Ciena has announced a series of C-suite appointments.

Grant Hoffman joins the firm from Hewlett Packard (HP) as chief supply chain officer, while company stalwart Brodie Gage has been elevated to chief product and technology officer (CPTO). Both will report to CEO Gary Smith and serve on the company’s Executive Leadership Team.

“As demand for our technology continues to grow, our ability to scale and optimize our supply chain is critical to delivering for our customers. Equally, tightening alignment between product and technology strategy strengthens our ability to bring differentiated innovation to market,” said Smith. “[Hoffman] and [Gage] each bring deep expertise and leadership that will build on our strong foundation and position us for continued success.”

Hoffman joins the firm, having served as HP’s SVP for operations and solutions delivery.

Prior to this, he held positions at Motorola and subsequently moved to Google in 2012 following its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a unit that was later divested to Lenovo after two years.

Gage, meanwhile, has been at Ciena since 2010, having served in several leadership roles across Ciena’s product organization, most recently as SVP of global product and supply chain. Prior to Ciena, the exec was director of product management and business development at defunct telecom giant Nortel.

His expanded role will see Gage lead product line management and solutions engineering while also driving Ciena’s innovation agenda. Ciena’s CTO role has been rolled into Gage’s CPTO remit following the retirement of the long-serving Steve Alexander.

“It is an exciting time to join Ciena as AI continues to drive significant demand for high-performance network infrastructure, where the company holds a clear leadership position,” Hoffman said following his appointment. “Ciena has built a highly capable supply chain with a strong and trusted reputation for execution. I look forward to scaling these operations and further strengthening delivery for our customers.”

“Ciena’s innovation has always been grounded in a deep understanding of our customers and the networks they are building,” Gage added. “A dedicated focus on product and technology leadership together, in partnership with our R&D team, will enable us to move faster, execute with greater consistency, and continue delivering high-impact solutions that address our customers’ evolving needs.”

The supply chain-centric addition comes as Ciena rides the AI wave, taking advantage of its products being key to powering high-speed connectivity for intense workloads. However, ongoing component crunches are impacting the industry, with CFO Marc Graff previously outlining the firm’s “meaningfully higher backlog” worth around $7 billion – with nearly all new orders now queued for 2027 delivery.

In conversation with SDxCentral, CEO Smith said Ciena’s number one strategic and operational imperative is to “scale supply in all its forms.” The Ciena chief said that he expects a supply-demand equilibrium by 2028 – a similar timeframe to that seen in the ongoing memory shortage.

“I'd like to give a different answer to that, but in my honest opinion, everybody's working very hard throughout the whole ecosystem to scale up components, manufacturing, the whole thing. But the reality is that demand is continuing to outstrip supply," Smith said in May. "I do think that at some point, you've got to get to sort of a balance that those things meet, and my best feeling about that is toward the end of '28.”