Bringing relevant experience and fresh perspective, a new Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of Business Development join the GPS technology pioneer to accelerate growth
SAN FRANCISCO, January 11, 2016 — Swift Navigation, a San Francisco-based Series A startup building centimeter-accurate GPS technology to help the next generation of autonomous vehicles and robots navigate an automated future, announced two new executive hires today to support its rapidly growing business. Rob Hranac has joined as Vice President of Business Development and Diana Helfrich Schlosser has joined as Vice President of Marketing. In Hranac’s new position, he will lead business development and sales efforts and add to the company’s portfolio of over 1,200 customers. Schlosser will focus on raising the company’s brand awareness, while driving demand generation and revenue growth for the organization.
With 30 years of marketing experience, Diana Helfrich Schlosser has gained a reputation as a brand-builder, specializing in putting new products in emerging technology categories on the map. From managing marketing analytics and lead generation activities to creative and brand development, she has successfully built multiple trusted national brands. Her efforts have resulted in market-share dominance for numerous venture-backed start-ups. She previously served as the VP of Marketing for Copper Mountain Networks (IPO in 1999), BigBand Networks (IPO in 2007), SolarCity (IPO in 2012) and most recently, Blu Homes. Diana holds a BA degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA degree from St. Mary’s College.
“Swift Navigation’s team exemplifies the perfect marriage of experience and futuristic thinking,” said Schlosser. “This position gives me the opportunity to help shape, as well as execute our strategy, contributing to Swift Navigation’s growing success in the high-accuracy GPS market. From self-driving cars and drones to consumer robotics, Swift Navigation’s centimeter-accurate GPS will enable a whole new generation of autonomous vehicles to navigate the world.”
With over ten years of experience in software, hardware and professional services, Hranac brings to his role an analytics background and deep knowledge of the geospatial and transportation industries. Prior to joining Swift Navigation, Rob served as Vice President of Transportation Analytics at Iteris, Inc. where he managed an analytics group and oversaw business development for an integrated transportation analytics software platform. Rob has an MS degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, a BS degree in Systems Engineering from Boston University. He currently serves as a committee member at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine.
“Swift Navigation has already experienced high demand for its low-cost, high-reliability centimeter-accurate GPS receiver,” said Hranac. “I see vast growth opportunities for the company’s technology. From UAVs and precision agriculture machinery to robotics and automotive use cases, I look forward to building partnerships with industry leaders who are looking for lower-cost, higher-accuracy GPS solutions to power new innovations within their organizations.”
“Both of our new executive team members have extensive backgrounds within their fields and deep domain expertise,” said Swift Navigation CEO Timothy Harris. “We want to build on the market momentum we’ve been experiencing, so are investing in a team of seasoned experts to help us push innovation in a marketplace where we plan to make a significant impact.”
Swift Navigation recently raised an $11 million series-A financing round led by Lior Susan and Pierre Lamond of Eclipse. To date, the company has raised a total of $13.6 million in funding.
About Swift Navigation
Swift Navigation, Inc. provides centimeter-accurate real-time kinematics (RTK) GPS positioning technology for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision agriculture, self-driving cars, robotics, surveying and more. Its products deliver 100 times better accuracy than the GPS in a cell phone—at a fraction of the price of the competition. By optimizing inexpensive off-the-shelf cell phone components with sophisticated software, Swift Navigation has already delivered radically less expensive and more flexible solutions to over 1,200 customers of its first product, Piksi™. Swift Navigation is enabling a world where fields farm themselves, drones fly safely and autonomous transportation can take you home. Visit the company online at www.swiftnav.com or follow Swift Navigation on Twitter @Swiftnav