New Position Strengthens Focus on Unified Communications
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.
