Management Team

Executive Board

Dr. Wilhelm Kaenders

Chief Technical Officer (CTO)
Founder & President

Being infected by Cold Atom Physics as a PhD student at the Institute of Quantum Optics in Hannover, in the group of Prof. Meschede, and being part of the technology of Prof. Hänsch's group at the Max-Planck-Institute in Garching, Dr. Wilhelm Kaenders started a successful business activity with tunable diode laser technology. "Frequency Division" in the early days and "Frequency Combing" today, have started the "Passion for Precision" and are still the driving force in TOPTICA's extended scientific product range on its way to mature markets. As founder of TOPTICA, he serves together with Dr. Thomas Renner, Dr. Mathias Schindler and Fabian Uhl as "Vorstand".

Dr. Thomas Renner

Chief Sales Officer (CSO)
President

Thomas Renner has a background in ultrashort laser development and applications in physical chemistry (PhD, University of Munich). He has earned his first commercial merits at Baasel Lasertech, where he started 1995 as group leader for pulsed YAG lasers in R & D. He was later promoted to the head of the Innovation and Marketing department and developed various markets for the laser micro processing department of Rofin/Baasel Lasertech. Dr. Thomas Renner joined TOPTICA in 2005 and has since then left his strong mark in TOPTICA's market approach.

Dr. Mathias Schindler

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Dr. Mathias Schindler earned his Diploma and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the RWTH Aachen where he worked on THz spectroscopy with Prof. Kurz, on the deposition of high-k thin films with Prof. Waser and on the development of new bioelectronics sensors with Prof. Offenhäusser at Forschungszentrum Jülich. He started his professional career at Dr. Johannes Heidenhain GmbH developing packaging technologies for electrical and optical components as process engineer. In 2013, Dr. Mathias Schindler became Head of the Electronic Manufacturing department of this world-renowned supplier of high-end measurement equipment. He joined TOPTICA in 2016 with the challenge to guide the company to a new level of volume manufacturing competency, introducing state-of-the art production planning tools and processes.

Fabian Uhl

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

With a degree in auditing & taxation from The Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Stuttgart, Fabian Uhl gained first work experience as an auditor with KPMG DTG AG. After earning a master’s degree in finance and international business from Aarhus School of Business in Denmark he joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in Munich to work with their Capital Markets & Accounting Advisory Services group. Fabian gained first industry experience at Augsburg Airways GmbH in the aviation industry. Before joining TOPTICA in July 2019, he worked the last five years with Proteros Biostructures GmbH as their Vice President Finance & Administration connecting scientific excellence with commercial success.

Management

Mark Tolbert

President TOPTICA Photonics Inc.

With a strong engineering and management background from the University of Rochester, Mark has a degree in Physics and received his MBA from the Simon School of Business. Mark started his career in plastic optics as Director of Sales and Marketing with Germanow-Simon Corporation. His management interests and skills, brought him then to a leading position first within Burleigh and then with EXFO, where he held the position of Director of Business Development, with particular emphasis on the scientific product lines and international business. At EXFO Burleigh Instruments Mark developed various OEM and R&D markets for the automation, nanotechnology and biophotonics markets. Mark Tolbert joined the TOPTICA group in 2006.

Dr. Frank Lison

Managing Director (CEO) TOPTICA Projects GmbH

Frank (CEO and Co-Founder) graduated in 1994 from the Leibniz University in Hannover and received a PhD in Physics from Bonn University. Frank started his professional career at Bayer AG and in 2002 moved to TOPTICA Photonics as VP of Research & Development. In 2009, he became CEO of TILL Photonics GmbH and when the company was bought by FEI Inc. in 2011, he stayed as managing director of FEI Munich GmbH. There he was responsible for the worldwide cell and tissue biology business of FEI until his leaving in the beginning of 2014. Thereafter he has been working as an independent consultant in the Photonics Industry, focusing mainly on start-ups. Since October 2016 he is CEO of TOPTICA Projects GmbH.

Armin Zach

Managing Director (CTO) TOPTICA Projects GmbH

Armin graduated in 1998 with a degree in bio-medical engineering and precision engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Ulm. During his diploma thesis at the chair of Prof. Hänsch at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, he became enthusiastic about laser physics and thus joined TOPTICA Photonics, which was founded as a start-up company at that time. In the following years he worked in research and development of semiconductor lasers and ultrafast fiber lasers, where many products of TOPTICA Photonics SE originated. Subsequently, he headed the R&D department of TOPTICA in the field of fiber lasers and frequency comb technology. As a founder of TOPTICA Projects GmbH he has been the CTO of the company since October 2016.

Claus Heitmann

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) EAGLEYARD PHOTONICS GmbH (TOPTICA EAGLEYARD)

As CEO, Claus Heitmann is responsible for TOPTICA EAGLEYARD’s recent growth and strategic positioning. THINKING BEYOND is not only the company’s spirit but also part of his DNA: Having customers’ visions in mind, he has shaped a clear path since he joined TOPTICA EAGLEYARD in 2020. After being in the industry for almost 25 years (Siemens, Infineon, Lumics among others) and having successfully integrated his own company C2GO into Trumpf SE he is very aware of all trends and fosters innovations, cooperations and thinking outside the box. His personal and professional preferences are projects that not only serve customers in a great way but that also make the world a better place.

Dr. Nicholas Traynor

President TOPTICA Photonics SAS

Nicholas Traynor has 30 years of experience in research, development and innovation of optical amplifier and laser technology. After an academic career at ORC Southampton and University of Melbourne, Nicholas held posts at Corning, Photonics Bretagne, and Alphanov before founding Azurlight Systems in 2010. With a strong focus on high power, single frequency fiber lasers for quantum technology and metrology applications, Azurlight Systems enjoyed success and strong growth for 13 years before joining the Toptica family in 2023 and becoming Toptica Photonics SAS.

Taro Saito

President TOPTICA Photonics K.K.

Taro Saito started his career in the financial industry and made many achievements in the fields of retail and wholesale at securities companies. After that, he worked for nearly 20 years at a laser trading company Indeco, mainly working for optical communications and semiconductor applications. He was promoted to director of sales & marketing in 2011.
He established TOPTICA Photonics K.K. in 2016 and has since then successfully expanded business for scientific and industrial markets in Japan.

Jason FU (FU Lei)

General Manager TOPTICA Photonics (China) Co., Ltd.

Jason FU earned his master degree in optical engineering from Tianjin University in 2007, and started his career in optical instrument industry, mainly responsible for sales and marketing of gas sensing and Lidar market. After that, he worked for more than 10 years as sales manager at Universal Technology Hong Kong, the distributor of TOPTICA in China until 2019. During that time, Jason obtained detailed knowledge about TOPTICA products, markets, and customers. He joined TOPTICA Photonics (China) during its starting phase as team manager and successfully established sales, service, and administration team in China.