Ciena appoints Benoit de la Tour as Vice President and General Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa

Ciena® Corporation has announced the appointment of Benoit de la Tour as Vice President and General Manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He will lead the next evolution of Ciena’s growth in EMEA as the company deepens its relationships with service provider and enterprise customers and partners across the region.

With more than 20 years of experience in sales, services and marketing in the software industry, Benoit de la Tour will guide Ciena’s EMEA customers and partners as they transform their networks to handle high-bandwidth services and applications, such as cloud computing, bandwidth-on-demand and software defined networking (SDN). He will also provide strategic counsel to enable service provider and enterprise customers to adopt an OPnnetwork approach that leverages the company’s expertise in optical, packet and software for greater network intelligence, automation and application awareness.

Philippe Morin, senior vice president, global field operations, at Ciena comments, “Networks across EMEA and the globe are shifting toward converged architectures that are more open and programmable. It is critical that we support our customers and partners as they evolve, modernise and monetise their networks to handle growing bandwidth and connectivity demands. Benoit brings valuable experience to Ciena that will be vital as we reinforce our focus across EMEA and make this network transformation possible.”

Benoit de la Tour, vice president and general manager EMEA at Ciena comments, “Ciena’s portfolio and deep expertise in converged packet-optical networking and software automation, as well as our next-generation network architecture, OPn, will enable our customers and partners to adapt to the pace of change within the industry. I look forward to partnering with our customers to develop strategic networking solutions, extract additional value from their networks and unleash a myriad of new service offerings to grow their market share.”

Most recently, Benoit de la Tour served as vice president, EMEA and Latin America at Microsoft, driving transformations to ensure business performance and long-term growth within its Business Solutions Division (MBS). Prior to Microsoft, he held a number of executive positions at Infor and Information Builders, two leading companies in the Enterprise Business Applications space. Benoit de la Tour will be based at Ciena’s EMEA headquarters in London.