NYSE: CIEN

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•Cloud Providers. Our cloud provider customers – also referred to in our markets as web-scale, hyper-scale or neo-scale providers – include internet content providers and providers of internet services and infrastructure, including data centers, cloud compute, Software as a Service (“SaaS”), storage, AI, and web hosting services. In addition to their direct purchases, these customers have also been significant purchasers of capacity on service provider submarine and wireline networks globally, and have heavily influenced networking solution demand and technology and architecture adopted by service providers.

•Service Providers. Our communications service provider (“service provider”) customers include regional, metro, national and international wireline and wireless carriers, submarine network operators, and access network providers. In recent years, service providers have offered managed optical fiber networks (MOFN) arrangements to cloud providers who, driven by the need to add capacity quickly and to address restrictions in some jurisdictions on fiber ownership, lease or otherwise acquire dedicated, high-performance connectivity without needing to manage the physical infrastructure themselves.

•Other Customers. Our customers also include cable and multiservice operators (MSOs), governments, research and education network operators, and enterprises.

Market Dynamics

Demand for Increased Capacity

The markets into which we sell are dynamic and characterized by a high rate of change. Networks continue to experience strong demand for increased bandwidth due to traffic growth, primarily driven by the impact of AI on networks.

Impact of AI on Networks. Unprecedented AI workloads are driving substantial changes in how compute and networking infrastructure are designed and operated, and creating greater demands for high-speed connectivity. Training large-scale AI and foundation models requires massive, coupled GPU clusters that require immense bandwidth, low latency, and power efficiency. These growing demands are influencing data center locations and contributing to greater geographic distribution of training workloads. At the same time, the need to monetize AI infrastructure investment and deploy models at scale is making inferencing a primary driver of low-latency, high-capacity networking investment across regions and edge locations, closer to end users. Collectively, these trends are accelerating demand for high bandwidth, low-latency and energy-efficient network solutions in and around data centers and across the wide area network.

Other services, technologies, and customer needs driving demand for increased bandwidth include:

•Network Densification. In recent years there has been a shift in bandwidth demands, traffic patterns, and computing functions to the edge of networks. Wireline service providers are responding to similar service and end customer demands by extending fiber to the home and deeper into access networks. With a higher percentage of data flows concentrating closer to the network edge, more capacity and higher bandwidth to home and enterprise locations are required.

•Cloud-Based Services. Enterprises and consumers continue to replace locally-housed computing and storage by adopting a broad array of innovative cloud-based models – including Platform as a Service (PaaS), SaaS and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – and an expanding range of cloud-based services that host key applications, store data, enable the viewing and downloading of content, and utilize on-demand computing resources. In addition, content is increasingly moving to the network edge, creating capacity and traffic demands closer to the user.

•Mobile Traffic. Traffic from mobile web applications, including video, internet, and data services, has expanded with the continued proliferation of smartphones and other wireless devices. Because much of wireless traffic ultimately travels across a wireline network to reach its destination, growth in mobile communications continues to place higher demands upon wireline networks, including the backhaul and fronthaul portions of networks emanating from cell sites.

•High Definition Video Streaming and Over-the-Top (“OTT”) Services. OTT content refers to video, multimedia and other applications provided directly from the content source to the viewer or end user across a third-party network. Traffic from streaming and OTT services, including high definition and ultra-high definition video, has expanded with the increased availability of, and end-user demand for, video content accessible through a variety of devices and media.

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We believe that these and other emerging technologies, services, and applications, and their associated performance requirements, will further increase network traffic and place additional service challenges on network infrastructures. We also believe that, in turn, network operators will be required to invest in their metro, access, and aggregation networks, as well as their core networks.

Approaches to Design and Procurement of Network Infrastructure

For the past several years, certain network operators have been pursuing a diverse range of approaches, or “consumption models,” in their design and procurement of network infrastructure solutions. In addition to purchasing fully integrated network solutions that include hardware, software and services from the same vendor, new consumption models have emerged that have separated or disaggregated hardware from software. Disaggregated hardware architectures have emerged whereby a network operator may use a line system from one vendor and modem technology from a different vendor. Similarly, with small form factor pluggable modems technology, a network operator can purchase the switch or routing platform from one vendor and modem technology from a different vendor. Certain network operators are seeking to procure underlying technologies within network solutions to allow them to work with other design and manufacturing partners.

