RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Networking systems, services and software company, Ciena (NYSE: CIEN), has appointed Chris Bayly as Managing Director of Saudi Arabia. Bayly is responsible for Ciena’s regional strategy and business operations, focusing on addressing customer needs and opportunities in the market.

“The Middle East region is an important market for Ciena, especially with the exciting opportunities unfolded by the Saudi Vision 2030 national agenda,” said Virginie Hollebecque, Vice President and Leader of Europe, Middle East, and Africa at Ciena. “With Chris’ strong leadership and deep-rooted knowledge of the industry, we are confident in continuing our momentum in the region, while supporting this pivotal time in Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation journey.”

“Joining Ciena during a time when the company is aligning its cutting-edge networking solutions with Saudi’s transformative plans is a privilege. Drawing on decades of regional industry insight, I look forward to expanding Ciena’s relationships with customers in the region,” said Chris Bayly, Managing Director of Saudi Arabia, Ciena. “My focus will be to support Ciena's mission of enabling a connected and thriving digital economy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

With over 30 years of industry experience, Bayly joins Ciena from Aqua Comms, where he was Chief Commercial Officer for the last six years. His experience also includes running the Middle East and Africa region for Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), where he spent eight years working on establishing a network infrastructure in the region. Bayly began his career at Nortel Networks in the United Kingdom.

Ciena has been active in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East for close to 15 years. Through its leading network innovations, the company continues to work with service providers throughout the region to build adaptive and more sustainable networks that address surging bandwidth demands. 

-Ends-

About Ciena

Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is a global leader in networking systems, services, and software. We build the most adaptive networks in the industry, enabling customers to anticipate and meet ever-increasing digital demands. For three-plus decades, Ciena has brought our humanity to our relentless pursuit of innovation. Prioritizing collaborative relationships with our customers, partners, and communities, we create flexible, open, and sustainable networks that better serve all users—today and into the future. For updates on Ciena, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, the Ciena Insights blog, or visit www.ciena.com.

Note to Ciena Investors

You are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that are based on our current expectations, forecasts, information and assumptions. These statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties.  Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those stated or implied, because of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed in our most recent annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our  expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies and can be identified by words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Press Contact:                  
Marina Prontelli         
Ciena Corporation 
pr@ciena.com

Investor Contact:                  
Gregg Lampf
Ciena Corporation
ir@ciena.com