Veridos, Cerence gets new CEOs to drive digital ID, edge AI ambitions

Veridos is set to have a new leader in place from January next year when 37-year-old Marc-Julien Siewert takes over from veteran Andreas Räschmeier as the company’s chief executive officer. Siewert is currently serving as the chief operating officer.

Per an announcement from the company, Räschmeier, who served Veridos for two years, is leaving to pursue other ambitions. He is said to have made major contributions to the growth and transformation of the German identity solutions provider.

The incoming CEO, described by the company as an experienced manager and someone highly familiar with its inner workings, will help further the company’s ambition to be a world-leading provider of integrated digital identity solutions, the announcement says.

“We are very grateful for Andreas Räschmeier’s leadership of Veridos and its people during an unprecedented and critical time of the company’s development,” says Ralf Wintergerst, Group CEO and chairman of the management board of Giesecke+Devrient. “With Marc-Julian Siewert we have the right successor in order to continue on Veridos’ successful strategic path and further focus on developing our customer proximity worldwide.”

Dr. Stefan Hofschen, CEO of Bundesdruckerei Group, also praised the choice.

Meanwhile, reacting to his designation, the in-coming Veridos CEO stated: “It is a great privilege to be trusted with the leadership of Veridos by G+D and Bundesdruckerei. I am delighted to contribute towards the overarching goal of Veridos: Providing billions of people around the globe with the human right of a unique identity. I am looking forward to leading a high performing team that has the customer in mind in everything they do.”

A biometric passport contract in Bangladesh to be delivered by Veridos was announced in September.

New CEO for Cerence

Cerence’s executive vice president and leader of its Core Products business, Dr. Stefan Ortmanns, has been promoted as the company’s new president and chief executive officer, reveals a company announcement. He replaces Sanjay Dhawan, who resigned from the position.

Ortmanns was promoted by the board of directors based on a proven track record of successfully leading strategy, technology roadmaps, customer commitments, and global teams at Cerence and will mobilize the company’s team to continue its work on product innovation, speed of execution, customer success, and sustainable growth, the announcement notes. Cerence’s core products include its Cerence Drive automotive speech interaction system, which includes voice biometrics, and conversational AI.

Arun Sarin, chairman of the board of directors of Cerence said: “As the original architect of the business and with his deep customer insights, Stefan has proven to the Board that he is the right person to take this company forward. With responsibility for more than 80 percent of the company’s revenue today, he already has the full confidence of the global Cerence team and its Board.”

Ortmanns expressed gratitude for the opportunity to serve the company in that capacity, while his predecessor said it was a pleasure to hold the role in the last two years.

Cerence recently won an award for its voice biometrics-enabled in-car payment platform, Cerence Pay.

ID.me brings in Amazon product veteran

Former Amazon product leader Stephen Benedict has been appointed as chief product officer of ID.me to accelerate the company’s mission of providing a trusted digital identity to all.

Benedict has a successful track record as an innovator focused on personalization, according to the announcement, with more than 20 years of leadership experience at major technology companies. While with Amazon, he led artificial intelligence and machine learning projects to create, launch and scale technology for ecommerce.

“I chose to come to ID.me because I’m inspired by the experiences digital identity makes possible. ID.me’s innovative approach to making every interaction more trusted and secure through public-private partnerships and best-of-breed technology is truly transformative,” Benedict comments.

Article Topics

appointments  |  biometrics  |  Cerence  |  digital identity  |  Giesecke & Devrient (G+D)  |  ID.me  |  Veridos  |  voice biometrics