The consumption models that ultimately emerge will depend heavily on the circumstances and strategies of certain network operators. We expect that customer consideration of a variety of consumption models will require network operators and vendors to broaden their offerings and commercial models. We believe this dynamic will ultimately place a premium on a vendor’s ability to provide a range of network solutions and underlying technologies.

Demand for Network Transformation

In the face of increasing demands on their networks, service providers globally are engaging in large network transformation efforts that aim to simplify and reduce operational costs and create agile, software-driven platforms from which to develop new revenue-generating services. As part of these efforts, service providers are reimagining legacy processes, automation, and AI in their network infrastructure to enhance customer loyalty, reduce operational complexity and costs, and introduce greater agility.

We believe that adoption of these network transformation strategies and the related evolution of core, metro, aggregation and access network infrastructures, will require network operators and their network solutions vendors to increasingly utilize software-enabled automation and AI.

Strategy

Our strategy is to build on and expand our global leadership in optical networking to drive sustainable, profitable growth while expanding our reach into complementary, high-growth markets and applications. We are focused on helping customers transform their networks to enable enhanced network capacity, service delivery, and automation and to meet accelerating demand for bandwidth and digital services. This strategy leverages our optical leadership, routing and switching capabilities, automation software, and services.

We work to execute this strategy across five core pillars:

Expand Leadership in Optical Networking Systems. At the heart of our business is our industry-leading portfolio of optical transport and switching systems, powered by our proprietary WaveLogic™ coherent modem technology and supported by our advanced photonic line systems. These systems deliver network performance, scalability, energy efficiency, and operational simplicity across long-haul, submarine, metro, and regional networks and data center interconnect. This includes products supported by our WaveLogic Extreme technology, which delivers optimized performance, and our next-generation photonic line systems, which enable flexible architectures for both new and expanded network deployments. Through innovations in line system architectures, space and power optimization, and software-driven control, our optical platforms allow customers to meet increased growth in high-capacity services efficiently and sustainably.

Scale Market Presence with Interconnect Modules. A key element of our growth strategy is to expand our market relevance inside and around the data center. Accordingly, we are increasingly prioritizing technology development that addresses the interconnection of data centers (“DCI”) and data center campuses, as well as scale up, scale out, and scale across solutions that address intra-rack, inter-rack and inter-data center connectivity. This includes products supported by our WaveLogic Nano technology, which supports ultra-high speed connections for AI infrastructure and delivers compact coherent connectivity for metro, regional, and DCI environments. We also offer specialized electrical and optical interconnect pluggables and other components, including new technology solutions from our acquisition of Nubis Communications, Inc. (“Nubis”) during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.

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Grow Addressable Market in Next-Generation Metro and Edge Networking. We are extending our solutions into metro and edge architectures by integrating Internet Protocol (“IP”) routing with coherent optical technologies. These solutions enable operators to achieve improved network effectiveness, including with respect to power and space, and reduce the total cost of ownership. And, in addition to using our passive optical networking (“PON”) technologies for enterprise and residential broadband applications, we have expanded their use into data center-related applications, including out-of-band data center management (“DCOM”), a low-latency independent management plane used to remotely manage and troubleshoot data center infrastructure that provides operational, power and space benefits to data center operators.

Drive Software-Led Transformation. We are committed to meeting network operators’ needs for increasing automation, programmability, and intelligence across networks, including through our primary off-box software platforms. Our Navigator NCS software, Adaptive IP capabilities embedded in our platforms, and Blue Planet® software enable network operators to automate lifecycle management, orchestrate across multi-vendor environments, and evolve toward service-ready networks. We also seek to increase the overall proportion of our revenue derived from software by aligning opportunities and facilitating collaboration across our sales teams.

Deliver Innovative Global Services. We are working to expand our services portfolio, which supports customers with network planning and design, multivendor migration, deployment, and optimization. By engaging closely with customers, we seek to deliver advanced, tailored services designed to modernize and transform their networks, to maximize the value of their investments, and to accelerate time-to-market for new capabilities. At the same time, we are investing in our services capabilities, with greater tools for automation, adoption of AI, and delivery capabilities.

