Simone Bettola
Experienced Chief Operating Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the electrical and electronic manufacturing industry. Strong operations professional skilled in Marketing Management, Business Planning, Sales Management, International Sales, and Management.
Experience
Imecon
(Voilàp Group)
Attracted by the opportunity to improve my experience by leading a start-up, I moved to Imecon, an Italian company operating worldwide as a manufacturer of high-end solutions for digital signage indoor and outdoor, as a General Manager and board member (Chief Operating Officer), directly reporting to the founders and owners of the company.
In the first 5 years the turnover grew by more than 10 times, 2 new manufacturing buildings were realized, the number of employees reached about 100 units and several subsidiaries were activated in key countries for our market.
Since the beginning of the activities, Imecon was involved in International Projects; just to mention the main ones: EXPO 2015 as Official Partner for Digital Signage; Madrid Outdoor digital totems network; Italian National Rail digital signage network; Netherlands railway stations digital advertising; London Underground digital signage assets; Smart Cities kiosks and totems in several locations worldwide.
My main responsibilities included: business development, requirements and price negotiation with the key customers, contracts and agreements definition, supply chain and manufacturing co-ordination, internal and external project management, European patents and European projects submission.
The company was then sold to an industrial group (Voilap Holding) with a worldwide presence in 2018.
My duties were since then more focused to the organisation consolidation: in particular I managed the introduction of SAP in all areas of the company, harmonised the pipeline of sales requests coming from the different countries, planned the production and purchasing to control the target achievements, defined the company budgets, supervised the finance&administration processes, co-ordinated the legal aspects, activated an internal project of growth for the employees.
Business Unit Manager
Visual Display
Hired in the Information Technology Division as a Project Manager for digital signage solutions, after one year I become Business Unit Manager for professional monitors, hospitality display and cloud computing.
Reporting directly to the B2B director, I was responsible for the commercial and go-to-market strategy, business development co-ordination, P&L management, new products launching plan.
Additionally, I supported the B2B KeyAccountManagers in collaboration with the European and Korean HQ for international tenders and projects involving key customers, having the opportunity to build strong relationships with main Italian companies working in professional video market, digital signage and OOH advertising.
During these 5 years I have had the opportunity to work in a global environment, both from the market coverage point of view and the multi-national/cultural approach; I've attended to highly qualified trainings, mostly in the areas of leadership and marketing and I have consolidated my experience as a manager in a structured and complex company.
Hantarex is an Italian company, European leader in the design and production of flat screen displays for home and professional applications (www.hantarex.it): hired as a “Sales and Application Manager”, after 2 years I became “General Technical Manager”, reporting directly to the President.
My main responsibilities were:
- strategic definition of the product portfolio and specifications, including the cost structure and the reference markets
- key components selection (i.e., flat panels, filter glasses, electronics) through frequent meetings with main technology suppliers (LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp) and general purchasing agreements definitions
- R&D department management (including 12 engineers in hardware, software and mechanical development) and outsourcing management, mainly of design houses located in far east trough frequent travels to China and Korea.
- contracts definition and project management of the key international customers (GDO, airports, railways, government, retail chains, advertising companies), of the OEM’s and technological partners (Microsoft, Intel, ADB, Cisco, SKY, DGTVi, RAI and Mediaset); in particular in 2003 and 2004 we have got a “Microsoft green button award” directly from the hands of Bill Gates
- technical marketing responsibility, including product roadmap definition, internal and external sales force technical training, key-customers and opinion leader meetings, newsletters, newspapers and TV interviews; I have attended to a Marketing – Category Management training organised by ISTUD
- exhibitions organisation (ISE, IFA, Digital Signage Expo, Visual Communication) and visit (CES, Cebit, Infocomm USA); speaker at the Big Display Conference organised by the SID (Society for Information Display) in London in 2007; member of the Infocomm International, member of POPAI digital Italy.
Digit
(PietroFiorentini group)
I then became R&D Technical Manager in Digit, a company part of Pietro Fiorentini group.
My task was the development of the new product line of electronics devices for the acquisition, storage, elaboration and remote control of data related to the lean gas distribution in home and large-scale distribution plants.
Technical key aspects were the low power computing, the data transmission over GSM, the field-bus interconnection (Modbus, Fieldbus), the conformity to the requirements for electronics equipment in hazardous areas (Eex-ATEX at the INERIS – Paris), the high-precision metering for fiscal applications (EN12045 at NMI – Amsterdam).
My main job activity was related to the product requirements analysis and definition, the co-ordination of a R&D team of 6 engineers and of several consulting companies, the metering and safety certifications, the production start-up support.
Being part of a big industrial group, I have got the opportunity to attended to several trainings about Project Management, Quality Function Deployment, Lean Manufacturing.
After 4 years I moved to Epsilon, an electronics R&D and manufacturing company, as a Senior Hardware Designer.
My main activities were related to fully manage the development process of biomedical devices: from the requirements analysis with the customer to the final validation, including the architecture definition of the electronics board.
Main projects were:
- an RX angiographic video solution, composed by a special digital camera and by a real-time video processing system based on FPGA. The system was successfully tested and optimised in co-operation with the cardiological staff of a primary hospital.
- the design and development of a RX video processing unit in co-operation with the University of Bologna as a MURST project; the ministry acceptance test was fully positive.
Immediately after the degree I was hired as a Hardware designer in BTS, a start-up bioengineering company, specialized in innovative solutions for the limbs motion analysis applied to the rehabilitation and to the sports gesture optimization.
I mostly focused on the development of FPGA boards implemented into the digital camera and video processors core of BTS business.
Among the projects I was involved in:
- a ultra-high speed camera based on a Philips CCD (in direct link with the Philips development centre in Eindhoven) and of its digital video processing and filtering: the product validation took place in Taipei, where I spent a few weeks collaborating with the specialist of the Children Hospital.
- design and optimization of several digital filters and video cross-point switches
- a motion analysis diagnostic system, tested by the astronauts on-board of the MIR Space Station; the project included the manufacturing of the equipment and I have had the opportunity to assist to the Soyuz spacecraft launch in Kazakhstan
Studies iter
British Council Milan
Beside French, studied for more than 8 years and still fluent, English has become my primary language in most of my business activities.
Mark: 91/100
Politecnico di Milano
“Project of digital circuits and architectures for high-performance neural networks with intrinsic fault-tolerance”
Presented at the “World congress of Neural Networks”, held in S. Diego, CA, in June 1994.
Published on the “IEEE Transactions on Computer” in March 1998.
Liceo Scientifico Vittorio Veneto (Milan)
Languages
