Crowd Media strengthens board with new non-executive director
Crowd Media chairman Steven Schapera says Sytze Voulon has “deep experience” in a number of areas beneficial to the company.
Conversational artificial intelligence technology developer Crowd Media (ASX: CM8) has appointed senior businessman Sytze Voulon as non-executive director to the board.
Mr Voulon originates from the Netherlands and is an experienced executive who has held roles with businesses across several industries and geographies.
He started his career at Mobil Oil before moving on to senior management positions for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Stork Technical Services, Imtech and Applus where he gained experience in leading global service companies with a focus on turnaround processes and restructurings.
Mr Voulon’s most recent role has been as chief executive officer of the analytics and services division of European medical diagnostic service provider Synlab.
With annual revenues of approximately $320 million and 37 laboratories operating across 11 countries, the division specialises in testing, inspection and certification services for Europe’s environmental, food and agriculture industries as well as global pharmaceutical markets.
In his role, Mr Voulon positioned the division for a private equity buyout as an inorganic European consolidation platform which allowed for a tailored merger and acquisition strategy.
He led the due diligence and sales process and achieved “full enterprise value” on exit.
Qualifications
Mr Voulon holds a degree in marine engineering from Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz in the Netherlands, as well as a degree in maritime business studies from Rotterdam University.
In 2018, he completed the Supervisory Board and Governance program at the TIAS School for Business and Society at Tilburg University, also in the Netherlands.
He currently offers his experience and skills as an independent strategy and management consultant, assisting start-up and scale-up businesses.
Chairman’s welcome
Crowd Media chairman Steven Schapera welcomed Mr Voulon to the board.
“Sytze has deep experience in a number of areas that are of particular interest to Crowd and we look forward to him strengthening our board going forward,” he said.
CEO appointment
Mr Voulon’s role follows Crowd’s announcement last month that it had appointed Idan Schmorak as new chief executive officer.
Mr Schmorak was previously director of business development at Israeli start-up incubator and investment firm VFR Assets and Holdings, where he was responsible for driving growth in products and services, increasing sales revenue and leading the marketing function across a number of company-owned ventures.
These included the “talking head” joint venture with Crowd, whereby VFR provides scalable digital expertise for the development of the Digital Dom Q&A, artificial intelligence-driven platform.