Tony Hemmelgarn to be Appointed Siemens PLM Software President and CEO

Chuck Grindstaff (left) will become executive chairman of Siemens PLM Software, as Tony Hemmelgarn becomes president and CEO on October 1.

This morning, Brad Holtz, CEO of industry analyst firm Cyon Research, tweeted that Chuck Grindstaff, Siemens PLM Software’s current president and CEO would be named executive chairman and Tony Hemmelgarn would take over as president and CEO.

Siemens PLM Software has confirmed that the moves will be made Oct. 1.

“Chuck will continue to provide input to the technical strategy that underpins our vision of the Digital Enterprise, and be actively involved in supporting our efforts in business and product expansion,” according to an emailed response from Siemens PLM Software’s media relation team. “Chuck will also continue to engage in key customer activities.”

Both Grindstaff and Hemmelgarn have a long history with the company.

Grindstaff has been with the company since 1978 during its origins as Unigraphics. He was named president and CEO in 2010, replacing Tony Affuso.

When Chuck took the helm from Tony Affuso, SPLM had a great potential. Chuck’s stamp on the firm has turned that potential into reality.

— Brad Holtz (@bradholtz) September 22, 2016

Hemmelgarn’s career with what would become Siemens PLM Software began when Unigraphics merged with SDRC in 2001 and rebranded as UGS. He had been a vice president at SDRC at the time. Siemens AG acquired UGS in 2007. The Siemens PLM Software strategic business unit continued to expand through acquisitions that included Innotec, Elan Software Systems, Vistagy, IBS AG, LMS International and, most recently, CD-adapco.

Hemmelgarn is currently executive vice president for Global Sales, Marketing and Services at Siemens PLM Software.

At the Siemens Industry Analyst Conference 2016 in Boston earlier this month, Hemmelgarn took the stage to discuss industry disruption and how Siemens’ customers can succeed in the current manufacturing environment.

“[Our customers] talk to us about what does it mean to do this idea of digitalization. I’m not sure our customers truly understand at times what this really means,” he said. “It’s not about taking you’re existing processes and just mimicking them in the digital world. It’s not about best practices, it’s about next practices. What are we going to do differently?”

He went on to say that Siemens PLM Software will take an industry-specific approach to address the core issues their customers face. “We’re not just selling software, we’re selling transformation to our customers,” he said. “It’s not about a feature, function discussion. It’s having discussions about how we transform and change they way they work.”

Other design engineering industry heavyweights have also announced changes in leadership. Last month, ANSYS announced that Dr. Ajei S. Gopal, who has served as a member of the ANSYS Board since 2011, has been appointed president and chief operating officer, and would become CEO on Jan. 1, 2017. Also last month, National Instruments announced Alex Davern would become CEO and president of National Instruments on Jan. 1, 2017, succeeding co-founder Dr. James Truchard, who has served as the CEO of NI since the company’s founding in 1976.