Thorsten Heins, former CEO of embattled smartphone maker BlackBerry, is set to take the reins at Powermat, a private Israeli company known for its Duracell Powermat wireless charging pads.
Powermat announced Heins as the company's new chief executive after company founder and former CEO Ran Poliakine agreed to become the vice chairman on Powermat's board of directors. The appointment comes as Powermat expands its reach into 200 Starbucks outlets in the San Francisco Bay Area, which will soon switch on circular Duracell wireless charging mats built into the café's table and countertops. Starbucks also hopes to install 100,000 Duracell charging mats in all its stores nationwide.
"Powermat is poised at an important juncture in its evolution and Thorsten will lead its expansion to take the wireless charging solutions we created into the mainstream," says Poliakine in a statement. "I look forward to working closely with Thorsten as Powermat advances toward a bright future."
German-born Heins, 56, served as former chief technology officer at Siemens and spent a rocky two years as head of BlackBerry as the former smartphone leader struggled amid the dominance of companies such as Apple and Samsung. Heins' leadership began in January 2012. In late 2013, after BlackBerry failed to reach a proposed $4.7 billion agreement to sell the company to Fairfax Financial, Heins stepped down from office.
Powermat's board believes Heins' extensive operational experience and deep ties to the wireless industry, as well as his "ability to rally employees to achieve their best," make him the perfect person to launch wireless charging and the Powermat-backed Power Matters Alliance (PMA) standard into the mainstream.
"Powermat is fortunate to have such an experienced and talented executive taking over from a founder who expanded the company to a point where it is now associated with some of the world's most recognizable brands, from GM to Starbucks," says Gaurav Bhandari, board member and managing director of Goldman Sachs, which invested $30 million in Powermat in 2012, an investment that reportedly raised the value of the company to $330 million.
Heins says he is excited to join Powermat at a time when its "technology is on the cusp of mainstream production." Powermat is found in some of General Motors' vehicles, while DuPont is looking to integrate the wireless charging mats on its Corian surfaces "because it has the most powerful network effect." Heins' mission, therefore, will be to continue to forge partnerships with other companies to make its technology as mainstream and as ubiquitous as Wi-Fi.
However, he also faces a few challenges that hinder the widespread adoption of the PMA standard that Powermat uses. Two other wireless charging standards exist, and while PMA has struck a deal with the Alliance for Wireless Power to make their standards compatible, the Qi standard by the Wireless Power Consortium remains the dominant standard used in most smartphones that provide support for wireless charging.
Heins says these challenges are a "typical signature of an early market" and will not close doors to discussions about creating compatibility within standards. Nonetheless, Heins says he is honored to lead Powermat into the next phase of business and leave no stone unturned in pushing to make Powermat a mainstream technology.
