Alcatel-Lucent has today announced the appointment of Dr. Marcus Weldon as President of Bell Labs, the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent and one of the world’s leading industrial communications research organizations. Dr. Weldon will combine this role with his existing role as Alcatel-Lucent’s Corporate CTO.
Commenting on Dr. Weldon’s appointment, Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Innovation is a key pillar of The Shift Plan, our industrial program to reposition the company as a specialist in IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access. In his new, combined role as Bell Labs president and Chief Technology Officer, Marcus will oversee the acceleration and unlocking of innovation in the company. In this role, he will strengthen cooperation with third parties and speed up the pace of R&D to ensure Alcatel-Lucent can respond to its customers’ challenges with agility.”
Marcus Weldon is regarded as a industry luminary with a strong track record of identifying opportunities for technological disruption, with recent breakthroughs including the application of vectoring in fixed access, championing the use of LTE overlay and small cells in wireless, and identifying the emergence of virtualization and software defined networking as forces to profoundly change the industry.
Michel Combes added: “Marcus will combine this vision with the power of Bell Labs to create an unrivalled innovation engine for our company.”
Commenting on his new appointment, Marcus Weldon said: “This is a unique period for the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, and one of unprecedented change. We are seeing a revolution around the delivery of Cloud-based media, content and services to an ever-growing number of mobile devices, anywhere, anytime. We have a range of big challenges to solve, as network operators try to deal with the growing expections for improved performance, while keeping the total cost of operations in check. This is a truly exciting time to become president of Bell Labs. It is where I started my career and where I learned, first hand, the incredible talent and innovation capabilities in this organization. Having been deeply involved with Bell Labs as CTO, and I am thrilled to now to be leading an institution that has been a leading technology innovator for more than 85 years.”
Marcus Weldon takes on the helm of President of Bell Labs from Gee Rittenhouse who has has decided to retire from Alcatel-Lucent in order to focus on other business interests.
