Fahri Diner
Partner, Sigma Partners
During his 15-year entrepreneurial career in the high-tech industry, Fahri Diner repeatedly demonstrated his savvy in conceiving compelling value propositions and building high-tech organizations to successfully execute aggressive business plans. Having joined Sigma Partners in 2006, he applies this expertise by identifying strong entrepreneurs with good ideas, then funding and helping build market-leading companies. Diner’s entrepreneurial career in the communications industry spanned responsibilities in engineering, product management, marketing and executive management. He was the founder, president and CEO of Qtera Corporation, which he guided to become the leading provider of ultra-long-haul photonic networking solutions for the optical Internet. Nortel Networks acquired the company for $3.25 billion in stock, and Diner continued to lead Qtera as president of the wholly-owned subsidiary until 2001. Previously, he was a member of the executive team at Siemens, where he helped establish and manage the company's Optical Networks business unit in North America, which was later spun-off as Optisphere Networks. Prior to joining Siemens, Diner led Pirelli's pioneering activities in the optical amplifier and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) markets, including the introduction of the first terrestrial WDM system and the first multi-channel, bi-directional optical amplifiers in North America. The optical systems division of Pirelli was later acquired by Cisco Systems for $2.15 billion. Just prior to joining Sigma, Diner founded Concept Ventures in 2005 by acquiring a portion of the assets of Applied Materials Ventures, where he served as managing director.
A native of Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean, Diner came to the United States in 1985 on full academic scholarship to the Florida Institute of Technology, where he earned his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. Fahri holds five patents in the field of fiber optics and optical communications.