Carl DeWilde, former head of Tellabs broadband products, is leaving soon

Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief

April 16, 2008

1 Min Read
DeWilde's Ride Ending at Tellabs

Carl DeWilde, the executive in charge of global sales and strategy for Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB; Frankfurt: BTLA), is retiring and will leave the company at the end of May, Light Reading has learned.

DeWilde is one of the few outside senior executive hires brought in by Krish Prabhu, the former CEO of Tellabs, back in 2004.

His titles held at Tellabs followed a technology theme until very recently. First, DeWilde was executive VP of access products. Then he was executive VP of broadband products.

But before Tellabs changed CEOs earlier this year, DeWilde, 60, was moved to a sales and strategy role with responsibility for a larger portion of the company.

Prior to Tellabs, DeWilde was known for his technology leadership and his ability to recruit and build engineering and product teams. He was once a VP of development at Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. in its optical transport and data access business. After leaving Fujitsu, DeWilde served as CTO of Xtera Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: XCOM)

Shortly after DeWilde took on his global sales role at Tellabs, the company announced it was no longer going to be a supplier of GPON equipment to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), its largest broadband access customer, citing economic reasons. (See Tellabs Kills Its Verizon GPON Efforts.)

Now that DeWilde is leaving, sources say Tellabs will soon begin looking for a chief technology officer, a role the vendor hasn't filled since January 2007, when it decided to decentralize technology strategy decisions. (See Tellabs CTO Retires.) — Phil Harvey, Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Phil Harvey

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Phil Harvey has been a Light Reading writer and editor for more than 18 years combined. He began his second tour as the site's chief editor in April 2020.

His interest in speed and scale means he often covers optical networking and the foundational technologies powering the modern Internet.

Harvey covered networking, Internet infrastructure and dot-com mania in the late 90s for Silicon Valley magazines like UPSIDE and Red Herring before joining Light Reading (for the first time) in late 2000.

After moving to the Republic of Texas, Harvey spent eight years as a contributing tech writer for D CEO magazine, producing columns about tech advances in everything from supercomputing to cellphone recycling.

Harvey is an avid photographer and camera collector – if you accept that compulsive shopping and "collecting" are the same.

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