Executive Leadership

Didier Bench joined Acision in May 2012, as the company’s Executive Chairman. At Acision, Didier will guide the vision, evolution and direction of the company as it enhances its enterprise messaging business model and strengthens its leadership position in mobile messaging, particularly over LTE networks.

As a digital media veteran, Didier brings a wealth of strategic and business development expertise to Acision as well as access to new networks, and will be influential in steering the organisation as it executes on its strategy, to effectively leverage existing and new market opportunities in mobile messaging while maximising its drive for fast profitability and growth. He will also be instrumental in providing direction to Acision as it delivers new messaging services to operators and enterprises globally and bridges the digital media and mobile divide.

Didier has over 25 years of global leadership in the development of international technology companies and investment funds across worldwide markets. Prior to Acision, Didier was a senior advisor at Silver Lake, the largest private investment firm in digital media and technology, where he focused on the firm’s middle market strategy. Throughout his career, he has held senior management positions with several software companies, successfully turning them into major players, including roles as Chairman and CEO of Cartesis and iMediation and Vice President and General Manager of Netscape EMEA.

As an investor, Didier was formerly Senior Partner for CDP Technology Ventures, a Canadian private equity fund operating in North American and European markets. Didier holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Paris VII University and a master’s degree in marketing and finance from Paris X University.

As Chief Executive at Acision, the global leader in mobile messaging, Jorgen Nilsson is responsible for the day to day leadership and management of the company, driving innovation and profitable growth while capitalising on market opportunities in mobile, enterprise and social/digital media messaging.

As a telecoms and IT industry veteran, Jorgen has more than 30 years experience in Senior Executive roles at leading blue chip companies including Ericsson and Compaq.

Prior to joining Acision as COO, Nilsson worked for over 10 years at Ericsson where his most recent position was Executive Vice President and General Manager of Vodafone’s Global Customer Unit. In this role, Nilsson was responsible for the management of Vodafone Group’s 21 operators, as well as driving economies of scale across Ericsson’s global sales, marketing, technology and operational teams. He was also part of Ericsson Group’s Extended Executive Team. Other roles at Ericsson included, Head of Sales & Marketing for North America, where Nilsson initiated all product introductions to telecom operators in the region.

Before Ericsson, Nilsson also spent over 10 years at Compaq, where he held various global sales, marketing and operational roles, capturing valuable insights into business models of local and global enterprises and managing successful partner and channels programmes. In addition to this, he held several managerial roles at Telia, part of the TeliaSonera Group and a leading telecommunications provider in Sweden.

Nilsson currently lives in Winchester, in the UK, and enjoys spending time with his family in Sweden and the US where he has homes located.

As chief financial officer, Karen Griffiths is responsible for corporate finance and ICT functions at Acision.

With over 30 years experience, Karen has a wealth of knowledge in both finance and senior management roles, having operated at CFO, SVP and Finance Director levels. Karen completed 18 years at The Coca-Cola Company where her responsibilities included financial leadership for manufacturing and logistics of concentrate supply, as well as financial shared services for The Coca-Cola Company revenue stream in Europe.

Prior to her appointment at Acision, Karen held the position of SVP & CFO Europe, at technology distribution company, Ingram Micro, and was responsible for 15 countries and centres of excellence in treasury, M&A, as well as tax and credit reporting. Karen also worked as an independent consultant developing and delivering leadership, finance and change management programmes for executives across Europe and the Middle East.

As EVP Global Services, Rob is responsible for leading the Global Services organisation at Acision to improve operational efficiencies and services dynamics to create a more aligned sales, product and services coalition.

With a passion for execution, Rob combines first class commercial and leadership skills with an excellent track record in supply chain and procurement, having delivered complex negotiations in support and services across international businesses including Oracle, Microsoft and Hutchinson 3G.  While at Hutchinson 3G, Rob led and closed the first 3G unified Messaging platform deal from CMG back in 2001.

Before joining Acision, Rob was leading the multi-billion weapons programmes as part of the transformation and commercial function at the Ministry of Defence.

As executive vice president, human resources, Janet Turner is responsible for the provision of HR services, employee engagement and career development at Acision.

Janet has a wealth of experience within the field of human resources with a strong emphasis on mergers and acquisitions. Janet was involved with two of the biggest mergers in the IT industry, Digital/Compaq and Compaq/HP before leading the HR function at Acision through the de-merger from Logica.

As executive vice president for research & development, Pavel Pokorny is responsible for all aspects of Acision R&D globally, including the execution of Acision’s product strategy.

With almost 20 years of experience within the IT industry, Pavel has a proven track record in building and managing successful teams and programmes across several development centres. He brings with him extensive experience and knowledge across the whole portfolio of Acision products including their design, development and support. Previous to his current role, Pavel was vice president for Engineering and Country Manager for Czech Republic and was directly responsible for building and leading the Prague R&D team to develop and deliver new Acision software products. Pavel joined Acision in 2000 as a Development Manager.