SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Infinera today announced that Rusty Cumpston has joined the company as Vice President of Systems Engineering, to expand the senior leadership team and help drive Infinera’s strategy as the company grows to support its worldwide customer base.

Rusty Cumpston has extensive experience in engineering and senior management in the optical networking and software industries in private and public companies. From 1998 to 2002, Mr. Cumpston served as VP of Engineering and then Chief Operating Officer at ONI Systems, a pioneer in metro DWDM optical systems. ONI joined the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in 2000 and was acquired by Ciena Corporation in 2002. Prior to joining Infinera, Mr. Cumpston served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at XenSource Inc.

As VP of Systems Engineering, Mr. Cumpston will manage hardware and software engineering for the Infinera DTN system and future extensions of the platform. The Infinera DTN has established a strong market presence in long-haul and metro networks worldwide and Infinera intends to leverage its unique technology to broaden the Infinera DTN’s features and capabilities.

“I’m excited to be part of the Infinera team,” said Rusty Cumpston. “Infinera’s business is growing, a great team is in place and new opportunities are emerging where we can innovate and enable service providers to meet their expanding optical transport needs.”

“Rusty will be a valuable addition to our seasoned management team as we continue to grow our business, build out our product portfolio, and support our growing roster of worldwide customers,” said Infinera co-founder and CEO Jagdeep Singh.

Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN)