Linda Smith

Linda has more than 25 years of experience in merger & acquisition advisory, product management, sales and engineering.
She founded CERES in 2005 to serve photonics technology companies that were underserved by generalist investment banks and business brokerages.
At CERES, Linda sources and leads buy and sell side M & A advisory engagements with clients spanning a full spectrum of photonics enabled markets — from multi-billion-dollar corporations and private equity firms to entrepreneur-operated privately held companies.
Linda is an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA), specializing in the valuation of businesses with core photonics technology.
Linda’s market experience, prior to CERES, crosses optical components and lasers, clinical and analytical instrumentation, medical devices, telecommunications, and semiconductor equipment.
She held senior marketing and sales management positions at market leaders, Thermo Fisher Scientific/Newport/Spectra Physics, and QIOPTIQ/LINOS/Excelitas.
She also held executive product marketing positions at venture capital funded companies commercializing integrated optics and MEMS technologies.
Linda is a member of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning WomenTM.
She is a recognized leader in the photonics community.
As Fellow of SPIE, the International Society of Optics and Photonics, she serves on its Financial Advisory Committee, chaired technical conferences in biophotonics and is frequent lecturer in technology entrepreneurship.
She holds a B.S.
in Optics from University of Rochester and M.B.A.
from Babson College.