Huw Roberts Takes the Helm as CEO of GRAPHISOFT

Huw Roberts, CEO, GRAPHISOFT, spoke with AECCafe Voice about the latest restructuring of GRAPHISOFT and his new role as CEO of the company. Congratulations to Mr. Roberts and to GRAPHISOFT's former CEO Viktor Várkonyi. in his new role heading up the new Planning and Design Division.

Huw Roberts, CEO, GRAPHISOFT

According to company materials, the leadership change at GRAPHISOFT is part of a stronger strategic focus on customers and markets by its parent company, the Nemetschek Group. The new Planning & Design Division, to which GRAPHISOFT belongs, is led by Viktor Várkonyi, GRAPHISOFT’s former CEO.  Várkonyi also serves as an Executive Board Member at the Nemetschek Group.

Mr. Várkonyi, during his 27 years at the company, has contributed to several technology innovations that bolstered the widespread growth of BIM in the industry. During his 10-year tenure as Chief Executive, he tripled the company’s revenues and helped consolidate GRAPHISOFT’s position as the global leader in BIM for architects and designers.

“GRAPHISOFT has been a central part of my professional career,” says Mr. Várkonyi. “I was lucky to have been a part of its extraordinary growth during the past three decades. Looking ahead, I believe that 2019 will be a transformative year for both GRAPHISOFT and the Nemetschek Group, enabling great synergies between our sister brands. Huw Roberts brings to GRAPHISOFT exceptional business and leadership skills, deep industry experience, and a true passion for helping AEC professionals benefit from technology-driven transformation. I am confident that the company is now in the right hands to achieve its ambitious targets!”

Huw Roberts is an industry veteran with three decades of leadership experience in both software and architecture, and is a strategic choice for GRAPHISOFT to take the company forward. His work at Bentley Systems, which this editor has been familiar with for many years, was part of a longer career in infrastructure assets and technologies. With this appointment, GRAPHISOFT is positioned to take bold strides forward toward the next inflection point in market leadership.

Mr. Roberts, an architect by profession, has held executive roles in product management, marketing, and business development during his prominent career, guiding the maximization of market impact and business value for leading technology companies. Highlights of his career include 17 years of leadership roles at Bentley Systems, a global developer of software solutions for the management of infrastructure assets, and the Chief Marketing Officer role at BlueCielo, a Netherlands-based company recently acquired by Accruent. As he assumes the top role at GRAPHISOFT, Mr. Roberts, who is a native of Philadelphia, USA, relocates to Budapest, Hungary, the site of the company’s headquarters.

What is the objective of the restructuring of the company?

The leadership change at GRAPHISOFT is part of a strategic focus on customers and markets by its parent company, the Nemetschek Group. To build on a strong growth trajectory spanning the past decade, GRAPHISOFT sought to appoint an accomplished industry veteran to lead a significant strategic push toward the next inflection point in its market leadership. Huw Roberts brings deep industry experience and exceptional business and leadership skills to drive growth and deliver a consistent focus on providing compelling advantages to AEC professionals.

What prompted Mr. Várkonyi to take the Planning & Design Division role and step down from the position of CEO?

In his new role leading the Planning & Design Division at Nemetschek, Viktor Várkonyi will focus on the available synergies amongst a broad portfolio of sister brands.  These synergies offer tremendous potential benefits to the industry and customers.  The experience and knowledge of these brands and the industry Viktor gained serving on the Nemetschek Management team equips him perfectly to lead in this important role.

Is that division taking a bigger role in the Nemetschek Group’s development?

The Planning & Design Division is one of the 4 divisions within the Group — it is the largest division in terms of the number of brands belonging to it. For more information, please visit the Nemetschek Group’s official site.

As GRAPHISOFT has been in the forefront of BIM development from the outset, what directions do you see the company heading in the future?

GRAPHISOFT has a tremendous technology base, global market-leading products for architects and designers, and what is likely the most loyal and passionate userbase in the AEC space – all of which serve as a great base for our continued and accelerated growth in the future.  Looking ahead, for us it will always be about how we can add significant value for our customers by helping them be their best through new capabilities to design, collaborate, communicate and deliver great architecture.  We have a lot of exciting ideas cooking, and some really compelling and exciting innovations currently in the works — but we’ll keep those under wraps for now 😉  We see great opportunities for us to build on our success!

Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, collaboration, design, engineering, engineers, infrastructure, reality capture, Vectorworks, visualization

Categories: 2D, 3D, AEC, Archicad, architecture, Bentley Systems, building information modeling, construction, engineering, file sharing, infrastructure, Internet of Things, point clouds, project management, site planning, Vectorworks, virtual reality, visualization

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