SkyBitz, a satellite-based asset tracking and information management service provider, announced that its board of directors has elected Dr. Homaira Akbari as chief executive officer effective immediately. Additionally, Dr. Akbari will join the SkyBitz Board of Directors. Dr. Akbari has more than 17 years of strategic, sales & marketing, product development and operational experience across many critical high-technology industries, including software applications, IT services, security systems for homeland defense, telematics and location-based services and telecom.
“We are delighted to have been able to attract a candidate of such high caliber,” said SkyBitz Chairman Chuck Teubner. “At this pivotal point in the company’s growth, we need a CEO to take the company to the next phase of development, and Dr. Akbari is the perfect executive to lead the company into the future.”
Dr. Akbari was most recently executive vice president of operations at TruePosition, a provider of wireless location technologies and solutions and a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, where she led product line management and development, customer support and services and supply chain management – ensuring that the company delivered products and solutions that brought value to its customer base. While at TruePosition, she was instrumental in increasing customer satisfaction and building a scalable operational growth platform.
“I am pleased to join SkyBitz at such an exciting time in the company’s evolution,” said Akbari. “Throughout my career, I have participated in building high growth, international organizations, and my goal is to build on the momentum SkyBitz has established and to create one of the world’s largest mobile asset management companies. The culture of customer focus, innovation and execution at SkyBitz represents values which I already embrace, and make this a natural fit.”
Prior to joining TruePosition, Dr. Akbari was senior director for Microsoft, where she was responsible for Enterprise Specialist and Partner sales for the EMEA region spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before Microsoft, Dr. Akbari was chief operating officer of Thales Telematics, leading the company’s growth initiatives into new customer segments and new geographies internationally including market launches in France, Germany and China, and served as the chief strategist for Thales IT&S Business Area. Previously, Dr. Akbari was a principal at Cambridge Strategic Management Group (CSMG), a management consulting firm specializing in high-technology industries and venture capital and equity funds, and worked as a scientist at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research.
Dr. Akbari holds a Ph.D. with honors in particle physics from Tufts University and an MBA with distinction from Carnegie Mellon University.
SkyBitz ended 2006 with nearly 64 percent revenue growth from the previous year. More than 440 fleets now rely on the patented SkyBitz GLS technology to track in excess of 140,000 mobile assets.
