Plantronics Names Joe Burton Chief Technology Officer and Head of Global Development
New Position Strengthens Focus on Unified Communications
SANTA CRUZ, Calif., May 23, 2011 - Plantronics (NYSE: PLT) today announced that Joseph B. Burton has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Development and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). By bringing in Burton, with his strong technology leadership and unified communications background, Plantronics is deepening its management team and expanding its investment in this emerging technology arena.
In this new role, reporting to president and CEO, Ken Kannappan, Burton will be responsible for setting and driving Plantronics’ technology direction and leading the company’s global engineering teams and programs.
“Joe brings an excellent background and track record of technology leadership and unified communications expertise to Plantronics,” said Kannappan. “He will play an invaluable role in helping us continue to expand our leadership in unified communications and voice technology.”
“Plantronics is right at the center of the new unified communications paradigm shift that many companies are embarking upon,” said Burton. “Plantronics has a clear vision, innovation and technology advantages that I look forward to driving for this growing opportunity.”
Burton has held several key executive, engineering leadership and architecture-level positions at Polycom, Cisco, Active Voice and other technology leaders. During Burton’s 10 year career with Cisco, he served as Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer for Unified Communications, encompassing call management, IP phones, contact center, conferencing, unified messaging, unified communications applications, and advanced technologies and products. Burton was most recently EVP and CTO at Polycom where he led Polycom’s long-term strategic agenda and next-generation focus areas. Burton is the author of several communications patents and holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Computer Engineering from Reynolds College in New York.