Alcatel-Lucent has today announced the appointment of Dr. Marcus Weldon as President of Bell Labs, the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent and the world’s leading industrial communications research organization. Dr. Weldon will combine this role with his existing role as Alcatel-Lucent’s Corporate CTO.

Commenting on Weldon’s appointment, Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Innovation is a key pillar of The Shift Plan, our industrial program to reposition the company as a specialist in IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access. In his new, combined role as Bell Labs president and Chief Technology Officer, Marcus will oversee the acceleration and unlocking of innovation in the company. In this role, he will strengthen cooperation with third parties and speed up the pace of R&D to ensure Alcatel-Lucent can respond to its customers' challenges with agility.”

Marcus Weldon is regarded as a industry luminary with a strong track record of identifying opportunities for technological disruption, with recent breakthroughs including the application of vectoring in fixed access, championing the use of LTE overlay and small cells in wireless, and identifying the emergence of virtualization and software defined networking as forces to profoundly change the industry.

Michel Combes added: “Marcus will combine this vision with the power of Bell Labs to create an unrivalled innovation engine for our company.”

Alcatel-Lucent is planning to cut 5,490 jobs globally as part of the Performance Program it launched in July to achieve an additional Euro 750 million cost reduction, bringing total savings to Euro 1.25 billion by the end of 2013.