Retired President & Chief Operating Officer of Corning Incorporated. Sitting member of the BMW Group Mobility Council. Four decades at the intersection of materials science, precision manufacturing and the architecture of modern mobility — a career spent turning invisible physics into visible progress.
Portrait · Tuck School of Business · Signature Series
Peter F. Volanakis joined Corning Incorporated in 1982 and rose, over the course of three decades, to become its President and Chief Operating Officer. Along the way he shaped the business that would put LCD glass into the pocket of every knowledge worker on earth, stewarded the culture that produced Gorilla® Glass, and rebuilt the operational spine of a 175-year-old company for the age of precision manufacturing. Today, from his seat on the BMW Group Mobility Council, he brings that same discipline to the materials, systems and strategies that will define the next century of movement.
Scaled Corning Display Technologies from a specialty line into a multi-billion-dollar global engine, redefining what precision glass manufacturing could deliver.
Championed a research culture that compounded into Gorilla® Glass, optical fiber breakthroughs, and the diamond-hard discipline of keystone innovation.
As a member of the BMW Group Mobility Council, advises on the materials, software and systems that underwrite sustainable, intelligent transportation.
Corporate Portrait · Executive Series
Few executives are trusted to run the manufacturing, technology and display businesses of a company as strategically complex as Corning. Peter did — and did so while Corning transformed from a diversified industrial firm into the materials science authority behind the digital age. He ran it like an engineer: with instruments, honest numbers, and a deep respect for the line.
“The material always tells the truth. Our job as operators is to listen closely, and then build a factory worthy of what it says.”— Peter F. Volanakis · Collected Remarks, 2011
A life told in three movements — the engineer, the operator, the advisor. An unbroken line from undergraduate laboratories to the C-suite of one of America's most consequential industrial companies.
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Corning HQ · Operator's Desk
Materials science as an engine of compounding advantage.
Enter →Shaping the BMW Group Mobility Council's view of tomorrow.
Enter →The BMW Group Mobility Council gathers a small circle of global leaders — engineers, scientists, operators and strategists — whose task is to pressure-test how cars, cities and materials converge. Peter's contribution is the long view of an operator who has already built complex, global, materials-intensive businesses at scale.
Enter the Mobility Chapter
Public Address · Archive Print
Continuous years at Corning Incorporated across engineering, operations and executive leadership.
Display segment revenue scaled under leadership, powering a generation of LCD devices.
Countries touched by operations and partnerships overseen during executive tenure.
Active member of the BMW Group Mobility Council — shaping the systems, materials and strategies of future mobility.
“Strategy is a commitment. Operations is a conscience. The factory — the line — is where they finally shake hands.”— Peter F. Volanakis