Nottenburg Joins Sonus Networks As Chief Executive

It didn't take Richard Nottenburg long to rebound from the loss of his job as Motorola's chief strategy and technology officer: He will join Sonus Networks next month as the company's president and CEO.

Nottenburg resigned his Motorola post Friday, and this week Sonus announced he will join the company in mid-June. Nottenburg is the latest in a long line of top-level executives who have exited Motorola, which has been seeking to stabilize itself after several months of management turmoil.

"He worked closely with senior executives from operators across the globe during his tenure at Motorola," Hassan Ahmed, Sonus' chairman, president, and CEO, said in a statement. "Rich's strong focus on customers along with his strategic sense and business acumen make him the right leader." Ahmed will continue in his role as board chairman.

With a background as a research scientist and entrepreneur, Nottenburg has dual skills to direct Sonus' product development and to manage its business. He has a doctorate from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland and early in his business career he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories where his work won him designation as a Lucent pioneer.

Nottenburg was the co-founder of mixed-signal and VLSI provider Multilink Technology, which was merged into Vitesse Semiconductor in 2003. He joined Motorola in 2004 as chief strategy officer and later picked up the CTO post as well. At Motorola, he was deeply involved in the company's work in broadband, 4G, fiber to the home, and next-generation video.

Sonus is a major player in carrier-grade IP voice communications and sells its gear to large telecommunications carriers, including the largest five companies in the field. Revenue at Sonus has grown at a compound average rate of more than 36% in the last five years.

Nottenburg is a director of Comverse Technology and a member of the institutional advisory board of Carmel Ventures, an Israel-based venture capital fund.