A fresh perspective to scale

Swiss Moonshoot AG, the startup behind aiaibot, a conversational AI and service automation platform designed to enhance customer service and business processes, has promoted Ingo Steinkellner to the position of CEO from Chief Technical Officer. He brings with him a mix of leadership and technical know-how that he gained through his 17-year career within the polydata Group began in 2007 as a 1st level supporter at pidas in Graz and further education. In his new role as CEO, Steinkellner will continue the existing growth of the Zurich-based startup and take advantage of new growth opportunities.

Swiss drone and eVTOL company Dufour Aerospace also bid farewell to co-founder and CEO, Thomas Pfammatter, who led it as CEO for seven successful years – he will continue serving the company as Head of Strategy and as a member of the Board of Directors. Effective August 1, 2024, Sascha Hardegger will assume the role of CEO, where he previously served as Chief Commercial Officer, joining the company in 2021. Prior to Dufour, among other roles, he led the innovation and drone programs at Swiss Air-Rescue Rega.

Karakun AG, a Swiss software development company specializing in creating custom software solutions businesses and organization promoted Markus Schlichting from senior Software Engineer and Co-founder to CEO, succeeding Elisabeth Maier. After completing his computer science studies in Stuttgart (Germany), he worked with several other founders at the predecessor company of Karakun AG. At Karakun, he initially worked as a Senior Software Engineer and Software Architect and over time, he took on additional responsibilities in Key Accounting and Business Development. Being a technically oriented expert with extensive industry knowledge in financial services, insurance, pharma, and automotive sectors, Markus Schlichting is succeeding Elisabeth Maier.

Nexxiot welcomes Maximilian Eichhorn as CEO
The Board of Directors at Nexxiot has appointed Maximilian Eichhorn as the new CEO to guide the company through the next phase of growth. The asset intelligence company with around 12 employees worldwide has the largest IoT device fleet of its kind globally, with around 1M digital railcars and shipping containers deployed. Moving forward, the company will continue to develop products to make rail and intermodal operations more efficient, safe, and sustainable. This supports the EU directive to shift 30% of road freight over 300 km to rail and waterborne transport by 2030. The EU's goal is to double rail freight traffic by 2050. With Max Eichhorn, who previously worked as 'Vice President Digital Products and Services' for Knorr-Bremse, the startup is set to launch a commercialization program to deliver solutions to both rail and maritime clients.

Zurich Instruments founder and CEO hands over position
Zurich Instruments, a leader in quantum technology and test & measurements instrumentation, announced the appointment of Andrea Orzati as its new Chief Executive Officer, whose professional life has been focused on growing businesses and scaling up organizations in the technology sector. He started his career at u-blox, held strategic and executive roles at Sensirion, and served TEQABLE as a board member. Having succeeded Sadik Hafizovic, the company’s founder, Andrea Oezati will fulfil the founder's vision to scale up the business which was sold to Rohne & Schwarz in 2021. 

Swiss4 welcomes new CTO
Oliver Deak is the new Chief Technology Officer Swiss4, a Geneva based startup aiming to combine premium banking with lifestyle services. With more than twenty years of experience in the telecommunications, traditional financial services and digital assets sectors, both in large organisations and start-ups, Olivier Deak is abroken management of all aspects of IT-related functions, such as research, engineering, quality assurance, security and operations. In hie new role, ee will work at Swiss4 to develop the proprietary technology of SwissCore, the introduction of new functionalities and the development of new services, including the investment platform project.

(RAN)