Who’s News: Board Appointments and Other Management Additions at Xanadu, Photonic Inc., Qunnect, IonQ, and SkyWater
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Who’s News: Board Appointments and Other Management Additions at Xanadu, Photonic Inc., Qunnect, IonQ, and SkyWater Xanadu has announced the proposed nomination of four independent directors to the board of its post-merger public company, Xanadu Quantum Technologies Limited (“NewCo”), as it moves toward listing on the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange. The nominees bring extensive experience in global corporate leadership, defense, and public finance: Glenda Dorchak, a seasoned global executive and current board member of GlobalFoundries and Cerebras. Eliot Pence, Founder of Dominion Dynamics and former growth leader at Anduril Industries. Michelle Reynolds, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer at Reddit, Inc.
The Honorable Heidi Shyu, former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering. They will join Founder Christian Weedbrook and Crane Harbor CEO Bill Fradin on the board following the completion of the business combination. The full announcement is available here. IonQ has significantly strengthened its Federal Go-to-Market (GTM) organization with the appointment of three seasoned leaders to its federal leadership team. Steve Harris, Cameron Chehreh, and Mike Lawson join IonQ, bringing extensive experience from Dell, Intel, and the U.S. Air Force. Their expertise will be instrumental as IonQ scales its efforts to deliver quantum solutions—spanning computing, networking, sensing, and security—to defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies. The welcome announcement is available here. SkyWater Technology, currently in the process of being acquired by IonQ, has appointed semiconductor industry veteran Christine Dunbar as Senior Vice President of Sales and Solutions Engineering. Dunbar brings nearly 30 years of experience from leadership roles at GlobalFoundries, IBM Microelectronics, and Natcast. She will lead efforts to accelerate customer growth and scale SkyWater’s ATS, Wafer Services, and Advanced Packaging platforms. The news release detailing her appointment is available here. Photonic Inc. has overhauled its Board of Directors following its recent $130 million USD investment round, appointing a new Executive Chair and four new directors with deep roots in computing, venture capital, and global operations: Alex van Someren FREng, a venture capitalist and former Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to the British government, returns as independent director and Executive Chair. Don Mattrick, former CEO of Zynga and President at Microsoft and Electronic Arts (EA), joins as Vice Chair. Nathan Medlock, Managing Partner at Planet First Partners, and Ashton Scordo, Managing Director at BCI, also join as directors. The appointments bolster Photonic’s leadership as the company scales its distributed quantum computing and silicon-based photonic interconnects. The news release can be found here. Qunnect has appointed Scott Faris to its Board of Directors. Faris, currently the CEO of Eqlipse Quantum and Chairman of LightPath Technologies, brings decades of experience in commercializing national security and photonics technologies. His appointment comes as Qunnect successfully deploys its room-temperature entanglement-based quantum networking infrastructure on existing commercial fiber in New York and Berlin. The full announcement is available here. We wish all these organizations and individuals success in their new endeavors. February 26, 2026 Mohamed Abdel-Kareem2026-02-27T06:40:36-08:00 Leave A Comment Cancel replyComment Type in the text displayed above Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.