Our industry thrives in the spirit of cooperation
Jenn Cable has been President of Thorlabs since 2021. Since it was founded by her father Alex Cable in 1989, the company has grown into a global Photonics solutions provider with more than 3,000 employees. In the interview she speaks about her journey to the top of the company, Thorlabs’ evolution from a components manufacturer and catalog company to a Photonics solution provider with a focus on quantum technologies, optical telecommunications, factory automation and environmental sensing – and about her commitment to significantly reducing the company’s carbon footprint and about the values with which she leads Thorlabs.
Mrs. Cable, would you please give us a brief introduction to Thorlabs?
Jenn Cable: Thorlabs was founded in 1989 to serve the photonics research market. Since that time, we have invested in our manufacturing capabilities to offer a wide variety of solutions. We manufacture in-house the majority of the products, components, tools and instruments that are sold through our catalog. I think everyone in the photonics community knows the catalog, which started as a four-page flyer hand-drawn by my grandmother. Today it is our goal to be a partner to our customers in the research community as well as in product development or in finding new ways to bring photonics solutions to real-world problems. Many of our customers build their relationships with Thorlabs during their graduate studies and when they move on to positions in industry, they bring our solutions with them – which we are very honored by. The industrial business is becoming a larger and larger part of what we do, but we keep our strong position in the research sector. When my father founded the company, he had himself in mind as the ideal Thorlabs customer, based in his work in the lab of Dr. Steven Chu at Bell Labs, in Holmdel NJ, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. My father recognized a gap in the market and stepped in to fill it. Gradually he then built up a network in Europe and Asia, which we grew into full-fledged entities that develop and manufacture their own products and serve the needs of their local customers. We are a global company with more than 3,000 employees, but we really want each of our teams to have a local flavor.
As the daughter of the founder, you have known the company since you were a child. When did you realize that you wanted to be a part of it?
Cable: I was a toddler when my father founded, so Thorlabs has always been a part of my life. We had a spare room in our house filled with lab equipment. We loved watching the displays with all these waves and numbers and listening to my father talking about light. To be at the company was a way to spend time with him as a family, because as a founder he worked a lot. Growing up I worked every summer during school breaks at Thorlabs, assembling products and being part of all the different functional areas. But as an adult, I decided to develop a career outside of the photonics industry. I worked for non-profits and later in the healthcare industry, where I finally led strategic initiatives and large-scale change processes for a corporation. But I always had in mind to make the world a better place. The largest impact on people’s lives for me is to improve the quality of their jobs and making the work experience a meaningful one. With this impetus I returned to Thorlabs to learn the company and to help create an inspiring, livable working environment all over our global network with the many new employees in nine countries at the time. The first years I did a series of rotations through all our different functional areas. Always looking for potential ways to improve the business, to standardize processes and grow the infrastructure to meet the demands of the markets. Also, automation in manufacturing and the management of our knowledge were part of my considerations.
You have been president since 2020. What were your plans and visions when you took office?
Cable: I took over the responsibility during the pandemic. Managing that was the immediate focus. We implemented safety measures, but we also had to cope with the consequences of the lockdown: there were practically no more orders from research because the institutes were all empty. But it was clear that there would be a peak in orders afterwards, that we had to prepare for despite all the supply chain challenges during the pandemic. My second focus was to maintain our amazing culture by adjusting our organization as our workforce grew and changed, to familiarize newer employees with our norms and values and to create an inviting workspace where every individual is seen and respected in their uniqueness. We implemented clearer responsibilities, decision-making processes and clearer communication of expectations. These systematic changes led us to also improve our infrastructure, manufacturing and the scalability of our business. We had to improve our efficiency and strengthen our foundations for future growth—also because it’s getting harder and harder to hire enough skilled experts.
