Lumentum Holdings changes CEO

On February 3, 2025, Lumentum Holdings has appointed Michael Hurlston as its President, CEO, and Director, effective from February 7. Hurlston replaces Alan Lowe, who has been serving as the company's President and CEO since 2015. Lowe will continue to serve as a member of Lumentum's board of directors and as a consultant to the company.

Lumentum is a major supplier of high-speed optical transceivers for AI data centers, as well as other product portfolios such as optical communication components, industrial lasers, and 3D sensors.

The company stated that Lowe has been serving as its President and CEO since Lumentum was spun off from JDS Uniphase's former laser division in 2015, and will continue to serve as a member of its board of directors and advisor.

Helston currently serves as the CEO of Synaptics, a wireless connectivity and GPS technology provider listed on NASDAQ, but he is not unfamiliar with the field of optical communications. He previously served as the CEO of Finisar shortly before its acquisition by II-VI (now Coherent).

Prior to this, Helston served as the General Manager of Broadcom's Mobile Connectivity Division. This UC Davis graduate has worked at Oren Semiconductor, Inc., Avasem, Integrated Circuit Systems, Micro Power Systems, Exar, and IC Works.

The development momentum of AI data centers
Penny Herscher, Chairman of Lumentum's Board of Directors, stated in a press release announcing the leadership change: We are delighted to welcome Michael as CEO of Lumentum, as we have just concluded a strong first half of our fiscal year. We believe that he will help us continue and develop the strong momentum in our current cloud/artificial intelligence data center strategy, and achieve success in the network and industrial markets, contributing to accelerating our growth trajectory over the years.

Hulston will officially assume the position of CEO on February 7th, the day after Lumentum plans to announce its latest quarterly financial results. At the time of his appointment, Lumentum's high-speed optical transceiver products were in high demand in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) data center applications.

Last week, due to the sudden rise of DeepSeek AI competitors, people's confidence in the business seemed to be shaken, and Lumentum and several tech stocks depreciated significantly. However, in the long run, Lumentum's stock price is currently around $86, up more than 50% from a year ago.

In contrast, in August 2015, JDSU's business was split into Lumentum and Viavi Solutions, with an issue price slightly below $20.
Since then, Lumentum has continued to grow and expand its business, acquiring competitor Oclaro in 2018, component manufacturer NeoPhotonics in 2022, and transceiver expert Cloud Light in 2023. In addition, Apple has a huge demand for optical 3D sensing components, and this situation is repeating itself in the AI data center craze.

However, during Lowe's tenure, the company also missed the opportunity to acquire laser company Coherent. The merger announced by the two companies in early 2021 sparked a bidding war, with MKS Instruments also involved, and ultimately II-VI emerged as the winner. When Coherent cancelled the original agreement, Lumentum received over $200 million in termination fees.

With the change of CEO, Lumentum revealed that its sales for the December quarter will reach approximately $402 million, slightly higher than the range predicted in November. The complete performance report will be released after the US stock market closes on February 6th.

Source: Yangtze River Delta Laser Alliance