Our people

Dr Jonathan Lacey, PhD, BEng
Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan Lacey has been active in the optical fiber communications industry since the late 1980s. He studied electrical engineering and optical fibers at the Universities of Melbourne and Cambridge, and returned to the University of Melbourne as a post-doctoral researcher. In 1998 he joined Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (now Agilent Laboratories) in California, and became part of the team that launched Agilent’s first telecoms networking product at the height of the technology boom. During this time, Jonathan sat on the board of several start-up companies in which Agilent Ventures invested. In 2002, he joined Agilent’s Semiconductor Products Group, now Avago Technologies, first as a technology strategist, then in product management for Agilent’s optical fiber transceiver business.  In 2005 he joined Calient Networks, an optical equipment start-up, where he headed up product management.  In March 2008 Jonathan joined Arthur Lowery to launch and lead Ofidium. 

Arthur Lowery is an engineer, innovator and educator with a proven success record transforming ground breaking technical innovations into successful international businesses. Arthur built the global Photonic Design Automation (PDA) industry from his fundamental research in semiconductor laser modeling and today is also internationally recognized as a pioneer of optical OFDM and its applications for telecommunications. In 1996 Arthur founded Virtual Photonics (now VPI Virtual Photonics Inc), developing a world-leading software tool for designing optical communications devices and circuits. VPI has grown to be the leading supplier of design tools for optical communication components, systems and networks. Arthur was appointed Chair of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University in September 2004. Arthur’s research at Monash has focused on the application of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to optical fiber transmission. Arthur and his Monash colleagues invented optical OFDM, and their work has been so widely recognized that the most recent international optical communications conference included two complete sessions on optical OFDM. The work of Arthur and his colleagues at Monash represents the technology foundation of Ofidium.

Indrani Tharmanason has more than fifteen years experience as chief financial officer of internationally focused technology companies, including ManageSoft Corporation and Ceram Polymerik. As a member of the senior management team, and working closely with the board, Indrani has been involved with the strategic and business planning to support the direction, initiatives, and execution of these high-growth companies. During this period, Indrani has led a number of successful international capital raisings. Prior to that, Indrani worked in top tier chartered accounting firms for eight years, including Ernst & Young and KPMG. Indrani is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and holds degrees in Commerce and Computer Science.