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Siemens stalwart will run ABB's automation and motion division

13 June, 2016

ABB has appointed Sami Atiya to be the new president of its Discrete Automation and Motion (DM) division, succeeding Pekka Tiitinen, who is returning to his home country to be managing director of ABB in Finland.

Atiya joins ABB from Siemens where he has worked for 18 years, most recently as CEO of its Mobility and Logistics division since 2011. Before that, he was CEO of Siemens’ Computer Tomography business from 2008 to 2011. His achievements at Siemens included integrating its Invensys rail acquisition.

“Sami Atiya has tremendous experience in leading industrial portfolios across a wide range of markets and geographies as well as a proven track record of delivering strong results in growth, restructuring and integration situations,” says ABB CEO, Ulrich Spiesshofer. “With his wide-ranging expertise, including robotics, software and artificial intelligence, and his integrative leadership style, he is the ideal person to strengthen the division’s pioneering technology leadership and enable customers to seize the tremendous opportunities created by the digital revolution in industry. I am delighted to welcome Sami to our senior leadership team and look forward to drive the implementation of our Next Level strategy together with him and the entire team.”

Before joining Siemens, Atiya was co-owner and managing director of Harald Balzer & Partner, a provider of software and services for project and process management, and was earlier a project leader at Robert Bosch. He holds a PhD in robotics, sensors and data processing from the University of Wuppertal, obtained while he was at the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing, and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Automation from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. He holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. He will be based in Zürich, Switzerland.

The new president of ABB's Discrete Automation and Motion (DM) division, Sami Atiya

Tiitinen will take up his new role as MD of ABB Finland on 1 October, 2016, following a transition period in the DM division. His new appointment is part of a leadership succession at the helm of several ABB country organisations. ABB’s current MD in Finland, Tauno Heinola, will succeed Axel Kuhr as MD in Australia, while Kuhr will become MD in Japan, replacing Tony Zeitoun, who is retiring from ABB.

“I would like to thank Pekka for his contribution to DM over the past three years, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new position,” says Spiesshofer.




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