Through our efforts to advance leadership in coherent optical networking, scale our interconnect products into new markets, integrate IP-optical architectures for metro and edge, drive network automation through software, and deliver high-value lifecycle services, we believe we are well positioned to support our customers’ most critical network needs.

Products and Services

Our portfolio of products and services includes the solutions described below within our Networking Platforms, Platform Software and Services, Blue Planet Automation Software and Services, and Global Services operating segments.

Networking Platforms

Our Networking Platforms segment consists of our Optical Networking and Routing and Switching portfolios.

Optical Networking. Our Optical Networking portfolio includes a range of products that use our WaveLogic coherent optical technology, intelligent photonics solutions and other key components, including lasers, modulators, optical amplifiers, and wavelength multiplexers for efficient signal transmission and management. These products are often combined and sold as solutions that address network applications including cloud and AI networking, datacenter interconnect, long haul, metro, submarine connectivity, and MOFN. Key products within this portfolio include:

•6500 Packet-Optical Platform. A multi-layer transport solution that adds capacity to core, regional, metro and submarine networks and enables efficient data transport at high transmission speeds. This platform provides coherent wavelength capacities, along with a flexible photonic layer and multi-layer control plane capabilities.

•Waveserver® system. Compact, modular interconnect platforms that allow network operators to scale bandwidth and support high-bandwidth interconnect applications, including encrypted data transfer between data centers. Waveserver is designed to address disaggregated transponder, data center, and general space-constrained applications, using a small footprint and low power design.

•6500 Reconfigurable Line System (“RLS”). A disaggregated intelligent photonic optical line system that is modular and programmable, and is designed to simplify and automate the deployment and operation of flexible, high-capacity networks. It enables dynamic wavelength routing, amplification, and monitoring for modern adaptive network architectures.

•Coherent Pluggable Transceivers. Footprint-optimized transceivers that utilize our WaveLogic technology, to address next-generation access, metro, regional and data center interconnect network applications, for use within our systems and third-party equipment.

Our Optical Networking portfolio will also include interconnect products acquired through our acquisition of Nubis, which occurred during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.

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Routing and Switching. Our Routing and Switching portfolio includes a range of products, enabled by our next-generation service-aware IP operating system, that allow customers to route, aggregate, and switch IP-based traffic to support applications that include IP services. These products are often combined and sold as solutions that address network applications including next-generation metro, access and aggregation, or “edge” networks, Ethernet business services, cell site routing, fiber-based access networks, and residential broadband access. We also use these products to create our DCOM solution. Key products within this portfolio include:

•3000 family of Service Delivery Platforms and 5000 family of Service Aggregation Platforms. These platforms support network access and aggregation, respectively, and support IP and Ethernet business services, wireless fronthaul, backhaul, and midhaul applications, and residential broadband applications.

•8100 Coherent Routing platforms. These platforms combine high-capacity multi-terabit IP routing and switching with high-capacity coherent optical transport for next-generation metro and edge applications.

•Virtualization Software. Includes a cloud-grade router and software for enterprise and cloud networks that enable hardware-like routing performance for enterprises across multi-cloud and virtualized edge networks.

Platform Software and Services

Our software offerings also include our Platform Software, which provide domain control management, analytics, data and planning tools and applications to assist customers in managing their networks, including by creating more efficient operations and more proactive visibility into their networks. Key offerings within this segment include:

•Navigator NCS. This software solution provides intelligent, multi-layer network control of our routing, switching and optical solutions, enabling simplification, acceleration, and automation of multi-layer network operations. The software is modular and can include a domain controller as well as control and analytics applications.

•Platform Software Services. To complement our Platform Software portfolio, we offer a range of related services that include software subscription services, consulting, network migration and integration, installation and upgrade support services, and technical support relating to our Platform Software offerings.

Blue Planet Automation Software and Services

Our Blue Planet Automation Software is a comprehensive, cloud native, standards-based software portfolio that enables our service provider customers to accelerate their digital transformation. We believe digital transformation is critical for service providers to reduce the cost and complexity of their OSS, to reduce customizations, and to help them monetize their networks by automating service delivery across multiple vendors and domains. Key offerings within this segment include:

•Blue Planet Automation Software. This software includes a suite of solutions for inventory management, multi-domain service orchestration, multi-cloud orchestration, route optimization and analysis, and unified assurance and analytics. The portfolio allows operators to fulfill services rapidly and to meet end-customer quality-of-experience expectations through an entire services lifecycle approach. It also advances network operators towards their vision of self-healing and self-optimizing networks through closed loop automation.

