Altair Names New EMEA and German Management Positions
Appoints Dr. Detlef Schneider as senior vice president EMEA and Dr. Pietro Cervellera as managing director Altair Germany
TROY, Mich. January 15, 2014 – Altair today announced that it has appointed a new management team in Europe. Effective January 1st, 2014, Dr. Detlef Schneider has been appointed senior vice president EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). Dr. Pietro Cervellera has assumed responsibility for all of Altair’s operations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Eastern Europe.
Both positions have been filled with very experienced, long-time Altair employees. Dr. Schneider, who received his engineering diploma and PhD from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, began working for Altair in 1997. Since then he has filled several positions at Altair in Germany and abroad, among them managing director of Altair Germany and senior vice president solver products through December 2013. In his most recent role he was responsible for the development of all of Altair’s solver products, including MotionSolve
®, AcuSolve
®, RADIOSS
®, and OptiStruct
®.
“I am looking forward to my new responsibilities for our operations in EMEA. In my new position I will focus on a continuous and healthy growth of our business by adding significant value to our customers' product design and development processes with our software and services solutions,” said Dr. Detlef Schneider, Senior Vice President EMEA, Altair.
“Detlef Schneider has done a fantastic job in his role overseeing Altair’s solver portfolio and putting his imprint on those products over the past two years,” said James R. Scapa, president, CEO and founder of Altair. “Solvers for Altair are a critical element of the future success of HyperWorks
® and we have made important strides during Detlef's tenure. He and his team managed to evolve the Altair solver technology into a significant and well recognized product suite with which our customers can solve and optimize large scale multi physics tasks. He will succeed Michael Hoffmann, who will assume global business development responsibility. I am confident that Detlef will continue Michael’s successful work in EMEA by further improving customer relationships and by growing our business in the region.”
Dr. Pietro Cervellera, now managing director of Altair Germany, received his aeronautic engineering degree from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy and his PhD in industrial engineering from the University of Padova, Italy. After previous engagements at Daimler and Fairchild Dornier he joined Altair in 2002 where he held several positions within Altair’s technical and sales management teams, most recently as European sales director for the aerospace industry.
“Our goal at Altair Germany is to help our customers dramatically innovate the way they develop their products, to cut down development costs while improving product quality,” said Dr. Pietro Cervellera. “Together with our German team of over 150 colleagues, with their unique combination of simulation experience and engineering know-how, we will ensure successful and excellent customer relations and healthy growth in the years to come.”
Dr. Cervellera will succeed Dr. Uwe Schramm in this position. Uwe returns to Irvine, California to lead Altair’s optimization and solvers team.
“Pietro has been a highly effective leader during his career at Altair, driving our success in the aerospace market in Europe and always demonstrating a team spirit in helping others to succeed as well,” James R. Scapa continues. “I congratulate Pietro on his promotion and look forward to seeing our German business grow. I would also like to thank Uwe Schramm for his outstanding performance as managing director Altair Germany and we are happy to welcome him back to our development team in the US. I’m sure our products will benefit from his breadth and depth of expertise.”
About Altair
Altair is focused on the development and broad application of simulation technology to synthesize and optimize designs, processes and decisions for improved business performance. Privately held with more than 2,000 employees, Altair is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA and operates more than 40 offices throughout 20 countries. Today, Altair serves more than 5,000 corporate clients across broad industry segments. To learn more, please visit
www.altair.com.