Andreas Umbach (CEO) holds a Dipl. Phys. degree from Technical University Berlin. In 1989 he joined the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut where he worked on the development of Indium-Phosphide based optoelectronic integrates circuits comprising High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) and high-speed waveguide-integrated photodiodes. In 1998 he and two colleagues founded the company u²t Photonics AG as a spin-off from HHI, which became a leading supplier for ultrafast devices for optical fiber communications. As CEO he lead the acquisitions of LKF Advanced Optics GmbH, u2t Photonics UK from rfmd and COGO GmbH. In January 2014 he sold u²t Photonics AG to Finisar Corp. and served as a Vice President, General Manger and CTO of Finisar Germany GmbH. Andreas Umbach served as member of the technical programme committee of the International Conference on Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) and of the IEEE Microwave Photonics Conference (MWP). He is currently member of the Technical Program Committee of the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC).