Michael Ziegler Appointed Vice President of European Sales; Harry Wilson Appointed Director of Professional Services and Support

Munich, Germany (22 September  2009) — ABBYY Europe, a member of the ABBYY Group and a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and language software, today announced two new appointments to its management team.  Michael Ziegler has been appointed Vice President of European Sales while Harry Wilson joins as Director of Professional Services and Support.

Newly appointed Vice President of European Sales Michael Ziegler will oversee ABBYY Europe’s entire sales organisation, including ABBYY Europe’s sales groups based in the United Kingdom and France.  Jupp Stoepetie, CEO of ABBYY Europe, explained how Ziegler’s appointment reinforces the company’s strong commitments to its channel partners and customers. “Michael comes to ABBYY with a demonstrated track record in successfully leading European sales teams. He understands the challenges and requirements demanded by a strong sales network, and knows the best ways to work with the channel and customers together,” explained Stoepetie. “We believe that his strategic vision, partner-driven approach, and depth of expertise in data capture and document management will prove to be an essential tool in helping catapult the ABBYY Europe business forward.”
   
Ziegler, 43, joins ABBYY with more than 18 years of experience working in the content management, data capture, and document management industries. Prior to joining ABBYY, he served as Senior Vice President Europe at Anacomp, a leading provider of business process services solutions, where he oversaw Anacomp’s DocHarbor online document management solutions business.  Prior to Anacomp, Zieger was Managing Director EMEA for data capture provider Kofax in its European office, where he joined as the founding member, built up the company’s EMEA operations, and later managed the sales, marketing, operations and technical support functions.  While at Kofax, Ziegler successfully built a sales channel of certified partners and established key strategic partnerships and alliances which helped drive the company’s European growth.  Ziegler has also provided strategic consulting for the Strategy Partners market analysis agency, driven sales efforts with Barcelona-based OCR company CTA, and through his own consulting firm provided management-level consulting for a variety of technology software companies throughout Europe.  He holds an MBA in International Business from the European School of Business in Reutlingen and a degree in computer science engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt.As Director of Professional Services and Support, Harry Wilson will oversee ABBYY’s services group, focused on delivering pre- and post-sales support and project-based services for ABBYY partners and end customers. Wilson’s team will support the full line of ABBYY products including software development tool kits, data capture solutions and end user desktop products.

“As we continue to expand our business, ABBYY’s objective is to deliver technical support and services which are both professional and relevant. In addition to being problem solvers, our services team should equip our partners with the tools they need to achieve their business goals, and in doing so, enable our end-users to fully leverage our technology,” added Stoepetie.  “Harry has the right set of qualifications to deliver against this objective.  His experience in improving operational performance, building services and training programs, and leading and managing teams should help grow our ABBYY’s services and support group in line with the demands of our partners and customers.”

Wilson, 58 is a seasoned professional with more than 12 years of experience building and leading professional services organisations throughout Europe and EMEA-wide territories.  Most recently he served as Commercial Head of Professional Services for MontaVista Software, where he was responsible for enhancing services and support processes to deliver better client experiences.   Prior to MontaVista, Wilson was Head of Services EMEA for Metrowerks, Deputy Head of Licensee Product Development for Symbian plc, and Manager of European Customer Support and Professional Services for Wind River Design Systems.  He has also held senior manager-level positions with such companies as Cadence Design Systems, Computer Science Corporation and Siemens plc.  Wilson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Wales.