Rockley Photonics Promotes Industry Leaders to Key Senior Roles

Executives to drive company's development of biomarker sensing solutions for health and wellness

Rockley Photonics Holdings Limited (NYSE: RKLY) (“Rockley”), a global leader in photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions, today announced several senior leadership promotions to further accelerate the development of its biomarker sensing platform and to drive its opportunity in healthcare.

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Andrew Rickman Congratulates Promoted Executives: Top Row: Left to Right – Hooman Abediasl, Andrew Rickman, Roozbeh Parsa; Bottom Row: Left to Right – Ben VerSteeg, Sanjiv Kappor, Casimir Wierzynski (Photo: Business Wire)

Rockley announced the following executive vice president promotions:

• Hooman Abediasl, Ph.D. in electrical engineering, University of Southern California, first prize winner of the prestigious Nokia Bell Labs award and an Annenberg Fellow, has been promoted to EVP of product engineering. Abediasl is a co-founder of Rockley’s sensing product technology and brings a strong technical leadership background in laser-based imaging and sensing to his role.
• Sanjiv Kapoor, Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, Stanford University, has been promoted to EVP of operations, process technology and manufacturing. Kapoor authored eight patents and 18 peer-reviewed publications. He is a leader in high-volume production of biometric sensing solutions for consumer products. He has extensive experience in transitioning multiple technologies from “lab to fab,” including various MEMS sensors for TDK-InvenSense and III-V devices for communications applications. Kapoor also led the manufacturing ramp of a fuel cell technology for a clean tech pioneer.
• Roozbeh Parsa, Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Stanford University, has been promoted to EVP of commercial. Parsa authored or co-authored over 25 U.S. patents. He has extensive technical and commercial experience in semiconductor and optical MEMS sensing. With a successful track record in health monitoring application technology, Parsa’s background in developing products from incubation to market release makes him well qualified to lead Rockley’s product strategy, sales, marketing, and business development efforts.

Rockley announced the following senior vice president promotions:

• Casimir Wierzynski, Ph.D. in computation and neural systems, California Institute of Technology, has been promoted to SVP of cloud and AI. Wierzynski holds multiple U.S. patents and patents pending in the fields of autonomous robotics, neuromorphic computing, and machine learning. He brings significant leadership experience as a senior director of AI at Intel, where he launched the private AI and analytics business, providing hardware and software technology to support machine learning on encrypted data. Wierzynski’s background also includes leading complex technology and engineering teams to solve high-impact problems using AI.
• Benjamin VerSteeg, B.S. in electrical and biomedical engineering, Harvey Mudd College, has been promoted to SVP of sensing product development. VerSteeg was the co-founder and CEO of TruTouch Technologies, which developed the first commercial predicate to Rockley’s wearable sensor technology and was acquired by the company. He was also the founder and CTO of MoreLight. He is the author of multiple patents and publications in optical biosensing. VerSteeg brings over 20 years of experience in the invention and commercialization of non-invasive optical sensors to Rockley.

“I am excited by these key executive promotions and believe that our team has the skills, drive, and determination to help Rockley successfully execute our innovative approach to health and wellness, utilizing our non-invasive, continuous biosensing platform. These talented managers and proven leaders in their fields have already demonstrated their world-class capabilities. I am very proud of all the industry talent within Rockley,” said Dr. Andrew Rickman, chairman and chief executive officer of Rockley. “Our team of over 300 employees includes 109 Ph.D.s and 205 engineers, thrives on working with the amazing collection of innovators that we’ve assembled, and is driven by the tremendous opportunity ahead of us. We have an incredibly accomplished management team and an operationally experienced board of directors, all of whom are leaders in their field.”

Rockley consists of a team of innovative professionals from leading semiconductor and medtech companies. These talented team members have worked with leading companies and organizations, including Bookham, Broadcom, Dexcom, Intel, InvenSense, iRhythm, Lumentum, Masimo, Medtronic, Mellanox, NASA, and Texas Instruments, among others.

Learn more information about Rockley’s leadership team.

