MORGAN HILL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 7, 2004--Alien Technology, a leading global provider of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products, has announced the appointment of John Payne as Chief Operating Officer, Keith McDonald as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and Raj Bridgelall as Vice President of Research and Development.
"I am delighted to have John, Keith, and Raj as members of Alien's senior management team," said Stav Prodromou, Alien's Chief Executive Officer. "Each one brings unique and highly relevant experience and expertise, and together, they greatly enhance our capability to execute the company's strategy to be the leading provider of high-performance, low-cost RFID systems to our customers and partners."
John Payne brings over 20 years of general management experience in the semiconductor industry to his COO role at Alien. He was previously the President and CEO of Magis Networks, a wireless home entertainment chipset company. That company achieved a number of design wins with leading consumer electronics companies, leading to its acquisition in early 2004. Prior to Magis Networks, Mr. Payne spent two years at Philips Semiconductor as Senior Vice President and General Manager in their Digital Consumer System Group where he was responsible for several business lines and development sites in the USA, Europe and India. Mr. Payne has also held senior management positions at Rendition, Exponential Technology, Inc., Star Semiconductor, Integrated Device Technology and Fairchild Semiconductor.
At Alien, Mr. Payne is responsible for the company's day-to-day operations, including Product Development, Manufacturing, and Technology Development. In particular, he is focusing on implementing business processes supporting the scale-up of Fluidic Self-Assembly, Alien's innovative approach to manufacturing RFID tags in ultra-high volumes at low cost.
Keith McDonald joins Alien from Solectron, a leading provider of electronics manufacturing and supply chain services, where he was Corporate Vice President of global accounts and relationship management. His account responsibility covered over $11 billion in yearly revenue. He also led the worldwide integration of Solectron's services into customer-specific solutions. Prior to Solectron, Mr. McDonald spent ten years at Samsung Semiconductor as a Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing and a member of the board of directors, playing an integral role in leading that company to a top position in the electronics industry, generating more than $6 billion in yearly revenue. Mr. McDonald has also held a number of executive sales and marketing positions at Toshiba and Rockwell International.
As Alien's Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Keith is responsible for the global sales organization, strategic business development, channel strategy and management, and OEM relationships. He also oversees Alien's renowned RFID Academy and the Technical Services group.
Raj Bridgelall was previously Chief Technologist for RFID at Symbol Technologies, where he held a series of positions in engineering and research and development over the past 13 years. He led Symbol's activities at the MIT Auto-ID Center and EPCglobal's Hardware Action Group, and was the architect of Symbol's approach for integrating RFID data capture into wireless networks. Mr. Bridgelall's innovations and inventions at Symbol led to numerous successful commercial products and a deep portfolio of intellectual property.
Mr. Bridgelall is responsible for Alien's research and development activities, including the company's long-term programs relating to system and reader architecture. Alien is pursuing important developments to extend the EPC network to include wireless sensors and other capabilities, for the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial customers.
"I take it as a great vote of confidence in Alien and the in prospects of the RFID industry in general when people of this high caliber and deep experience choose to join our team," added Mr. Prodromou. "We are very fortunate to have them on board."
