Essentium, the Texas-based 3D printer and materials manufacturer behind High Speed Extrusion (HSE) technology, has announced a series of executive promotions and new appointments across its leadership team, having doubled its global headcount year-on-year.
The strengthening of Essentium’s leadership team will enable the company to further advance its supply chain, innovation, commercial, product development, and marketing activities, while providing the scope to meet growing demand for its HSE 3D printing platform in North America, Western Europe, and Asia.
“With these appointments and promotions, we leverage existing talent while bringing additional key leadership and global operational experience needed to support our customers to fuel the next stage of their growth,” said Blake Teipel, Essentium CEO. “Essentium will continue to scale to meet the demands to accelerate an open additive ecosystem through product readiness, innovation, and customer success. Growing appetite and adoption across multiple sectors are proof that industrial-scale AM is ready for prime time.
“We are confident in furthering our vision to reshape the world of manufacturing into a leaner, more agile future enabled by AM.”
Essentium’s HSE 3D printing platform
Launched in 2018, Essentium’s HSE platform is a 3D printing system that intends to address both the speed and strength issues with traditional FDM/FFF 3D printers. The machine can print at speeds up to 1 m/s and is equipped with the company’s FlashFuse technology, which adds strength in the Z-axis to 3D prints.
In January 2019, Essentium raised $22.2 million in Series A funding which reinforced the firm’s existing relationships with 3D printing software company Materialise and chemical producer BASF, to advance high-speed additive manufacturing and introduce an open market model for 3D printing. BASF and Essentium had previously partnered to embark upon establishing a global materials supply chain network for HSE.
Later that year, Essentium scaled up the production of its HSE 3D printer and accelerated material development for the platform after seeing high demand from the market for the technology. The firm credited this to the open 3D printing ecosystem developed in partnership with BASF and Materialise, which aimed to provide users with more control, a greater choice in hardware, software, and materials.
At Formnext 2019, Essentium introduced four new high-temperature filaments for the HSE platform including PEEK, HTN, HTN-CF25, and HTN-Z, and has since announced a partnership with chemical and mineral materials specialist LEHVOSS Group to develop more high-performance materials for FFF 3D printing. The company continued its material development with industrial partners in 2020, launching three new composite filaments specifically geared for applications in aerospace, defense, and electronics, in November.
Expanded leadership and promotions
Essentium now employs more than a hundred people worldwide, having doubled its global headcount year-on-year. The company has also expanded its leadership team with a series of hires and promotions.
Erik Gjovik has been promoted to Chief Supply Chain Officer, after Essentium achieved consistent on-time printer delivery, no deviations, and 100 percent first-pass yield in 2020 under his leadership, despite the challenges of Covid-19. Gjovik has more than three decades of supply chain expertise under his belt, spanning semiconductor capital equipment, consumer electronics, aerospace, robotics, and solar power systems.
Meanwhile, Blake Mosher has been appointed to the role of Chief Commercial Officer and will lead Essentium’s application engineering, sales, marketing, service, delivery, and customer support segments. Mosher will be responsible for ensuring consistent and quality customer and partner experience around the world.
Having been promoted to Chief Development Officer, Elisa Teipel will lead Essentium’s long-term innovation team of scientists and materials and process engineers to facilitate the strategic capabilities of the company’s 3D printing machines, materials, and processes. She is also tasked with bringing new additive manufacturing applications to market.
Equipped with over 25 years of experience in the servo-mechanical system coding and architecture, semiconductors, opto-electronics, sensors, and other such spaces, Terry MacNeish has been promoted to Executive Vice President of R&D, Machines. So far, MacNeish has played a vital role in Essentium’s ability to leverage advanced closed-loop motion system architectures within 3D printing applications.
Having been at the forefront of polymer-based material advancement for the last decade, Brandon Sweeney has been instrumental in bringing the company’s advanced 3D printing materials to market. He now takes up the role of Executive Vice President of R&D, Materials, to continue providing customers with greater choice, freedom, and flexibility of materials.
Ryan Vano, the creator of the first multi-layer thermoplastic filament for 3D printing, has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Filaments & Logistics. He will lead the development and launch of functional filaments for additive manufacturing applications to help Essentium’s customers make the leap from prototyping to full-scale production.
Meanwhile, as Vice President of Global Supply Chain, Will Chiang will run advanced planning processes to achieve supply chain excellence for both customers and suppliers, and will oversee the company’s day-to-day supply chain operations. And finally, Kendra Pulliam is promoted to Vice President of Marketing to lead the firm’s global marketing activities, including brand, digital and product marketing, events, and public relations, among other responsibilities.
Additional hires and promotions
In addition to expanding its leadership team, Essentium has also made numerous additional hires and promotions to its workforce.
Both boasting more than two decades of engineering experience, Chad Eichele and Faisal Altoukhy have been promoted to Director of Hardware Engineering and Senior Director of Software Engineering, respectively, while Josh Lawson has stepped up to the role of Senior Manager of Business Development.
Essentium’s new hires include several industry veterans with decades of experience in cross-functional roles. Constantin Donea joins the company as Global Product Director from multinational chemical manufacturing firm SABIC, while Cecilia Eklund takes up the role of Senior Global Product Marketing Manager, and Jay Light as Senior VP of Sales for the Americas, both of whom join from multinational computer technology firm, Dell.
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Featured image shows Essentium’s expanded team. (Left to right) top row: Constantin Donea, Cecilia Eklund, Faisal Altoukhy. 2nd row: Chad Eichele, Blake Mosher, Elisa Teipei, Erik Gjovik. 3rd row: Brandon Sweeney, Will Chiang, Jay Light, Josh Lawson. Bottom row: Ryan Vano.
