Rob Beard    

Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer

Rob Beard brings more than 20 years of international experience across senior levels of the business, policy, and legal worlds.

Prior to joining Coherent, Mr. Beard was Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer at Mastercard, where he led the company’s global legal, government affairs, and policy teams, and served on Mastercard’s Management Committee. He joined Mastercard after a nearly decade-long tenure at Micron Technology. At Micron, Mr. Beard held different roles on the legal team, ultimately serving as general counsel and corporate secretary. While at Micron, he played a key role in promoting the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and in negotiating an incentive package from the state of New York for Micron’s announced $100 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility to be built in the Syracuse area. 

After clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Mr. Beard began his corporate legal career as an associate in Shearman & Sterling’s London office, before moving to Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He graduated from the University of Utah and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law, summa cum laude. Mr. Beard has also taught in the University of Illinois’s Communications Department, at the University of Illinois College of Law, and the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.