SILICON MOBILITY - Key Persons


Bruno Paucard - COO, Managing Director

Job Titles:
  • COO
  • Managing Director
Bruno has 30 years' experience in the semiconductor industry, 22 years of leadership in start-ups inc. 10 focusing on automotive business. Prior to founding Silicon Mobility, Bruno was CEO of Scaleo chip, a semiconductor fabless delivering high value added IC solutions to major OEMs and Tiers#1. Scaleo chip was acquired by Silicon Mobility in late 2015. Earlier in his carrier, Bruno founded TAK Imaging, a Silicon Valley based emerging growth company providing complete system solutions to the photo printer market. Bruno started his career at INRIA, a French research center in computer technology, before joining GIPSI in 1989. He founded TAK'ASIC, an ASIC design house in 1991, company he transformed into a printing technology product start-up in 2000, flipped to a US entity in 2003 before it became TAK Imaging and was acquired by InSilica in 2007.

Burkhard Goeschel

Job Titles:
  • Independent Director
  • Founder of Formula E
Burkhard is the founder of Formula E and President of the Electrical and New Energy Commission at the FIA. As former member of the Management Board of BMW AG, he was managing Research & Development and Purchasing. At BMW, he led the development of several vehicles, notably the Z3, the Mini, the super sport car Z8 and the Range Rover. He, then, continued his carrier as Chief Technical Officer for MAGNA International. Since 2013, he works independently as Strategic Advisor for major global enterprises. He is also Co-Founder and Director of Asana Technology, Co-Owner and Chairman of Remus/Sebring Exhaust Systems, Director for Maxwell Technologies (sold, so still accurate?) and a member of the advisory board of Evelozcity Holding

Chris White

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Global Sales
Chris joined Silicon Mobility in September 2021 having 30 plus years experience within the automotive industry. He has a track record of delivering sales growth with hardware, software and complete solutions. He started his career in the UK as a self-employed electro/mech design engineer and has subsequently worked in program management and sales, with his first automotive role being with TRW Automotive Electronics in 1989. Since joining Bosch in 1996, he has since lived in Germany and the USA, and has worked successfully with multiple OEMs and Tier 1's. Prior to joining Silicon Mobility, Chris was the EVP for Sales with ETAS specializing in embedded systems, a role he held for 8 years. Chris has a BEng (Hons) degree in electrical/electronic engineering and is based in Stuttgart, Germany.

Claude Leichle

Job Titles:
  • Independent Director
Claude was President of Valeo Powertrain System Business Group, in charge of Power Electronics for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles, Electrical System and Engine, Transmission Systems Clutch & Torque converters. Earlier in his career, he led the Lighting, Electronic and Connective System branches of Valeo and Valeo's Engine and Electrical Systems branches. He concluded his carrier with Valeo as the architect of the Valeo-Siemens Joint Venture. Claude started at Renault in 1973 and became its Technical Director in charge of the Toulouse Engineering Center. He left Renault in 1991 to join Bendix and then Siemens Automotive on various leadership technical, development and production roles. Claude is also President of Liancourt Invest, a Business Angels Investment Company.

David Fresneau

Job Titles:
  • Vice President Marketing and Business Development
David has 21 years of experience in the semiconductor industry including 9 years in automotive market. He started his carrier at TAK'ASIC in 1998 as VLSI designer and successively held several positions from technical leadership to product management accompanying the company transformation to TAK Imaging, a leading printing technology start-up. In 2007, David has contributed to the definition of new PLC products at SPiDCOM as Technical Product Manager and then joined inSilica as Director of the Digital Printing Imaging business unit where he managed the technology and customers assets transition from TAK Imaging as well as being accountable for the P&L of the business unit. Prior to co-founding Silicon Mobility in 2015, David joined Scaleo chip in 2008, an automotive semiconductor fabless, as Director of Marketing and Business Development.David is located in Silicon Valley, CA.

Emmanuel Legrand

Job Titles:
  • Vice President Finance
Emmanuel has 20 years' experience in financial controlling within international high-tech companies. After graduating from ESSEC Business School in France, he joined in 1997 the Siemens Semiconductors corporate finance headquarters in Germany to manage financial set-up and controlling of Design Centers abroad. He moved in 2001 to Infineon France as Financial Manager in charge of R&D sites and activities. Before joining Silicon Mobility in 2017, he had been Chief Financial Officer of INTEL Mobile Communications (IMC) France since 2011 and was appointed Managing Director of the Entity in 2013. He also took the role of EMEA Risk&Controls officer for IMC and completed audit missions in Europe and Asia for INTEL.

Ewald Liess - VP of Sales

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Sales
Ewald joined Silicon Mobility with 28 years of semiconductor experience in the automotive electronics industry and an extensive background in sales as well as embedded systems development in various automotive segments. He held management positions at Motorola, Infineon Technologies, Gennum and Micronas AG. Ewald spent 10 years each at Motorola and Infineon in roles as application engineer, consultant center manager, director of application engineering for all microcontrollers, and as director of automotive sales. After spending three years at Gennum as general manager of Snowbush IP in Toronto, he joined Micronas AG as VP of global sales and business development. Ewald is located in Munich, Germany.

