Lightmatter today announced the appointment of Simona Jankowski as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Bringing 20+ years of experience from NVIDIA and Goldman Sachs, Jankowski will drive Lightmatter’s financial functions and expansion, and sit on the executive team leading the company’s mission to transform the future of computing.
“Simona’s track record leading financial strategy and investor relations teams, deep expertise in the artificial intelligence industry, and passion for science and engineering will allow us to scale our operations and culture and prepare for Lightmatter’s next phase of growth,” said Nick Harris, co-founder and CEO of Lightmatter. “We are proud to bring on an accomplished leader at the helm of our finance organization as we build the technology powering the next generation of AI innovation.”
Jankowski joins Lightmatter from NVIDIA, where she was vice president of investor relations and strategic finance during a period of unprecedented growth for the company. Previously, she was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where she led equity research for the hardware and communications technology sectors and managed the Global Investment Research office in San Francisco.
“Generative AI is driving unprecedented demand for a new class of extreme-scale data centers. Lightmatter has made foundational breakthroughs in photonics that enable data centers to increase in scale and performance by orders of magnitude, and with greater energy efficiency. With a generational performance lead, Lightmatter is poised to drive the data center photonics revolution,” said Jankowski. “I am thrilled to join this brilliant team of inventors, technologists, and accomplished industry executives to help scale the company for significant growth in the years ahead.”
Jankowski’s leadership position follows Lightmatter’s $310M fundraise in 2023, which valued the company at $1.2B, and comes at a time of significant growth for the company.