Founders' Biographies 2-3

Dr. Zino Chair
Vice President of Marketing & Co-Founder of Cortina Systems

Zino Chair, a co-founder of Cortina Systems, has been VP of Marketing & Business Development since 2001. Zino has provided leadership in establishing Cortina Systems as a key semiconductor partner to major OEMs in the market, which enabled Cortina to become the lead company in the IC infrastructure market from the home to the core of the network. Zino has been one of the main people to help Cortina raise the over $200M equity financing that enabled Cortina to acquire 4 companies, including the Intel Optical Networking Division.

Prior to Cortina Systems, Zino ran Cisco Systems' metro Ethernet marketing team, which created the first RPR metro switch. He joined Cisco Systems as part of the StratumOne Communications acquisition. Zino co-founded StratumOne, which developed the first 10G data framer in the market. Zino was also instrumental in creating Auroranetics Semiconductors, which was acquired by Cisco in 2001.

Zino has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and networking industry. At Nortel Networks, Zino created the DOCSIS business unit, which was spun-off from Nortel as part of a merger with Antec Corporation called Arris. Arris is now a leading system company in the broadband access market and is traded in the public market. In AT&T Bell Labs, Zino focused on Architecture and Standards in the 5ESS/1PSS development team.
Zino received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University and also attended the executive program at the London Business School while at Nortel Networks.