CIENA CORP

Peer Group. To assist the Committee in the selection of a group of peer companies against which to compare existing and proposed executive compensation levels for fiscal 2025, Compensia used several quantitative and qualitative criteria, including the primary selection and refinement criteria listed below, which were identical to those used in recent years, to review existing and potential peer group companies. Compensia noted its view that, given the limited number of similarly sized business competitors due to industry consolidation, the revenue criterion has the highest relevance in selecting peer companies for purposes of comparing compensation.

Following Compensia’s analysis, the Committee noted that in recent years, the Committee had increased the overall size of the peer group in order to provide a broader data set and avoid the overinfluence of any one company, and to better balance Ciena’s positioning with respect to the revenue and market capitalization criteria. In connection with Compensia's analysis, the Committee removed Arista Networks due to its market capitalization now falling outside of the target selection criteria range.

Based on this analysis and the selection process set forth below, the Committee determined that the following peer group constituted an appropriate comparative reference for determining executive compensation in fiscal 2025 (the "Peer Group"):

The following charts illustrate a comparison of Ciena to the Peer Group based on the assessment criteria of revenue, market capitalization, operating income and employee headcount, measured as of the date of the Committee’s assessment in July 2024, with the revenue and operating income comparisons based on the four fiscal quarters preceding the assessment.

Peer Group comparison

36 2026 Proxy Statement

The Committee noted that Ciena was generally aligned with the medians of the Peer Group for the revenue criterion (42%), the operating income criterion (40%), and the headcount criterion (41%), and slightly below the median of the Peer Group for the market capitalization criterion (37%). The Committee believed that this represented a reasonable and appropriate balance among the key quantitative criteria, particularly given its view that revenue has the highest relevance in selecting peer companies for purposes of comparing compensation. The Committee also considered the criteria used by ISS and the degree of overlap between Ciena’s existing Peer Group and ISS’s recommended peer group of companies.

Market Data. As a comparative framework for the Committee to use in establishing executive compensation for our NEOs, Compensia assembles and analyzes compensation data from public filings, data provided by the Radford High Technology Executive Compensation Survey, and other published market data relating to comparable executive positions in the Peer Group (collectively, the "Market Data"). In considering the Market Data, the Committee recognizes that executive officers in different companies can play different roles, with different responsibilities and scopes of work, even though they may hold similar titles or nominal positions. Moreover, qualitative factors that influence compensation, such as each executive officer’s performance during the period under consideration or their criticality to their respective companies’ business, strategy and objectives are not easily discernible from the Market Data. Accordingly, the Market Data is just one of a number of factors used by the Committee in determining executive compensation and it serves as a frame of reference for compensation.