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Audience Appoints Barry L. Cox as Chairman and James Lau as Chief Financial Officer

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 08:00 CST

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Audience Inc., the leading provider of advanced voice and audio processors for the mobile and telecom marketplace, today announced that Barry L. Cox has been appointed chairman of its board of directors. In addition, the company announced that James Lau has been named chief financial officer and vice president of operations and assumes responsibility for financial and manufacturing operations.

"Barry brings a wealth of industry and management experience that applies directly to the opportunities that Audience has today and in the future," said Peter Santos, president and chief executive officer. "His understanding of technology, the global marketplace and semiconductor operational management will be an invaluable asset to Audience, and his expertise will help guide the company's continued leadership and rapid growth."

Barry Cox brings over 40 years of experience in executive leadership positions with semiconductor businesses and has extensive international experience. Most recently, he was executive chairman of the board at Brightscale, Inc. Previously, he also served as chairman of the board at Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd., a semiconductor capital equipment company, and executive chairman of the board at Quantum Effect Devices, Inc., which was acquired by PMC-Sierra. Earlier, he held executive roles at Weitek Corp. and ATEQ Corporation, a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company he co-founded, and was also president of Intel Europe. Cox is also a member of the board of directors at Summit Microelectronics and Grandis, Inc. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the US Air Force Academy and a master's degree in business administration from Boston University.

James Lau brings extensive financial and manufacturing operations experience to his role as chief financial officer and vice president of operations for Audience. He was previously chief financial officer for LitePoint Corp., and before that, spent nearly 10 years with Foveon, Inc., most recently as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Earlier, he was senior vice president, manufacturing operations and chief financial officer for Synaptics, Inc., and held various financial management positions with Amdahl Corporation, Key Computer Laboratories, Valid Logic Systems, and Rolm Corporation. He began his career at Arthur Andersen & Company and is a certified public accountant (CPA). Lau earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

About Audience

Audience is a voice processor company that enables clear communications anywhere with noise suppression technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. The technology is applicable across a broad range of consumer products where voice needs to be intelligible in noisy environments and is already enabling people to be heard on mobile handsets throughout Japan and Korea. Audience was the Silver Winner in the 2008 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards and the Winner of the Semiconductor category. The company was included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Semiconductors, 2008" and selected as the Most Innovative True Mobile Start-Up for the "2008 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards." Audience is one of 34 founding member companies of the Open Handset Alliance and the only one with advanced noise suppression technology. Investors in Audience include Vulcan Capital, NEA, Tallwood Venture Capital and VentureTech Alliance. Audience, www.audience.com, is based in Mountain View, California.

SOURCE Audience Inc.

Source: PR Newswire

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