•Blue Planet Services. To complement our software portfolio, we offer a range of related services that include professional services, consulting and design, and technical support relating to our Blue Planet software offerings.

Global Services

We offer a broad suite of services that help our customers to build, operate, and improve their networks. We believe that our services offerings, and our close collaboration with our customers, provide us with insight into the network and business challenges they face, allowing us to provide services to meet their desired business outcomes. We continue to broaden our advanced services capabilities with offerings including systems integration, multi-vendor migration, and transformation.

Key offerings within this segment include:

•Advisory and Enablement. Consulting services to enhance network performance, and design or migrate to next-generation infrastructures.

•Implementation. Installation and deployment services intended to ensure proper implementation of networks, including systems integration to integrate third-party solutions.

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•Maintenance, Support and Learning. Maintenance and support services that provide end-to-end support for network hardware and software, and managed services to coordinate network infrastructure operations.

Product Development

To remain competitive, we continually invest in our solutions offerings to address new market opportunities, add new features and functionality, and ensure alignment with market demand. Through our development efforts, we seek to develop products that support network operators as they pursue new business models and optimize their network performance and economics, and address a range of consumption models for networking solutions. We also seek to advance our shared desire to manage power consumption and minimize the environmental impact of these network assets. Our current development efforts are focused on:

•Optical technology:

◦Coherent optical technology: material systems, advanced digital signal processing techniques and other high speed design architectures to improve capacity, reach, spectral efficiency, and power in both the electronic and electro-optic domains, including through further advancement of our WaveLogic technology;

◦Short reach interconnect solutions and components: high-capacity connectivity components to enable data center operators to reduce power and space and to address increasing AI workloads;

•Photonic line systems: design techniques and integration to achieve space and power reductions, and advanced software configuration and management of ultra-high scale transcontinental photonic networks, including through line system advances to address multi-rail applications and enable greater densification of existing fiber and optical amplifier infrastructures;

•IP routing software: next-generation IP routing protocols optimized for converged IP-optical networking and focused on edge aggregation through the core of the network; and

•Next-generation software: software and AI powered advanced applications that are secure and allow customers to optimize the planning, configuring and management of their networks.

Our research and development efforts are also geared toward portfolio optimization and engineering changes intended to drive product and manufacturing cost reductions. We regularly review our existing solutions offerings and prospective development of new features, components, or products to determine their fit within our portfolio and broader corporate strategy. We also assess the market demand, technology evolution, prospective return on investment, and growth opportunities, and the costs and resources necessary to develop and support these products.

Patents, Trademarks and Other Intellectual Property Rights

The success of our business and technology leadership depends significantly on our proprietary and internally developed technology. We rely upon the intellectual property protections afforded by patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secret laws to establish, maintain, and enforce rights in our proprietary technologies and product branding. We regularly file applications for patents, and we have a significant number of patents in the United States and other countries in which we do business. As of December 2, 2025, we had approximately 2,400 issued patents and 800 pending patent applications worldwide.

Our operating system software, Platform Software, Blue Planet Automation Software, and other solutions also incorporate software and components under licenses from third parties, including software subject to various open source software licenses.

Global Customer Engagement

Our Global Customer Engagement (“GCE”) organization includes direct and indirect sales, system engineering, and services. Commencing in fiscal 2026, GCE will be organized around the following customers and geographies: (i) global cloud and content networking customers; (ii) the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America (“Americas”); (iii) Europe, Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”); and (iv) Asia Pacific, Japan and India (“APAC”). Within each area, we maintain specific teams or personnel that focus on a particular region, country, customer, or market vertical. These teams are focused on maintaining a high-touch, consultative relationship with our customers.

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We also maintain a global partner program that includes distributors, resellers, systems integrators, service providers, OEMs, original design manufacturers, and other third-party distributors who market and sell our products and services. We utilize these third-party channel partners to market and sell our solutions into specific geographies, applications, or customer verticals. We believe there are opportunities to leverage these relationships to expand our addressable market, while at the same time reducing the financial and operational risk of entering additional markets.

