Andrew Gilbert appointed as new Chairman for Wirepas

Wirepas, a global device connectivity provider, has appointed Andrew Gilbert as the new chairman and Jörgen Lantto as a new member of its Board of Directors. Vesa Laisi has been appointed as a new advisor to the board.

Sami Lampinen (managing partner, Inventure), Carl-Erik Mattila (partner, Topnet), Teppo Hemiä (CEO, Wirepas) and Patrick Sheehan (managing partner, ETF Partners) have been reappointed as members of the board. Benedikt Herles (managing partner, Vito Ventures) has been reappointed as a board observer.

“Wirepas has uniquely solved, what I believe to be, one of the biggest impediments to the inevitable huge success of the Internet of Things (IoT). The ability to provide very low cost, massively scalable, self-optimising connectivity is critical to the growth of IoT. I am honoured to have been asked to chair this company in its ambitions to globalise and further develop this unique product to enable the next big growth phase in connected devices,” Andrew Gilbert says.

Andrew Gilbert has served as Executive Vice President, European Innovation Development of Qualcomm Europe, Inc., and as a member of Qualcomm's Executive Committee. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Gilbert served as vice president and general manager of Flarion Technologies' European, Middle Eastern and African regions (EMEA), responsible for strategy and operations. He has also worked for many leading global technology companies including Motorola and Racal.

Jörgen Lantto has served as President and CEO at Fingerprint Cards AB, where he delivered unprecedented growth in global high technology business to business environment, executive VP and CTO at ST-Ericsson, CEO at Alice Systems AB, and has 25 years in Ericsson in different positions.

Vesa Laisi is president, Drives Segment at Danfoss A/S. He has an extensive experience from industrial business in global context. He has served as President and CEO at Vacon Plc, marketing director at Vaisala Plc and as vice president at ABB.

“I feel strongly that the new Wirepas board reflects the ambitions and origins of the company. The long-term investors are now joined by hardened market veterans with global expertise. Combined with the executive leadership team, Wirepas is now well set to go after its vision of one billion connected devices by 2022,” CEO Teppo Hemiä concludes.

The market for the Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial Internet and device connectivity is developing rapidly. Both the number of different applications and the volume of connected devices are growing fast. One of the key enablers for this development is the connectivity.

Wirepas is focused on the software for de-centralized IoT connectivity – and nothing else. Wirepas Connectivity is a de-centralized radio communications protocol that can be used in any device, with any radio chip and on any radio band. The target market is industrial and infrastructure level IoT applications that pose high requirements for the reliability, scale and total cost of ownership. The market access is based on partnerships which enable turnkey IoT solutions to end customers.

Please find the additional information on the members of the board of directors at www.wirepas.com/about-us/board-of-directors/

Further information:

• Teppo Hemiä, CEO, phone +358 (0)50 561 0198, teppo.hemia(at).wirepas.com
• Sebastian Linko, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, +358 (0)40 023 6607, sebastian.linko(at)wirepas.com

Wirepas in brief

Wirepas is focused on providing the most reliable, optimized, scalable and easy to use device connectivity for its customers. Wirepas Connectivity is a de-centralized radio communications protocol that can be used in any device, with any radio chip and on any radio band. With Wirepas Connectivity there is no need for traditional repeaters because every wireless device is a smart router of the network. The connected devices form the network - easy as that. Wirepas has its headquarters in Tampere, Finland and offices in France, Germany, South Korea, the UK and the United States. Wirepas is a privately held company, and its shareholders include founders, management shareholders, private investors, Inventure, Vito Ventures and ETF Partners.

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Distribution:

Main media in Finland and global trade media