About Rockley Photonics

A global leader in photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions, Rockley Photonics is developing a comprehensive range of photonic integrated circuits and associated modules, sensors, and full-stack solutions. From next-generation sensing platforms specifically designed for mobile health monitoring and machine vision to high-speed, high-volume solutions for data communications, Rockley is laying the foundation for a new generation of applications across multiple industries. Rockley believes that photonics will eventually become as pervasive as micro-electronics, and it has developed a platform with the power and flexibility needed to address both mass markets and a wide variety of vertical applications.

Formed in 2013, Rockley is uniquely positioned to support hyper-scale manufacturing and address a multitude of high-volume markets. Rockley has partnered with numerous tier-1 customers across a diverse range of industries to deliver the complex optical systems required to bring transformational products to market.

To learn more about Rockley, visit rockleyphotonics.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts constitute “forward-looking statements” for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding Rockley’s future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, and assumptions regarding future events or performance. The words “accelerate,” “advance,” “allow,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “capability,” “continue,” “could,” “develop,” “enable,” “estimate,” “eventual,” “expand, “expect,” “focus,” “forward,” “future,” “goal,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “opportunity,” “outlook,” “plan,” “possible,” “position,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “realize,” “revolutionize,” “seem,” “should,” “trend,” “vision,” “will,” “would” or other terms that predict or indicate future events, trends, or expectations, and similar expressions or the negative of such expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words or terms does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the following: (a) the potential of Rockley’s sensing platform to provide real-time insights and clinical grade data about a variety of health conditions from a wearable device; (b) the importance of the ability to monitor key biomarkers on a continuous basis; (c) the potential to leverage data collected from Rockley’s biomarking sensing products to enable additional capability for the fast-growing digital health domain; (d) Rockley’s belief that its cloud and AI infrastructure can provide better information for healthcare providers and greater peace of mind for people who’d like meaningful insights into their health and well-being; and (e) the anticipated and potential features, scope, goals, and benefits of the Company’s platform, products, and technology.

Forward-looking statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties (many of which are beyond Rockley’s control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following: (i) Rockley’s ability to achieve customer acceptance and commercial production of its products and technology, including in a timely and cost-effective manner; (ii) Rockley’s ability to achieve customer design wins and convert memoranda of understanding and development contracts into production contracts; (iii) risks related to purchase orders, including the lack of long-term purchase commitments, the cancellation, reduction, delay, or other changes in customer purchase orders, and if and to the extent customers seek to enter into licensing arrangements in lieu of purchases; (iv) Rockley’s history of losses and need for additional capital and its ability to access additional financing to support its operations and execute on its business plan, as well as the risks associated therewith; (v) legal and regulatory risks; (vi) risks associated with its fabless manufacturing model and dependency on third-party suppliers; (vii) Rockley’s reliance on a few significant customers for a majority of its revenue and its ability to expand and diversify its customer base; (viii) Rockley’s financial performance; (ix) the impacts of COVID-19 on Rockley, its customers and suppliers, its target markets, and the global economy; (x) Rockley’s ability to successfully manage growth and its operations as a public company; (xi) fluctuations in Rockley’s stock price and Rockley’s ability to maintain the listing of its ordinary shares on the NYSE; (xii) Rockley’s ability to anticipate and respond to industry trends and customer requirements; (xiii) changes in the current and future markets in which Rockley is or may be engaged; (xiv) risks related to competition and intellectual property; (xv) market opportunity and demand for Rockley’s products and technology, as well as the customer products into which Rockley’s products and technology are incorporated; (xvi) risks related to international operations; (xvii) risks related to cybersecurity, privacy, and infrastructure; (xviii) risks related to financial and accounting matters; (xix) general economic, financial, political, and business conditions, both domestic and foreign; (xx) Rockley’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits of its recently completed business combination with SC Health Corporation; and (xxi) Rockley’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits of strategic partnerships, as well as other factors described under the heading “Risk Factors” in Rockley’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, and in other documents Rockley files with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the future.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on Rockley’s current expectations, beliefs, and assumptions and are not predictions of actual performance. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of these assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ materially from those discussed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Rockley will be those that have been anticipated. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and Rockley does not intend to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

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