STAVANGER, 24th of February, 2014
Richard Wood
Richard Wood joins Safran as Vice President of International Sales and member of the executive management team. Richard will be responsible for sales outside the domestic market in Norway – both direct to client and through our partners.
Richard joins Safran from Oracle Primavera where he was Vertical Sales Director, leading the international business development team, and responsible for Go To Market plans and long term revenue generation in Oil & Gas; Pharma and Life Sciences; Public Sector and Financial Services. Reporting to the SVP, International Business Development, the role included marketing and campaign planning, sales enablement and leadership, and customer executive engagement.
Richard has also held positions as Business Development Director and Account Director within Oil & Gas for Oracle. He has also developed several large accounts for Primavera Oracle during his years with them. Richard has over 25 years of sales, sales management, and business development experience.
Richard Wood says on joining Safran: “Safran has already developed a strong client base in programme management for heavy asset industries. Combined with new investment from new main owner Progressus, this will act a springboard to growth, allowing the company to take its rightful place amongst those that support strong governance of project execution in the enterprise community. I feel both privileged and enthusiastic to be a part of this growth.”
Jeff Russell
Jeff Russell joins our new American subsidiary – Safran Software Solutions LLC in Houston – as Vice President of Sales. Jeff will be responsible for sales activity in the US – both direct and through partners and channels.
Jeff also joins Safran from Oracle Primavera where he was Application Sales Manager responsible for sales of the Primavera product portfolio suite (project management, portfolio management, risk management, and project cost management) to the Oil & Gas and Utilities verticals.
Jeff has 20 year of enterprise software sales experience that includes over 10 years of sales with Oracle Corporation. In addition to Oracle, Jeff has sold enterprise software solutions for Informix Software, Plumtree and FileNet.
Jeff Russell says on joining Safran: "There is a tremendous need in the market for a company that is exclusively focused on providing project and portfolio management solutions that enable users to optimize the delivery of complex projects. Since 1997, Safran has provided solutions that deliver true business value for customers like Statoil and ConocoPhillips. I look forward to introducing Safran's history of success to the US market."
Lars Sandbakk
Lars Sandbakk also joins the Safran Software Solutions LLC team in Houston as a Senior Consultant, covering sales support, installation, adaptations and training. Since graduating as a Master in Naval Architecture in 1991, he has worked in the Oil & Gas business for over 20 years. He came to Safran head office in Stavanger in 2006 from a Safran system manager position at Aker Kvaerner. Other experience includes Artemis, Primavera and MS Project based solutions for Halliburton and Lucas Management Systems.
Lars has already worked as a consultant from Houston for almost 3 years, assisting various US partner led Safran projects for Talisman Energy, Harvest Energy, the FAA and NASA.
"I am proud to welcome Richard, Jeff and Lars to the Safran team", says Per Arne Jensen, Chairman of the Board at Safran. "These appointments are vital to our internationalization strategy and enable us to drive forward our ambitious plans at full speed. We are ready to get the message out to international clients that there is an alternative within complex project and portfolio management software, and to tell the success stories from the likes of Statoil, Aker and Aibel to the global project community."
These appointments are announced just a couple of weeks after the strengthening of the Safran R&D team with Glenn Jarrad joining from Oracle and Vishnupriya Kalyanasundaram from Tieto.
More organizational expansion will be announced shortly.
