Ciena appoints new head of Japan to lead continued growth

Ciena has appointed Kazuyasu Takahashias Vice President and General Manager of its Japan business. His extensive industry expertise will help network providers adapt and scale as they continue to innovate and extend their leadership.

Kazuyasu Takahashijoins Ciena after spending 14 years at Cisco, where he most recently served as Managing Director of Service Provider Operations in Japan. As head of Ciena Japan, he will be responsible for continuing to build an ecosystem of innovation, overseeing sales and implementing channel development strategies with the goal of providing the best experience and solutions for customers.

“Japan is at the forefront of 5G, artificial intelligence and IoT, and it has some of the most voracious consumers of mobile broadband,” said Rick Seeto, Ciena’s Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific and Japan. “The country’s focus on innovation underpins a need for highly adaptive and intelligent networks, which is the reason that Japan is such a strategic market for Ciena. With Kazuyasu Takahashi’s leadership, we will execute on the next phase of our promise to deliver high quality experiences to our customers to strengthen their position in market.”

Ciena currently serves more than 1,500 customers worldwide. In Japan, Ciena’s customers include several major service providers, a number of large enterprises across the financial, government, research and education sectors, as well as over-the-top (OTT) content providers and submarine cable operators.

Kazuyasu Takahashiwill work closely with Hiroyuki Kume, previously President of Ciena Japan, who will continue to focus and drive customer relationships in a newly established role as Senior Executive Advisor.

-CT Bureau