To support our global customer engagement efforts, we invest in marketing activities to generate demand for our products and services. Our marketing strategy is highly focused on building our brand to create customer preference for Ciena and engaging in thought leadership programs to illustrate how our innovations solve customer business problems. Our marketing team enables and supports our sales efforts through a variety of activities, including direct customer interaction, account-based marketing campaigns, portfolio marketing, industry events, and media relations.

Operations and Supply Chain Management

Our product manufacturing strategy is designed to support capabilities closer to our product engineering teams during product introduction and manufacturing in lower labor cost regions for volume. We rely upon third-party contract manufacturers, including those with facilities in Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States, to perform design and prototype development, and to manufacture, support, and ship our products. Our supply chain personnel manage the relationships with these third-party manufacturers and our global supply chain, addressing manufacturing, product testing and quality, fulfillment, distribution, and logistics relating to the support of our customers.

Our sourcing strategy focuses on control over supplier selection and commercial terms for significant inputs into our products. Our manufacturers and component distribution partners procure components necessary for assembly and manufacture of our products based on our specifications. We work closely with these partners and our suppliers to manage forecasts, material, quality, cost and delivery times, and inventory levels.

We currently use partners to fulfill and deliver our products to customers. We believe that our sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution strategies allow us to conserve capital, lower costs of product sales, adjust quickly to changes in market demand, and operate without dedicating significant resources to manufacturing-related plant and equipment.

We regularly assess and monitor our supply chain and seek to adopt strategies to reduce cost, mitigate risk, and enhance resilience. These measures include digital transformation, sourcing strategies, inventory management initiatives, multi-geography operational capabilities, and ongoing direct relationships with key suppliers to ensure transparency and alignment with our goals. We actively work with our third-party vendors and business partners to promote socially responsible business practices within our global supply chain.

Competitive Environment

Competition among networking solution vendors remains intense on a global basis. The market in which we compete is characterized by rapidly advancing technology, frequent introduction of new solutions, and aggressive selling efforts, including using significant pricing pressure to displace incumbent vendors and capture market share. Competition for sales of networking solutions is dominated by a small number of very large, multi-national companies. Our competitors include Nokia, Huawei, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and ZTE. As compared to us, many of these competitors have substantially greater financial, operational and marketing resources, and broader product offerings.

We also compete with several smaller but established companies that offer one or more products that compete directly or indirectly with our offerings or whose products address specific geographic, technology or customer segments. In addition, as we advance our interconnects and market expansion strategy to address needs inside and around the data center, we will begin to compete with additional competitors, including Marvell Technology Group, Credo Technology Group, and Broadcom. Competitors for our Blue Planet Automation Software include Cisco, Nokia, Amdocs, ServiceNow, Netcracker, and Ericsson.

Across our markets and segments, the principal competitive factors include price, functionality, incumbency, relationships, time-to-market, delivery schedule, technology roadmap, support capabilities, product security capabilities, company stability, and overall lifecycle operating costs.

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We expect competition in our industry to continue to broaden and intensify as network operators pursue a diverse range of network strategies and consumption models. As these changes occur, we expect that our business will overlap more directly with additional networking solution suppliers, including IP router vendors, data center switch and connectivity providers, and other suppliers or integrators of networking technology traditionally geared toward different network applications, layers, or functions. We also expect to compete with component vendors, including those in our supply chain, who develop pluggable modem technology or other enabling network technologies or components, particularly where a customer’s network strategy seeks to emphasize deployment of such product offerings or the adoption of a disaggregated approach to the procurement of hardware and software.

People and Culture

We believe that our industry and innovation leadership is driven by people. Our technology solutions are developed, marketed, sold, and supported by our global workforce of 9,080 employees as of November 1, 2025, approximately 98% of whom were full-time employees. We have a broad base of talent in 39 countries, with approximately 56% in the Americas, 36% in APAC, and 8% in EMEA, the majority of whom are in engineering, operations, or sales roles.

Competition for qualified personnel in the technology space is intense, and our success depends in large part on our ability to recruit, develop and retain a productive and engaged workforce capable of executing on our business plans. Our executive leadership regularly shares information on our people strategy and our Board of Directors oversees and regularly reviews its design and execution. This strategy includes investing heavily in our people and culture including:

•Offering Competitive Compensation and Benefits. We strive to ensure that our employees receive competitive, fair, and transparent compensation and benefits offerings. To align performance and stockholder interest, we base our annual incentive compensation on both business and individual performance goals, and we provide meaningful equity awards and maintain an employee stock purchase plan. We also offer rewards and recognition programs to our employees, including peer and management-initiated awards and patent incentives.

