Prabhat K Dubey is chairman, president and CEO of Force10 Networks, an emerging networking start-up in the Silicon Valley. He co-found Force10 Networks in 1999. Under his leadership, Force10 Networks has launched the world’s fastest ata switch.

Dubey, born in Rampur in 1950, did his PhD from IIT, Delhi, and obtained an MBA degree from the University of Western Ontario. Through his innovative thinking, technological acumen and effective management skills, Dubey has made significant contributions to the industry.

In 1994, Dubey joined MMC Networks as the CEO. Under his leadership, MMC became a leader by creating the world’s first ‘network processor’. These processors are used by network equipment manufactures, including Cisco Systems in their high-speed data switches and routers.

In 1989, Dubey joined AT&T Microelectronics Division (now Agere Systems) as vice-president and general manager of its digital signal processing (DSP) division. Under his leadership, Agere had a 30 percent share in the worldwide DSP market.

The DSP division enabled Europe to implement GSM cellular telephony, and it was this division only that provided multimedia technology to Apple Computers.

Before stepping into the industry in 1979, he spent his intervening years at the University of Toronto doing research in semiconductor technology. His middle management career included product planning at Harris Semiconductor and NEC Electronics. n