CygNet hires Mike Hill from Invensys for VP sales

December 18, 2008 - CygNet Software announced three executive appointments, which position the company for continued growth. Former Invensys executive Mike Hill has been named vice president of sales. CygNet’s current vice president of sales and marketing, Steve Robb, will now serve as vice president of business development, and current CygNet software engineer Doug Rauenzahn will become director of product management.

“With more than 100 customers representing 43 percent of domestic gas production in North America, CygNet is continuing to transform the industry by providing a unified information ecosystem that drives improved decision making,” said Chris Smith, president and CEO, CygNet Software. “With his knowledge, experience and track record of success, Mike will build upon our current achievements, drive continued growth for the company and allow our very talented Steve Robb to focus solely on business development, which is a key strategic focus for our team. Doug Rauenzahn’s expanded role builds upon his significant contributions to our current product offering and will ensure a more focused approach to product strategy and execution.”

Prior to CygNet, Hill held a number of executive positions at Invensys Process Systems (IPS), where as vice president of Asia-Pacific sales he led the sales organization to 29 percent domestic growth in fiscal year 2008. While at IPS, Hill also served as vice president of solutions for the Asia-Pacific region, leading the organization to a 106 percent growth rate in fiscal year 2007. As vice president of SimSci Americas, he achieved a growth rate of 160 percent in fiscal year 2006. Before IPS, Hill held a number of sales and engineering management positions at Process Systems Enterprise Limited, AspenTech, Bionetrix, Simulation Sciences and Parsons Engineering.

Robb, who joined CygNet in 2005, now oversees the creation and execution of key strategic programs for driving market awareness and customer adoption of CygNet's offerings. Through his efforts and support of the CygNet team, the company has experienced a total sales growth of more than 266 percent. Prior to CygNet, he spent 13 years leading sales at Metso Automation (acquired by Telvent), a supplier of automation and real-time enterprise data management solutions to the utility, energy and environmental industries. While at Metso/Telvent, he led the successful entry into two new market verticals and negotiated key agreements with Fortune 500 energy companies, including Williams and NiSource. Earlier in his career, Robb held sales management positions at Paragon Controls and Keystone Canada.

During his time at CygNet, Rauenzahn has led CygNet's driver development team, implementing numerous development process improvement initiatives. Prior to joining CygNet, he was a lead software engineer at HP, working on the HPUX operating system and enterprise backup software and solutions.