Management Team

OneChip Leadership Team

Left to Right: John Mein, Doug Cooper, Andy Weirich, Jim Hjartarson, Yit Lee, Valery Tolstikhin, and Steve Bauer.

Jim Hjartarson

CEO

Jim is a seasoned telecommunications industry veteran with 27 years of industry experience. He was most recently a co-founder and CEO of Catena Networks, later acquired by Ciena Corporation, where he was SVP Broadband Access Group. He was co-founder and VP of the Telecommunications Design Centre within Cadence Design Systems, and before that at Nortel Networks, where he was Director of Access Peripheral Design.

Dr. Valery Tolstikhin

Founder and CTO

Valery has been involved in research, development and commercialization of advanced III-V semiconductor devices for micro- and optoelectronics for 30 years, working in Canada, Europe, and Russia. An industry veteran with a solid academic background and international credentials, prior to starting up OneChip, he was with MetroPhotonics Inc., where he built the design team and led it through the development of state-of-the-art InP-based PIC products for applications in WDM optical transmission systems. He has published extensively and given numerous conference presentations in this and related photonics research areas, and has authored a number of patents.

Rob Graham

Chief Financial Officer

Rob is a Certified General Accountant with 20 years of accounting, finance and operations experience at high-tech companies. During his career, Rob has been involved in raising more than $100 million in venture and debt financing, and he has navigated through two acquisitions. At OneChip, Rob is responsible for all aspects of finance and administration, including financial reporting and strategic tax and business planning. Before joining OneChip, Rob was Chief Financial Officer at eBillme, a leading online alternative payment provider. Previously, Rob was Vice President of Finance and Operations at Solace Systems Corporation and Vice President of Finance and Operations at AssetMetrix Corporation. Rob also has held senior finance positions with start-ups Optovation Corporation and Waterfall Networks and with public companies Crosskeys Systems Corporation and Mitel Corporation.

John Mein

VP of Worldwide Sales

John has 30 years of sales management experience in the optoelectronics and semiconductor industries. He has a successful track record of building global sales teams and growing company revenues – particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Most recently, he was Vice President of Sales & Marketing at iamba Networks, where he was instrumental in securing key design wins for the company’s GPON chipsets in Europe, the U.S., Korea, China and Taiwan. During his tenure as VP of Sales for Teknovus, John successfully sold the company’s GEPON chipsets to leading system vendors and carriers in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan and grew the company’s revenues by more than 200 percent. He also successfully grew sales forces and revenues in previous Worldwide Sales VP positions at Quake Technologies and Galileo Technology, Inc.

Dr. Wayne Sharfin

VP of Engineering

Wayne has more than 15 years experience in the development of new optical components technology and products. Most recently, he was the founding VP of Engineering at Aegis Lightwave, where he led the development of a proprietary tunable filter technology. Earlier, Wayne was the Director of Pump Laser and Packaging Development at Lasertron, which was purchased by Corning in 2000. Prior to his career in product development, he performed research on active optical devices. He has been the chairman or an invited contributor to many international technical conferences on subjects such as semiconductor laser modulation, pump lasers for optical fiber amplifiers and nonlinear optical switching.

Dan Meerovich

VP of Global Manufacturing Operations

Dan is a senior operations executive with more than 26 years of optical communications industry experience and a successful track record of growing and streamlining operations, while exceeding sales and profit targets. Most recently, he was VP of Operations at Xtellus, which was acquired by Oclaro Inc. in 2009. One year after the acquisition, he was instrumental in increasing revenue by 50%, while increasing labor efficiency by 70%. He also expanded the company’s R&D and manufacturing capabilities in Korea and Thailand. Previously, Dan was VP of Manufacturing Operations at Multiplex Inc., where he established and managed a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary in China. He also held senior-level operations positions at Asip Inc./Apogee Photonics Inc., JDS Uniphase and Tyco/Laser Diode Inc.

Andy Weirich

VP Product Line Management

Andy has more than 26 years telecommunications industry product development management experience (ranging from Digital Signal Processing systems to Broadband Access and Optical Transport Systems), as well as executive management experience. He was most recently VP Products and Technology at Ciena Networks, and a co-founder and VP of System Architecture at Catena Networks.

Yit Lee

GM Asia Pacific and VP Business Development

Yit has more than 20 years business development and operations management experience, especially in the Asia Pacific region. He was most recently VP Asia Pacific at Ciena Networks, and prior to that held the positions of GM and Managing Director for Asia at Catena Networks and COO of Team-Linux and Vestel USA.

Steve Bauer

VP Marketing and Communications

Steve is a Marketing, Communications and PR executive with more than 20 years experience and a successful track record at start-up and Fortune 500 companies such as Catena Networks, SAP, Cisco Systems, Tellabs and Siemens. Prior to joining OneChip, he was VP of Global Communications at SAP and VP of Corporate Communications & Marketing at Catena Networks, where he effectively positioned Catena as a leading provider of broadband access solutions and helped the company grow its revenues to $100 million in three years.

Doug Cooper

VP Regulatory and Market Development

Doug has more than 19 years of experience in telecommunications law, including serving in a variety of positions during his 10-year tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, and a successful track record of coalition building and customer outreach for policy matters affecting the deployment of broadband access networks. Doug was VP of Regulatory and Market Development at Catena Networks prior to its acquisition by Ciena Corporation. While at Ciena, Doug authored a blog on telecommunications policy and consumer issues for more than three years.

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