Ciena has begun looking for a replacement for Joe Chinnici, who will resign his position as the company’s chief financial officer by the end of this year. Chinnici worked for the optical equipment vendor for 12 years.

“With Ciena's return to profitability and steady progress toward a normalized operating model, it is time for me to make the change I've contemplated for some time," Chinnici said in a statement issued by Ciena today.

In January, Ciena disclosed in regulatory filings that it was upgrading its executive compensation packages in light of several attempts made by other firms to lure top Ciena executives away. After four years without an annual bonus, Ciena gave bonuses to several top executives for 2006, including a $164,000 bonus for Chinnici.

“Ciena’s executives, having managed a successful turnaround, are particularly attractive to other employers that are searching for executive talent, including established companies [and an] increasing number of early-stage companies,” Ciena wrote then. “[The board’s compensation committee] is concerned that the current environment poses a threat to the retention of key employees.”

Ciena’s CFO search comes only a day after Covad Communications announced the same mission. Covad’s CFO for the last 18 months, Chris Dunn, will resign at the end of May, to be replaced temporarily by Justin Spencer, Covad's vice president of finance.

Last week, another vendor of Ethernet networking gear, Extreme Networks, named Karen Rogge its new CFO. Rogge is a veteran of Hewlett-Packard, Inktomi and disk drive maker Seagate Technology.