OREANDA-NEWS. Seeing Machines (LON:SEE), the global leader in the design and development of vision-based Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) to the transport industries, today announces it has appointed Mike McAuliffe as Chief Executive Officer for FOVIO (www.Fovio.com), the Company's automotive business which will be head-quartered in USA with R&D in Canberra (Australia).

Based in Silicon Valley, Mike brings over 20 years of senior management experience in successfully building global businesses in the semiconductor, embedded software and electronics industry ranging from early start-ups to extensive M&A to running large public corporation units, in multiple verticals including the global automotive industry.

Prior to FOVIO, Mike held the position of President & CEO of ROHM Powervation Ltd and before that as CEO of Powervation Inc, which was an Irish digital power processor start-up that he helped build into an industry leading pioneer, that was subsequently acquired in 2015 by Japanese leader ROHM Semiconductor. Prior to this, Mike held various executive management roles at Pulse Electronics where he helped grow the company, including responsibility for the automotive business based in Germany. Earlier in his career, he worked for Texas Instruments and NXP in technical marketing & IC design roles. He is an alumni of Harvard Business School (AMP), Henley Management College (UK) (MBA) and University College Cork (Ireland) (EEng).

To deliver on this significant market opportunity for its DMS technology which is an essential part of the technology stack for advanced ADAS, semi-autonomous and self-driving automobiles, Seeing Machines is working towards spinning out FOVIO. under Mike's leadership, in order to build-out the leadership team and build the organisation to execute on the significant market opportunity ahead.

Within Seeing Machines, FOVIO already has teams of industry leading experts working closely with leading global OEMs and tier one suppliers as Seeing Machines and FOVIO prepare for the first major OEM vehicle program launch next year. FOVIO is heavily engaged in R&D for further multiple contracted car models and in winning the next wave of RFQ programs which will be centred on proprietary FOVIO DMS processor chip and embedded software solutions.  

FOVIO will initially consist of a group of over 60 people primarily in R&D, including industry renowned experts in the DMS and computer vision field, such as Seeing Machines co-founders Tim Edwards and Sebastien Rougeaux. The Company's global organisation is expected to grow significantly as FOVIO builds its global customer support footprint and invests further in R&D, to pursue its strategy in being a market leader in premium Automotive DMS processor and embedded software solutions.

Mike McAuliffe, commented: "I am thrilled to join Fovio to help lead the company on the exciting journey ahead. I am impressed by the world class people and DMS technology in the company and the unique opportunity to build a great business around the next wave of intelligent autonomous automobiles. I really look forward to working with Ken and the whole FOVIO team to make this happen and making a huge contribution to auto safety".

Ken Kroeger, CEO Seeing Machines, commented: "I am delighted to be able to attract Mike on board as CEO for FOVIO. He has the proven skills and experience we were looking for to lead the spin-out and building of the business going forward. Mike joins a group of talented hard-working people and good friends that I am very proud to have worked with. I will now focus my full attention on exploring the many other exciting market opportunities for Seeing Machines' business."