Director, M&A Integration and Transformation

As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, Ciena is committed to a people-first approach. Our teams enjoy a culture focused on prioritizing a flexible work environment that empowers individual growth, well-being, and belonging. We’re a technology company that leads with our humanity—driving our business priorities alongside meaningful social, community, and societal impact.

Director, M&A Integration and Transformation

Role overview

The Director, M&A Integration and Transformation will have principal, day-to-day managerial responsibility for integrating acquired companies into Ciena and ensuring successful transitions to achieve the strategic rationale, value drivers, synergies and other desired business outcomes of the transactions. The role develops pre- and post-transaction integration strategy and converts that strategy into detailed actions that align people, process and systems and enable governance of the integration plan. The role will support the Corporate Development function in performing various projects and in sourcing and evaluating M&A and strategic investments for Ciena to achieve its growth objectives. In addition, as part of both M&A integrations and enterprise-wide business transformation initiatives, this individual will assist in driving and supporting cross-functional, value-driving activities that seek to improve business processes, enhance operational efficiencies and drive strategic alignment.

The role reports to the Vice President, Corporate Development and will collaborate on a matrixed basis with functional leaders and subject matter experts around the world.

Primary duties and responsibilities

M&A Integration Management

• Lead the company’s cross-functional M&A integration team, consisting of functional leads and subject matter experts (including Customer Enablement, Finance, IT, Legal, Marketing & Communications, People & Culture, Product Line Management, R&D, Security, Services and Supply Chain Operations), as well as acquired leaders, through the pre- and post-transaction integration process
• Assist in coordinating overall M&A due diligence activities, and participate in due diligence to identify key integration issues, risks and challenges
• Develop the integration strategy and design an integration plan, timeline and methodology
• Manage the overall process, timing and governance for pre- and post-transaction integration activities in a disciplined and structured approach, including conducting regular team meetings, monitoring status, providing updates to the executive steering committee, and driving proactive escalation and resolution of key issues
• Partner with functional leads to develop and refine workstream-specific integration plans and playbooks that incorporate identified risks and challenges, synergy objectives and stated milestones
• Serve as a trusted advisor and key resource to functional integration leads, ensuring collaboration and information sharing among workstreams by managing cross-functional relationships through transparency, effective communication and frequent updates
• Develop and maintain dashboards with measurable KPIs to track and report achievement against the integration plan and objectives
• Coordinate with the Corporate Development team to develop integration estimates, associated costs to achieve and purchase price considerations that may impact the transaction business case
• Continuously improve Ciena’s M&A integration capabilities by identifying and developing process improvements, best practices, tools and templates that capture learnings, increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the team, and improve the quality of the integration effort and business outcomes

Strategy & Corporate Development

• Assist in conducting strategic analyses of existing and adjacent markets, including technology trends and drivers influencing market size, growth, profitability, comparative advantage and risk
• Assist in identifying and evaluating inorganic growth and expansion opportunities and potential targets aligned with corporate strategy through engagement with the corporate ecosystem
• Assist in developing high-quality business cases for potential M&A and corporate venture investments to be presented for executive review
• Assist with various corporate projects to prioritize strategy and optimize operations

Enterprise Transformation

• Assist in driving enterprise-wide transformation initiatives that align with the company’s long-term vision and growth and profitability goals, including using project management principles to develop and implement strategies, plans and roadmaps for digital tran