunications product development. Before joining iPhotonix, he was Director of R&D for Siemens Communications. His 23 years of development experience includes Class 5 Central Office product lines, access technologies as well as fiber-to-the-home products. Mr. Futterman has expertise in the development of products for both US and worldwide carriers. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida and an MBA from Rollins College, Orlando, Florida.