Seegrid Has Added 100 Employees in 2020 As It Continues to Grow Its Autonomous Industrial Mobile Robots Business

Seegrid Corporation, the provider in self-driving industrial vehicles for material handling, has announced the expansion of its team with three growth-oriented senior leaders: Katy Elkin as Senior Director of Corporate Development, Doug Beaudet, who will serve as Head of Design, and Greg Cole as Director of Advanced Development. The announcement comes on the heels of Seegrid’s acquisition of Box Robotics and its co-founders Tom Panzarella and John Spletzer joining the Seegrid team as Senior Director of Perception and Director of Perception, respectively.

“Attracting top talent who share our vision and transformational mindset is a critical component of our corporate philosophy and helps us provide our customers with the most competitive products in the industry,” said Jim Rock, Seegrid’s Chief Executive Officer. “I’m excited to expand our team with these three trailblazing leaders who collectively bring more than fifty years of expertise in product design, research, and business strategy. Katy, Doug, and Greg will help Seegrid accelerate the advancement of the latest technology solutions that enable companies to thrive as they enter an era that is ripe for material handling automation.”

Katy Elkin has more than a decade of experience in emerging technology and business strategy, with a proven track record scaling revenue and operations within venture-backed companies. As Seegrid’s Senior Director of Corporate Development, Elkin is responsible for expanding Seegrid’s solutions portfolio capabilities on a global basis through strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Katy will be a member of the Executive Team, reporting directly to the CEO.

Previously, Elkin was VP of Business Development at Desmos, a Google-backed global leader in math software, where she focused on growth. She also drove sales at Clever, solving a complex middleware technology challenge in the education sector, and worked at McKinsey & Company. Elkin holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Doug Beaudet has more than thirty years of expertise leading digital transformation in product design and user experience across a wide variety of Fortune 100 companies. As Seegrid’s Head of Design, Beaudet is responsible for infusing customer-centric design throughout the company’s culture and product offerings.

Previously, Beaudet was Vice President, Global Experience Design at Honeywell, where he created a world-class design team that drove the customer “Insights of Things” to differentiate IoT offerings. He also led the user experience transformation as Global Director, Experience Design at the Whirlpool Corporation. Beaudet, who holds 17 U.S. patents, has an M.S. in Industrial Engineering/Human Factors from Virginia Tech and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from SUNY Buffalo.

Greg Cole has more than a decade of experience in product research and design, including robotics engineering. As Seegrid’s Director of Advanced Development, he is responsible for the company’s advanced development capabilities driving continuous technical innovation across the company.

Cole is the co-founder of Medical Motion Corporation, a Boston-based medical robotic hardware company. Prior to joining Seegrid, Cole led a global research program for new electric vehicle charging infrastructure technology at ABB. He also worked on developing novel image-guided surgical robotics and interventional navigation technologies as a research scientist at Philips Healthcare. Cole holds a Ph.D. in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he also served as an adjunct professor and autonomous vehicles advisor in the robotics engineering program.

These leadership additions follow Seegrid’s recent announcement that it planned to use $52 million in new capital to accelerate product development and expand its workforce. Seegrid has added 100 new employees so far this year as it continues to deliver best-in-class autonomous mobile robots and enterprise software solutions, automating warehouse and manufacturing environments of some of the largest brands in the world.