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A major shakeup has taken place at IP control Company Control4 with the appointment of a former Real Networks engineering executive as CEO.The Company that was founded by former Intel executives will see one of those founders Will West become chairman.
The new appointment sees Martin Plaehn become the CEO of the company that is set to smash through $100M in revenues this year.
Last year Control4 appointed Advanced Audio as their distributor. Within 12 months they achieved the status as the most successful distributor in the world for Control4.
According to CEE pro Plaehn served for four years in product management roles at RealNetworks, the purveyor of RealPlayer and the once-promising RealDVD, a movie-ripping application that was quashed last year by the MPAA.
Plaehn also served as CEO of Bungee Labs, a cloud computing company, and DataLabs, a telephony firm.
“The most important thing for us is technical and operational acumen,” says West, who adds that Control4 is already well positioned to go public “if and when that time comes.”
West says “We had a search committee and went through an extensive process. We looked at both prominent names and names that are less prominent. At the end of the day, we got someone with raw power and a good fit. We think we got a performer.”
Plaehn has a degree in math and experience managing “large groups of engineers,” West says.
“It’s wonderful for me,” he says. “I can focus on things I think I’m good at, like looking three or four years ahead. We’ve already done pretty well. The company is growing rapidly, and we’ve reached a significant scale. Now the question is how to get an order of magnitude bigger. I think Martin can get us there.”