You align Thorlabs with future technologies, such as optical telecommunications, quantum technologies, factory automation and environmental sensing…
Cable: …which is my third and most exciting focus as Thorlabs president. We are really positioning us to understand and be part of emerging photonic technologies. For that we invest in our business and in our people. We want to stay in the forefront of how photonics is evolving and where we can seize our opportunities in the next few years. We recently saw a boom in quantum computing companies that were buying from us. They are using a ton of Thorlabs components. I visited them and saw their prototypes. The industry is quickly moving towards miniaturization, more sophisticated packaging and photonic integrated circuits (PIC). This trend will change our industry and minimize the relevance of many established components. We need to develop more sophisticated products and to emphasize their use in emerging markets. On the other hand, we offer our customers, that we can help them to distribute their sophisticated tools and instruments through our channels. And we provide partners with core photonics knowledge and power their systems with our “photonic engine”—as we call it. All of this is exciting and challenging—because we need to keep a balance between customized solutions and catalogue products. This involves many small and large strategic decisions every day. And we must improve in communicating the significance of the solutions that our photonics products contribute to. Most people can´t connect with physics but they can connect with applications—be it environmental sensing, medical imaging or quantum computing. And this in turn can create a positive, meaningful and dynamic work environment.
How important is it to cooperate with partner companies such as Menlo, Infleqtion, Sensirion or Praevium?
Cable: These partnerships and projects are incredibly important. Our industry thrives in the spirit of cooperation, which makes it really fun to be a part of this community and improves the dynamics of innovation. The relationships with our strategic partners help us to better serve the needs of our customers. We have different types of relationships with them. Each of them provides us with capabilities and perspectives that supplement and strengthen our skills and competencies in-house. We complement each other and share our knowledge where it´s needed.
Is the focus on future technologies a reaction to the increasing strength of photonics suppliers from China?
Cable: We should not complain about strong competitors but improve our products and strategies. Chinese companies offer excellent products. The previous belief that they deliver lower quality, or less sophisticated engineering has proven wrong. Besides that, they are better positioned to serve their domestic market than US- and European companies also due to export restrictions. But from my perspective, there are still a lot of opportunities to provide solutions to the Chinese research and industrial market.
Thorlabs China has been developing very dynamically since its foundation in 2010. What role does this location play in your global activities?
Cable: We have an amazing team with more than 200 employees over there. China has a very sophisticated and well-funded research community in life-sciences. This market is very exciting for us. As in every region we act locally with a team of domestic experts that really understand the needs and the culture of the customers. This approach has been very successful so far.
Something else stands out. You clearly committed yourself to an inclusive workforce. Why is that so important to you?
Cable: It is the right thing to do. Every human is unique and brings in a unique perspective. We are all part of the same community – and I see it crucial for our future success, that all our employees feel respected and simply at ease. That is what I want to feel and hope my team feels every day. Besides that, there is a ton of research out there that shows that more diverse and inclusive teams perform better. The more perspectives we have on our product development, the less chance of overlooking something we have. Recently a color-blind employee hinted us to his problem, that he is unable to differentiate between green and red control lamps. Oftentimes it is that simple, but you don´t realize as long as everyone shares the same experiences, skills and backgrounds. Our industry competes with the tech companies in Silicon Valley in attracting talents. We have to offer an open, attractive culture that attracts young talents and respects them in their uniqueness. For myself I really hope, that as a women leader in this industry I am showing other women and girls that there are great opportunities in our industry and that they can have an impact here.
On top of that, you invest to minimize your carbon footprint…
Cable: We started this journey three years ago with creating a baseline of our environmental impacts and our carbon footprint. It is complex and an incredible amount of work, but our team is passionate about the environment. We have installed solar panels, implemented composting programs, switched to renewable electricity purchases and reduced the carbon footprint of our shipments. It goes step by step. But we are convinced and take part in the UN-sponsored science bases target initiative which sets global standards that align with the 1.5 degree target. It is the right thing to do, it has a positive impact on our culture and in fact reduces our costs. In addition, more and more customers ask for the carbon footprint of our products. We’ll need to monitor, document and provide them with this data, to continue receiving orders from them.
What role can photonics play in the fight against climate change?
Cable: Sometimes we forget that solar panels are photonic technology. It is great that their costs decreased so quickly, because photovoltaics is a major source of renewable energy. Photonics also provide very sophisticated environmental sensing and monitoring technologies. The challenges are no longer of technological but of regulatory and commercial nature. The solutions must find their way into the market. To solve climate change, we need to sense and monitor emissions and to implement carbon neutral technologies. This will not happen by itself. We need determined governments and clear regulations. But Photonics can be a part of the solution to combat climate change, and I’m excited to see the impact our industry can have on this pressing challenge.