•Creating Opportunities for Growth and Development. We offer various opportunities for employee growth and development, including early in career and new graduate programs, management and leadership development programs, coaching and mentoring programs, and support for continuing education through tuition reimbursement. We also operate a leadership succession planning process that aims to develop and retain key talent and ensure business continuity for key roles.

•Promoting a Culture of Belonging and Community Involvement. We believe belonging contributes to business success and promotes an inclusive workplace through recruiting outreach, internal networking and resource groups, inclusivity networks, and mentoring programs. We also promote community outreach and support through corporate giving, charitable matching, and employee volunteerism.

•Supporting Employee Wellbeing and Engagement. We provide wellbeing programs that focus on physical, mental, emotional, financial, and social wellbeing of our employees, including retirement readiness. Our global wellbeing program also includes a long-standing practice of flexible working arrangements and flexible paid time off in many of our geographies, which allows us to broaden our potential talent pool for employees.

We regularly seek input from employees, our fiscal 2025 employee engagement survey had a participation rate of approximately 86%, and our surveys have consistently resulted in an engagement score that exceeded industry benchmarks. Additionally, we conduct an annual pay equity assessment to ensure that we are paying individuals performing similar work equitably.

Compliance

We believe that good corporate governance and maintaining the highest ethical standards are essential to our long-term success, and we are dedicated to instilling in our employees this commitment to integrity and business ethics. We maintain a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics that sets standards of conduct for Ciena’s directors, officers, and employees. All employees are required to complete training on our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and we conduct recurring employee affirmations and periodic training. In addition, we maintain a Corporate Compliance Committee that promotes integrity and compliance leadership throughout Ciena, and a dedicated Compliance and Ethics function. We also maintain several easily accessible internal and external methods by which our employees, business partners, and investors can report concerns relating to the ethical operation of our business, including anonymously where permitted. We regularly conduct surveys of all employees on our compliance program and culture of integrity in order to assess and strengthen our culture and practices.

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Governmental Regulations

Environmental Matters

Environmental regulation has increased across various jurisdictions, and we expect that our operations may be subject to additional environmental compliance requirements. To date, our compliance actions and costs relating to environmental regulations have not resulted in a material cost or effect on our capital expenditures, earnings, or competitive position. Our business and operations are currently subject to environmental laws in various jurisdictions around the world, including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (“WEEE”) and Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (“RoHS”) regulations adopted by the EU. We are also subject to disclosure and related requirements that apply to the presence of “conflict minerals” in our products or supply chain. We seek to operate our business in compliance with applicable laws relating to the materials and content of our products and product takeback and recycling, and have programs, policies, and customer offerings that help us to address these laws.

Other Regulations

As a company with global operations, we are subject to complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations, including trade regulations, tariffs, import and export regulations, anti-bribery and corruption laws, antitrust or competition laws, data privacy laws and regulations, such as the European Union (“EU”) General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), cybersecurity and product security laws and regulations, and environmental regulations, among others. We have policies and procedures in place to promote compliance with these laws and regulations. To date, our compliance actions and costs relating to these laws, rules and regulations have not resulted in a material cost or effect on our capital expenditures, earnings, or competitive position.

Access to SEC Reports

Our website address is www.ciena.com. We make our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports available free of charge in the “Investors” section of our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file these reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). We routinely post these reports, recent news and announcements, financial results, and other important information about our business on our website at www.ciena.com. Information contained on our website is not a part of this annual report.

