Wendell Weeks

Wendell P. Weeks has served as Corning’s chief executive officer since April 2005 and chairman of the board since April 2007. He has been a member of the company’s board of directors since December 2000. As CEO, Weeks has focused on creating new growth drivers and building a bigger, stronger, and more agile company.

Weeks began his career with Corning in 1983 in the finance group. In his 38 years with the company, he has held a variety of financial, business development, commercial, and general
management roles, including strategic positions in the company’s television, specialty glass, and optical communications businesses.

In 1996, Weeks was named vice president and general manager of Corning’s optical fiber
business. In early 2001, he was named president of Corning’s Optical Communications division, where he led through both dynamic market growth and the subsequent challenges of market declines. Weeks became Corning’s president and chief operating officer in April 2002. In this role, he helped lead the company’s restructuring and return to profitability following the telecommunications industry crash. During his tenure as CEO, he has overseen acquisitions in Optical Communications, Life Sciences, and Display Technologies. He has also played an instrumental role in numerous innovations, including the development of Corning® Gorilla® Glass.  Moreover, he has earned 33 U.S. patents.

Weeks is a graduate of Lehigh University and earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He serves on the board of directors at Amazon.com, Inc. and is a member of the Liveris Academy Honorary Board. He is also on the board of trustees for the Corning Museum of Glass.  Weeks received Harvard Business School’s 2014 Alumni Achievement Award. In November 2014, he was awarded the Gold Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit from Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy for contributions to the display technology industry.

 

Presentation title: Glass: Vital to our future

Abstract: Without glass, the world would be unrecognizable.

Glass encases the lightbulbs in our homes, it’s in the windows through which we view the world, it’s in the damage-resistant vials that transport life-saving medical treatments, it’s in the touch-screen devices we use to learn and conduct business, and it’s at the heart of the fiber-optic cables transmitting data on beams of light moving about 125,000 miles per second to help us communicate with each other.

Glass is only increasing in relevance.

We see it as a material with almost unlimited potential. We know what we can do to glass: we can make it strong, we can adjust its optics, we can change its chemical properties, we can influence its thermal expansion behavior, we can alter its electronic properties, and obviously we can transform its color. But, what about what we can achieve with glass?

At Corning, we believe glass enables growth, prosperity, and opportunity.

We see a future in which glass could help immobilize radioactive waste, make safer batteries, improve biomedical implants, mitigate climate change by restoring the Arctic, and more. In this talk, Mr. Weeks will share his point of view on how this material, which has facilitated so much human progress, will benefit our shared future.