The IFR General Assembly elected Marina Bill (ABB), Kenji Yamaguchi (FANUC) and Masahiro Ogawa (Yaskawa) as new members for the IFR Executive Board. The delegates are following Steven Wyatt (ABB), Junji Tsuda (Yaskawa) and Shinsuke Sakakibara (FANUC).
Marina Bill currently serves as Global Head of Marketing & Sales for ABB’s Robotics and Discrete Automation business, Kenji Yamaguchi is President and Chief Executive Officer of FANUC Corporation and Masahiro Ogawa holds the position of Managing Executive Officer of Yaskawa Electric Corporation and General Manager Robotics Division.
Association delegates Hiroshi Fujiwara (JARA), Xiaogang Song (CRIA), Jiegao Wang (Estun) and Patrick Schwarzkopf as well as the representatives of the Research Committee, Prof. Alexander Verl (University Stuttgart) and Prof. Jong-Oh Park (Chonnam University) were confirmed as Executive Board members.
For the first time ever, the annual IFR General Assembly meeting was held as web meeting due to the corona pandemic. Delegates from around the globe were joining the meeting at different local time. This was a new challenge for both the attendees and the organizers.
The IFR Robot Suppliers Committees also met in the same week and elected Marina Bill as its new Chair, supported by Marcus Mead (Yaskawa) as Vice-Chair, following Andreas Bauer (KUKA) and Bruno Schnekenburger (Yaskawa).
After her election, Marina stated: “I am honored to bring my experience, education and skills to IFR, and look forward to putting them toward a good cause. I would like to use the knowledge and international experience gained in my career to help raise the voice of the global robotics industry.”
Melonee Wise (Fetch Robotics) replaces Martin Haegele (Fraunhofer IPA) as Chair for the IFR Service Robot Group and Armin Schlenk (Yaskawa) took over the IFR Marcom Committee from Steven Wyatt (ABB) already end of last year.
After a week of meetings and elections, all important positions have now been filled again. The General Secretariat is looking forward to a fruitful collaboration with all delegates in these challenging times.
