Lee Xu

Executive Vice President, Datacenter

Dr. Lee Xu is Executive Vice President, Datacenter, at Coherent Corp., a role he assumed in 2025 after serving as EVP of the Datacom Transceivers Business Unit. A seasoned leader in optical communications, Dr. Xu has driven innovation and growth in the industry for nearly three decades. Before joining Coherent (formerly II-VI) via its 2019 acquisition of Finisar Corporation, Dr. Xu had held various roles at Finisar since 2008, including General Manager of Finisar China and GM of the Transceivers BU. Under his leadership, the transceivers business tripled to multi-billions of dollars over seven years, solidifying Coherent’s global market leadership position in this field.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Xu held engineering and managerial positions at Hewlett-Packard, Tyco Electronics, and Intel (1996–2008). In 2000, he co-founded Paracer in Silicon Valley, a startup pioneering high-density optical interconnects, serving as its President and CTO until its acquisition by Stratos Lightwave in 2002.

Dr. Xu holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He holds 15 U.S. patents and has authored 10+ technical papers.