EXFO Inc. recently announced that Germain Lamonde—the company’s founder, chairman and chief executive officer—has appointed Philippe Morin as EXFO’s new CEO effective April 1. Morin joined EXFO as its chief operating officer in November 2015; he has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry at Nortel and Ciena. Since joining EXFO, Morin has led the company’s global sales, go-to-market and product management initiatives.
Lamonde will become EXFO’s executive chairman and will maintain leadership of the company’s acquisition strategy. He also will remain actively involved in defining the company’s growth initiatives, customer outreach and corporate governance.
“After founding EXFO in my apartment and serving as its CEO, I am proud of all we have accomplished over nearly 32 years, taking the company from the concept level to global leader and helping the most advanced network operators worldwide implement their strategic transformations,” Lamonde said. “Having known Philippe for a long time and having worked closely with him on a wide range of initiatives, I am confident he is the right person to take over the day-to-day stewardship of EXFO and that he will receive the full support of the global EXFO team and partners. Our combined strategic vision, industry experience and leadership will create added value for customers and shareholders as we drive EXFO to new heights.”
“I am deeply honored and grateful to Germain and the board for their trust,” Morin said. “Germain has built an impressive organization, a highly talented team and very strong brand equity, all of which are highly respected by leading network operators worldwide. I am personally invested in EXFO’s success and fully committed to taking the company to the next level.”
In an interview with cablinginstall.com, Morin said his experience leading Ciena’s global sales and marketing organization proved helpful when he became EXFO’s COO in 2015. He added that EXFO’s focus on selling solutions, including analytics, is paramount. “As we move forward, assurance will be even more critical,” he said. “We’re very focused on our solutions to provide service assurance and analytics for real-time services” like VoIP, VoLTE, OTT video and more.
Morin pointed to EXFO’s recent acquisition of Ontology Systems as an example of its commitment to and advancement of analytics.
He also referenced the company’s acquisition of Absolute Analysis to bolster its real-time-services assurance capability. “As we start looking at LTE, 4G+, 5G, small cells, deployment of RAN, C-RAN … you’re seeing fiber going all the way to the top of the antenna,” Morin noted. “With one test we can see from the remote site, test the quality of the fiber, the entire Ethernet capability between the BBU [baseband unit] and top of the antenna.”
At the time of the Absolute Analysis acquisition last fall, EXFO noted, “In a market where subscriber quality of experience is a profitability game-changer, MNOs [mobile network operators] have little room for error while pressure is increasing to deploy faster and minimize operating expenses. Absolute Analysis’s technology delivers highly efficient CPRI [Common Public Radio Interface] protocol analysis and emulation as well as RF-over-CPRI spectrum analysis.”
Morin said the integration of Absolute Analysis technology into EXFO equipment went smoothly, and product with that technology has been shipping for months.