Giovanni Barbarossa

Chief Strategy Officer

Giovanni Barbarossa joined Coherent Corp. in 2012 and has been the Chief Strategy Officer of the company since 2019. From 2019 to 2025, he was also President of the Materials Segment. From 2012 to 2019, Dr. Barbarossa was the Chief Technology Officer of the company and President of the Laser Solutions Segment.

Previously, Dr. Barbarossa was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Avanex Corporation until its merger with Bookham plc. into Oclaro, Inc., of which he was a member of the Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012. Before joining Avanex pre-IPO, Dr. Barbarossa had management responsibilities at British Telecom Labs, AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard.

Dr. Barbarossa holds 118 U.S. patents and has published over 100 papers. He graduated cum laude from the University of Bari, Italy, with a B.S. in electrical engineering, and has a Ph.D. in photonics from the University of Glasgow, U.K.