HID Global Announces Two Major Appointments to Executive Team

“I am pleased that we have added top talent to HID’s senior leadership team and strengthened our ability to deliver on our exciting vision for the future.” – Stefan Widing, President and CEO of HID Global.

HID Global has burnished its executive acumen with two high-profile new appointments.

The company’s new VP and Citizen ID Business Managing Director, Jessica Westerouen van Meeteren, comes to the company from a previous role as the citizen identity business VP of Safran (now called IDEMIA after its merger with Oberthur Technologies). Commenting on her new role with HID Global, Westerouen van Meeteren asserted that “[t]he citizen identity market is at an inflection point that will create real change,” adding, “I see the opportunity for HID to lead the way and help guide governments through this transformation, ranging from a shift to mobile IDs and a more holistic, digital-based approach to managing the identities of people in a country.”

Meanwhile, on the technical side of things, HID Global is welcoming Rameshbabu Songukrishnasamy as its new SVP and Chief Technology Officer. Songukrishnasamy was previously the CTO and engineering head at Honeywell Security & Fire. Commenting on his arrival at HID Global, Songukrishnasamy lauded the company for its “commitment to innovation” and “focus on growth”, calling it “a place full of opportunities for engineers to make a huge difference.”

The appointments have arrived at a busy time for HID Global, both on the technical and government business fronts. The company has eagerly embraced the new FIDO2 authentication standards, announcing a compliant smart card solution at the end of April; and more recently it won a contract to provide the Argentinian government with upgraded ePassports. As HID Global CEO Stefan Widing explained in announcing the new appointments, “HID is driving innovation and growth, and we are actively expanding opportunities for our teams of smart, forward-thinking people to take HID to the next level.”