Attabotics appoints former Microsoft, Amazon leader Cyra Richardson as CTO and CPO

Attabotics
An Attabotics automated storage, retrieval, order fulfillment, and sortation centre.

Robotics supply chain startup Attabotics announced the expansion of its C-suite on September 9 with the addition of former Amazon and Microsoft executive Cyra Richardson as chief technology officer and chief product officer.

The Calgary-based company also announced the hire of Julien Seret, former vice president of global product at SoftBank Robotics America. Seret is appointed as Attabotics’ new vice president of network supply chain.

Attabotics was founded in 2016 by CEO Scott Gravelle, who also formerly served as the CTO. The company claims to offer the world’s first 3D robotics supply chain system that claims to reduce a company’s warehouse needs by 85 percent.

The company claims to offer the world’s first 3D robotics supply chain system that claims to reduce a company’s warehouse needs by 85 percent.  

Attabotics is actively expanding its team with positions open across Canada and the United States. Its staff membership has grown by 50 percent to more than 300 employees over the past year.

Richardson brings over 30 years of experience to Attabotics working with tech startups and Fortune 50 companies where she focused on IoT technology, AI, cloud connectivity, robotics, and scaling technology products and organizations.

Most recently, she was the vice president and chief product office for Wind River, a computer software company based in Alameda, California. Her role focused on overseeing product and development teams at the company.

For six years, Richardson served at Microsoft as the general manager of artificial intelligence, IoT, and robotics incubation. She played an important role in some of Microsoft’s “major technology transformations” including the development of Windows 3.0, Windows Embedded, Azure Intelligent System Service (Azure IoT), and Windows 10 IoT.

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At Amazon, Richardson served as a business and technical leader for three years where she was responsible for expanding the Mobile Web business, new product implementation and modernization of the consumer shopping experience.

Richardson’s new role at Attabotics will be dedicated to leading product strategy, commercialization, product development, and technical strategy.

In addition to Richardson, Attabotics is also expanding its artificial intelligence and robotics expertise with Seret who worked at SoftBank previously. Seret served at SoftBank’s robotics division for five years where he helped with product and business creation in the fields of logistics, warehouse automation, cleaning automation, and retail automation.

Attabotics said it plans to use his expertise in micro-fulfillment and insight into automation and robotics technologies to bolster its own supply chain technology.

RELATED: Calgary-based Attabotics to receive $34 million from federal government

During his time at SoftBank, Seret led the design of new robots and brought them to the market. Seret also selected and integrated first and third-party technologies into new automation products and services for multiple industries including retail, hospitality, commercial cleaning, logistics, and material handling.

Seret’s responsibilities at Attabotics will be overseeing the company’s novel supply chain approach and building a new network model to leverage data, the cloud, and shared pay-for-use robotics facilities, along with Microsoft and other partners.

In April, Attabotics partnered with AtlaML and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) . As previously reported by Betakit, the goal of the three-way partnership is to optimize efficiency and productivity in Attabotics’ supply chain infrastructure.

AtlaML’s experience in developing AI solutions will be integrated into Attabotics’ expertise in fulfillment and Amii’s research expertise. All three organizations are based in Alberta and are big players in advancing the province’s presence in the AI industry.

Charlize Alcaraz

Charlize Alcaraz

Charlize Alcaraz is a staff writer for BetaKit.

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