Global provider of disruptive wireless subsea internet of things technology, WFS Technologies, has appointed a new chief technology officer to drive its evolving product portfolio and software development roadmap.
Jim Darroch has been appointed CTO to own the company’s product vision and roadmap, and to expand the product engineering team to meet growing client demands for its existing product range.
WFS allows operators to monitor subsea infrastructures with their patented Seatooth® real-time and edge computing sensors that view, detect, measure and report on variances against conditions including temperature, vibration, leak, corrosion and cracking. This results in improved safety and asset integrity, lower installation and maintenance costs over the life of the offshore structure.
Darroch brings with him a wealth of experience in leading engineering teams and the development of Internet of Things product strategies, most recently where he was globally accountable for the delivery of an Intelligent IoT Edge ecosystem in Honeywell’s ‘Connected Enterprise’ organisation.
Prior to Honeywell, Darroch spent several years at Artesyn (formerly Emerson) as senior director and vice president of engineering, leading the planning and execution of the company’s global software and product engineering strategies.
“WFS impressed me as a clear thought leader in developing subsea wireless and compute technology to solve customers’ problems in some of the world’s harshest operating environments,” Darroch said.
“While there is a great deal of synergy with other emerging IoT use cases, Subsea IoT presents enough challenges and opportunities to make WFS a fascinating place to work.
“With a solid technology foundation and a talented development team already in place, I am incredibly excited to join the team at this time to help drive, and deliver, our product vision.”
With around 350 patents, WFS’s innovations are performing a crucial role towards helping clients to improve cost effectiveness and operational efficiencies by producing highly-sophisticated data which generate high-level intelligence and, in turn, allows more informed decisions.
Headquartered in Livingston, Scotland, WFS Technologies works with major oil & gas operators and offshore wind developers around the world and is actively planning to establish a research centre in Edinburgh. The research and development hub will be home to its leadership and technology team spanning a range of disciplines including mechanical, software and hardware engineers.
