Darryl Edwards, President and CEO of ECI Telecom, has stepped down as planned following the recent acquisition of the company by Ribbon.
Edwards joined ECI in June 2012, with the goal of re-establishing ECI’s reputation for innovation and breaking boundaries in the telecommunications industry. Under his leadership, ECI has made significant investments in research and development and refreshed its product portfolio with new packet and optical product lines, making the transition to SDN and NFV.
“We’re immensely grateful for the great work that Darryl has done in cementing ECI’s place as an innovation leader in the packet and optical networking space,” said Bruce McClelland, CEO and President of Ribbon. “We are now very focused on executing on our strategy to significantly scale the ECI business by leveraging the strong foundation that Ribbon has with major Service Providers and Enterprise customers around the world, particularly as we enter the 5G networking era.”
“It has been a great pleasure to lead ECI for the past eight years. During this time, the industry has changed dramatically, and so did ECI,” added Mr. Edwards. “When I became CEO of ECI, we had to re-assert ECI’s innovation and put it back at the heart of the company. We’ve since become a pioneer in the industry, supporting a large number of customers, helping them realize their ambitions with our unique elastic network philosophy and approach. The merger with Ribbon is a natural and positive next step for ECI as it looks to continue to expand its global presence.”
Ribbon completes merger with ECI Telecom
Ribbon Communications completed its previously announced acquisition of ECI Telecom Group, which supplies packet-optical transport and SDN/NFV solutions for service providers, enterprises, and data center operators.
The newly combined company will offer an extensive portfolio of advanced voice, security, data and optical networking solutions. In addition to extending the company’s solutions portfolio into adjacent markets, the merger advances Ribbon’s strategy of expanding into the service provider 5G data domain with bundled network analytics, intelligence and security offerings. The newly combined company allows Ribbon to enhance and broaden its existing customer offerings with ECI’s industry-leading packet optical transport solutions.
“We are thrilled to welcome ECI to the Ribbon family,” said Bruce McClelland, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ribbon. “Our expanded product offering combines ECI’s leadership in packet optical networking with our existing proven portfolio of software-based, real-time communications security, analytics and digital transformation solutions. Our new organization will leverage the strength and presence of our global sales force to create a very formidable market leader in the communications industry.”
