October 19th 2023 Françoise Chombar joins Supervisory Board of SMART Photonics

SMART Photonics welcomes Françoise Chombar to further strengthen their Supervisory Board. Françoise, chairwoman of Melexis’ Board of Directors, brings considerable experience in the broader semiconductor industry and in various customer markets in particular, such as the automotive industry. Moreover, she also brings the experience of having founded and built Melexis, one of Europe’s leading semiconductor companies.

Commenting on the appointment of Françoise Chombar to the Supervisory Board, CEO Johan Feenstra says: “We are very pleased that Françoise brings her strong commercial knowledge and network in the semiconductor industry as well as the automotive market to SMART Photonics to help us build a globally leading photonics foundry.”

Françoise Chombar states: “The integrated photonics industry is emerging as a bedrock for multiple novel applications in communication, datacom, life sciences, automotive, space and manufacturing industries. It is a fascinating and fast-growing semiconductor business segment. I’m honored to join the SMART Photonics board and am keen to contribute to their growth as best I can.”

Françoise Chombar held various executive level functions at Elmos GmbH and the Elex Group before she co-founded Melexis in 1989. In 2003 Françoise became CEO and in August 2021 she became Chair. Currently she holds board positions at Soitec, a company specialized in generating and manufacturing semiconductor substrates, and Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group.

With the appointment of Françoise Chombar, SMART Photonics makes another important step towards becoming the leading foundry for integrated photonics. SMART Photonics aims to improve people’s lives by introducing integrated photonics everywhere through working with customers from proof of concept to full production. SMART Photonics is based at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.