Steve Paolini joined Hewlett Packard, Optoelectronics Division in 1981. While at HP he held a variety of engineering and management positions in California, Japan, and Malaysia. In 2000 he joined Lumileds as a founding member. In 2007 he founded Telelumen, where he is currently the President. He was also the CTO at Lunera Lighting and the CTO of NEXT Lighting. He speaks frequently on a variety of topics related to solid state lighting and holds 24 issued patents.