Optical network switch developer Finchetto has poached a Cisco alum to serve as a senior advisor.

John Harper joins, having most recently served at Fermat, where, per his LinkedIn page, he was the firm's VP of engineering.

Highlights of his lengthy CV include a seven-year engineering VP stint at Cisco, where he was responsible for routing, security, and related aspects of the firm’s IOS software. Harper’s prior roles also include spells at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Anagran.

He also previously founded Saisei Networks, which developed a software tool providing advanced traffic management and analytics. It went on to be acquired by FirstWave in 2023.

At Finchetto, Harper will serve as strategic advisor for the firm's technology and product roadmap, with the business looking to shake up the switch market with its AI-focused, fully optical, and passive line of network switches.

Harper will work with Finchetto's founders and the board to “refine the company's long-term technical and commercial direction,” the firm said upon announcement.

“I've been involved in computer networking for large businesses that set the industry tone, and Finchetto's approach to photonic networking is genuinely distinctive with profound implications for AI and high-performance compute infrastructure,” Harper said. “I'm looking forward to applying everything I've learned across the networking industry over the course of my career to help Finchetto realize its potential and expand in new ways.”

He’ll be working with another recent hire, Kevin Crain, who serves as the firm’s VP of engineering and product.

Crain spent more than two decades at Intel across a variety of roles, culminating in director for accelerated compute and graphics marketing.

“[Crain] and [Harper] bring exactly the combination of engineering rigor, product thinking, and strategic perspective that will help us turn Finchetto’s optical switching breakthrough into a category-defining platform for AI and cloud infrastructure,” said Mark Rushworth, co-founder and CEO of Finchetto.

The startup’s photonics-based networking switches aim to solve both power and latency issues in data center interconnects. Its fully-optical, passive systems are designed to reduce energy consumption and offer ultra-low port-to-port latency.

Rushworth previously claimed its switch – which is currently in prototype – “can bring energy consumption down by over 20x, reduce latency by 40x and switch at the speed of the surrounding transceivers.”

The British-based startup is working with BT to identify potential use cases where its switch lines could be used to boost telecom networks.

Finchetto also recently teamed up with Irish integrated lasers firm Pilot Photonics to leverage the latter’s line of nanosecond tunable lasers in the development of Finchetto’s switch devices.