Fast Company Names Calix Chief Product Officer Shane Eleniak Innovative Leader of the Year

SAN JOSE, CA—September 12, 2024—This week, Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) Chief Product Officer Shane Eleniak was named Innovative Leader of the Year on Fast Company’s sixth annual list of the Best Workplaces for Innovators. Fast Company, a leading global business media brand focused on innovation in technology, leadership, and world-changing ideas, has also named Calix a finalist in the Large Companies category of its Best Workplaces for Innovators list. This is the first time Calix has received this recognition, positioning it among 16 top companies driving significant industry disruption. The latest in a series of accolades, Calix continues to receive recognition from both inside and outside of telecommunications for its transformative innovation, customer-centric focus, and purpose-driven culture.

Eleniak, who has held a leadership role in the Calix product organization for nearly a decade, has been pivotal to the company’s transformation from a network hardware provider to a software and cloud platform leader. Calix innovation continues to be essential in enabling broadband service providers (BSPs) of all sizes to disrupt legacy network operators by delivering value beyond just fast internet speeds. Today, a rapidly growing majority of the company’s 1,600 customers leverage the Calix Broadband Platform to significantly reduce operational costs while quickly driving revenue with managed services across residential, business, and community markets.

With the help of the product organization, led by Eleniak, Calix continues to demonstrate a deep commitment to driving innovation at all levels, including:   

• New capabilities and advancements delivered in a predictable 91-day cadence. Eleniak pioneered the broadband industry’s only end-to-end cloud and software platform and transformed his organization to deliver advancements on a consistent 91-day cycle. Since its initial software release in February 2019, Calix has introduced powerful new solutions and capabilities across its platform for 23 consecutive quarters. These releases, which are executed companywide to benefit customers on every level, have driven steady revenue growth for Calix and supported the business transformation of every customer.
  
  
• More than 300 customers participating in 12 customer advisory boards. Calix established its first customer advisory board nearly a decade ago and has since significantly expanded its roster, doubling the number of boards in the past year alone. Each Calix advisory board is dedicated to surfacing ideas, insights, and challenges for customers across critical market segments and personas: general managers, marketers, support leads, tribal, electric cooperatives, multi-service operators (MSOs), and many more. Held year-round, these board meetings offer Calix valuable input on key customer issues like go-to-market strategies, artificial intelligence (AI), security solutions, and team training and development.
  
  
• Remote company culture driven by meaningful purpose. Calix fosters a purpose-driven, award-winning culture focused on empowering customers to simplify their businesses, innovate for their subscribers, and grow their value for members, investors, and communities. Embracing remote work, the company attracts top global talent and enhances innovation through diverse perspectives. Its “better, better, never best” mindset drives continuous improvement and prioritizes ongoing learning.
   

“You need a great team, valuable input, and a metronome,” said Eleniak. “Our team shapes the culture, and that culture drives innovation, not just process. Customer input is crucial to guiding the Calix innovation roadmap, so we established a customer feedback loop to ensure we’re creating solutions that genuinely solve their problems. The metronome—our regular cadence of software releases—keeps us aligned and synchronized. This is what Fast Company is truly recognizing, and we’re grateful for their acknowledgment.”

“This well-earned recognition for Shane as Innovative Leader of the Year by Fast Company underscores the importance of trusted partnerships in driving innovation,” said Michael Weening, president and chief executive officer at Calix. “In a disrupted broadband industry, where every market has at least two providers, BSPs must become experience providers. Shane’s leadership is core to this shift. Innovation is so central to our customers’ success that we updated our mission to ‘simplify, innovate, grow.’ It is also why we deliver predictable innovation every 91 days and host more than 300 customers who serve on an ever-growing number of advisory boards. We share these honors from Fast Company with every Calix customer, partner, and employee as we continue to ensure that all communities can thrive for generations to come.”

Discover how cloud and software platform innovation from Calix helps BSPs deliver exceptional subscriber experiences that win broadband markets.

About Calix
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this release, and we assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release, except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from current expectations based on risks and uncertainties affecting Calix’s business. The reader is cautioned not to rely on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information on potential factors that could affect Calix’s results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov.

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