Adieu Ray; ‘Allo Sicot

Just weeks before its annual user conference, Dassault Systemes announced that SolidWorks CEO, Jeff Ray, has been promoted to a newly created position— Executive Vice President of Geographic Operations—at DS corporate headquarters in Vélizy, France, effective immediately. He will also become a member of the Dassault Systèmes executive committee.

Reporting directly to DS president and CEO Bernard Charlès, Ray will oversee the company’s 12 geographies to “enable local DS teams to better address the specific local challenges facing customers and partners.”

Among his accomplishments during his tenure as CEO (2007-2011), Ray is credited with shepherding the company through one of its rockiest periods without resorting to layoffs.

Stepping into the limelight, long-time Solidworks Europe sales exec Bertrand Sicot will take over as Solidworks’ fourth CEO. An engineer by education, Sicot (pronouced Sea-Kot) worked at IBM France and later moved to Computervision before joining SolidWorks in 1997, just prior to DS’ purchase of Solidworks that year.

He began as the head of regional sales for SolidWorks in Europe. He then expanded the US SolidWorks operations from 2004 to 2007 and has since served as executive vice president of worldwide sales, the company says.

Although a 14+ year veteran of the company, Sicot will make his official debut to the greater Solidworks community at Solidworks World 2011 later this month (January 23-26).
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