Information About Our Executive Officers

The table below sets forth certain information concerning our executive officers serving as of the filing of this annual report:

NameAgePosition

Gary B. Smith65 President and Chief Executive Officer

Joe Cumello54 Senior Vice President and General Manager of Blue Planet

Dino DiPerna64 Senior Vice President, Global Research & Development

Brodie Gage50 Senior Vice President, Global Products & Supply Chain

Marc D. Graff57 Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Sheela Kosaraju53 Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and acting Chief People Officer

Jason M. Phipps53 Senior Vice President, Global Customer Engagement

David M. Rothenstein57 Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Secretary

__________

Gary B. Smith joined Ciena in 1997 and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since May 2001. Mr. Smith has served on Ciena’s Board of Directors since October 2000. Prior to his current role, his positions with Ciena included Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales. Mr. Smith previously served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for INTELSAT and Cray Communications, Inc. Mr. Smith currently serves on the Board of Directors at Planet Labs PBC, a provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Mr. Smith previously served on the boards of directors of CommVault Systems, Inc. and Avaya Inc. Mr. Smith serves on the Wake Forest University Entrepreneurship Advisory Council, and participates in initiatives with the Center for Corporate Innovation.

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Joe Cumello has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, since January 2023. Mr. Cumello is responsible for managing Ciena’s Blue Planet Automation Software and Services portfolio. From November 2020 to January 2023, Mr. Cumello served as Ciena’s Senior Vice President, Global Marketing & Communications, from February 2017 to November 2020 served as Vice President, Global Marketing and Partners, and from August 2015 to February 2017 served as Vice President, Portfolio Marketing. Mr. Cumello initially joined Ciena in 2004 through our acquisition of Internet Photonics. Following that, he held executive roles at Sidera Networks and SafeNet. He then joined Cyan, Inc. in 2013, where he served as Chief Marketing Officer, before rejoining Ciena in 2015 through our acquisition of Cyan, Inc.

Dino DiPerna joined Ciena in 2010 through our acquisition of Nortel’s optical business and has served as Senior Vice President of Global Research and Development since October 2023, in which capacity he is responsible for directing the development of Ciena’s portfolio of Optical Networking, Network Control and Planning, and Routing and Switching products and solutions. From August 2013 to October 2023, Mr. DiPerna served as Ciena’s Vice President, Converged Packet Optical Research & Development, and from March 2010 to July 2013, served as Vice President, Optical Networks Research & Development. Prior to joining Ciena, Mr. DiPerna held senior engineering roles at Nortel for more than two decades.

Brodie Gage joined Ciena in 2010 through our acquisition of Nortel’s optical business and has served as Senior Vice President of Global Products and Supply Chain since October 2023, in which capacity he oversees functions including Product Line Management, Global Supply Chain, and Solutions, Engineering, and Introduction. From November 2017 to October 2023, Mr. Gage served as Ciena’s Vice President of Product Line Management and Solutions. Prior to joining Ciena, Mr. Gage held global leadership roles across engineering, marketing, business development, and product line management at Nortel.

Marc D. Graff joined Ciena in August 2025. From January 2024 to July 2025, Mr. Graff served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Altera Corporation, a leading provider of programmable hardware, software, and development tools. From May 2021 to December 2024, Mr. Graff was a Corporate Vice President at Intel Corporation (“Intel”), where he served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for the Data Center and Artificial Intelligence Group. From September 2019 to May 2021, Mr. Graff served as Vice President, Finance and Head of Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis at Intel. Prior to that, he held several finance positions at Intel, including as Chief Financial Officer for the Sales and Marketing Group and Director of Finance & Administration for Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Sheela Kosaraju joined Ciena in 2010 and has served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel since January 2023, and as acting Chief People Officer since August 2023. From August 2020 to January 2023, Ms. Kosaraju served as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Head of International Legal, and from May 2017 to August 2020 served as Vice President, International General Counsel. Prior to joining Ciena, Ms. Kosaraju served as general counsel for two early-stage companies, HomeCom Communications and Closedloop Solutions.

Jason M. Phipps joined Ciena in 2002 and has served as Senior Vice President, Global Customer Engagement (formerly titled Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing) since February 2017, in which capacity he is responsible for Ciena’s global sales, systems engineering, services, and partner organization. From January 2014 to February 2017, Mr. Phipps served as Vice President and General Manager, North America Sales, during which time he also oversaw the Global Partners & Channels practice, and from March 2011 to December 2013 he served as Vice President, Global Sales Operations. Mr. Phipps has also previously held a number of sales and marketing leadership positions with Ciena.

David M. Rothenstein joined Ciena in January 2001 and, after serving as acting Chief Strategy Officer since March 2022, has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer since January 2023. From November 2008 to January 2023, he served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. Prior to that, he served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel from July 2004 to October 2008 and previously as Assistant General Counsel.

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