Jean-Marc Nozeran

Job Titles:
  • Independent Director
Jean-Marc started his career as a system engineer at Thomson CSF. In 1981, he joined Renault's newly created subsidiary RENIX in charge of innovation (body control, ABS and electronic injection). In 1985, RENIX was acquired by Bendix and by Siemens in 1987. He then took the roles of R&D Director and VP Engineering of the French subsidiary. Thereafter in 1994, Jean-Marc was appointed GM of the Body Electronics Division before taking the lead of Powertrain Electronics. He actively participated to the merger of Siemens and VDO in 2001, was appointed CEO of Siemens VDO for Western Europe, Board member, while managing the Chassis BU. In 2007, when Continental acquired Siemens VDO, he was appointed President for Continental Automotive France and CEO of the Engine System BU worldwide. In parallel, he served at the Board of several JV's of Continental and Siemens VDO. He contributed to the creation of the French regional competitiveness cluster "Aerospace Valley" and was a member of FIEV.

Khaled Douzane

Job Titles:
  • Vice President Products
Khaled Douzane has 18 years experience in the semiconductor industry with an automotive focus. As VP Products of Silicon Mobility, he is defining and driving all product lines for HEV/EV powertrain and autonomous vehicles applications. Khaled is at the origin of the major patented technologies of the company. Prior to co-founding Silicon Mobility, Khaled intensively contributed to the development of Scaleo chip, a semiconductor fabless company, where he held several roles, being SoC Design Manager for 8 years and then Product Manager for 8 additional years. Khaled Douzane is graduated from Nice Sophia-Antipolis POLYTECH engineering school in electronics.

Lou Hermans

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Managing Partner at Capital - E
Lou is Managing Partner at Capital-E (www.capital-e.com), an investment firm developing unique selling propositions based on enabling electronics or advanced materials. Lou is a serial entrepreneur, having founded and sold 2 successful companies, prior to joining Capital-E: In 2007, Lou co-founded CMOSIS, a company active in the image sensor business, where he was board member and EVP for Marketing and Sales until the acquisition by ams AG in December 2015.

Nathalie Messina

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of System & Software Engineering
Nathalie has 25 years of experience in the semiconductor and automotive industry, 9 years in automotive domain at Silicon Mobility and Marelli and 16 years in semiconductors at Texas Instruments. Nathalie joined Silicon Mobility in 2019, initially with a Software Product Director role in charge of managing and defining the OLEA Software Products. Since 2021, she has been responsible for the System and Software Engineering team that develops optimized, generic and highly efficient software for the control of electric motors, battery charging and power conversion systems for electric and hybrid vehicles. Nathalie was Feature Reference and Senior Software architect at Marelli where she drove the architecture definition and development of Infotainment technologies for the Automotive market. She held various positions at Texas Instruments in the areas of security, advanced systems technology and customer support for embedded motor control applications for tablets, smartphones and chipsets. Dr. Messina obtained a PHD in Computer Science at CNRS I3S laboratory of Sophia Antipolis and a Master of Sciences in Electrical Engineering.

Pascal Jullien

Job Titles:
  • Vice - President Engineering
  • Vice President Hardware Engineering
Pascal has 29 years' experience in the semiconductor sector, 18 years focusing on automotive products. Prior to funding Silicon Mobility, Pascal was VP Engineering of Scaleo chip during 3 years, after 5 years in charge of Advanced Technology Management and 3 years spent to manage the R&D Department in Scaleo chip. Pascal is one of the founders at the origin of the Europe Technologies company start-up in 1996, renamed Scaleo chip in 2006. He put in place the SoC design activity and software development. He is co-inventor and co-owner of 6 international patents covering the semiconductor and automotive sectors. Pascal joined Texas Instruments in 1995 as ARM based SOC Project Leader to develop chips for DECT application. Pascal worked before at Sorep SA for 5 years to develop ASICs for wireless (Alcatel), flight simulator (Dassault Avionic), satellite (Matra Marconi Space) and others applications. Pascal received his Electronic Engineering degree with specialty in micro-electronics at Montpellier University in 1989.

Rainer Kallenbach - CEO, President

Job Titles:
  • CEO
  • President
Rainer has more than 30 years of experience in the automotive industry, with a proven personal track record for developing and marketing innovations in automotive electronics hardware, software, and systems. Prior to join Silicon Mobility, Rainer gained extensive experience at Robert Bosch GmbH where he was President of the Connected Mobility Solutions division, CEO of Bosch Software Innovations, Executive Vice President of the Information Systems sector, Executive Vice President Sales and Engineering for the Automotive Electronics division, and Vice President of ASSET GmbH. Dr. Kallenbach holds a Ph.D. dissertation and engineering diploma in Technical Cybernetics from the University of Stuttgart

Roland Dennert

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Managing Partner at Cipio Partners
Roland is Managing Partner at Cipio Partners (www.cipiopartners.com), a leading investment management and advisory firm for European Growth Capital & Minority Buy-Outs for Technology Companies. Roland leads Cipio's origination activities while serving on several company boards in Europe and Israel. He started his private equity career at 3i Group doing technology and mid-market buyout deals. Before 3i, Roland was a strategy consultant with Roland Berger and the Boston Consulting Group, as well as a robotics researcher with Hitachi Ltd. in Japan. He holds degrees from EPFL in Lausanne and the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, USA

Vincent Cruvellier

Job Titles:
  • Vice - President Operations and Quality, General Manager China
Vincent has been in the semiconductors and electronics industry for more than 21 years with intensive experience in quality and manufacturing, supplier quality management and NPI introduction in Automotive. He has graduated in Information Technology followed by Company Business Management diploma. He's started his career at Motorola where he handled wafers manufacturing and lean manufacturing roles prior to be appointed in 2001 fab manufacturing manager. In 2004, he led wafer probe operations at Freescale Crolles R&D alliance with STMicroelectronics and NXP semiconductors. Early 2008 he joined the semiconductor fabless Scaleo chip to drive operations and the company quality management certification. Co-founder of Silicon Mobility, Vincent manages System Quality, Programs management and products manufacturing operations.