In this compelling episode of Factory Forward, we’re joined by Stefan Groendahl, SAP’s strategic leader for discrete manufacturing in Central and Eastern Europe. With over 25 years of experience in the automotive, aerospace, and high-tech industries, Stefan shares invaluable insights on how manufacturers can modernize operations, embrace cloud-first strategies, and harness AI to unlock new value streams. His unique perspective combines hands-on industry expertise with a deep understanding of enterprise-scale transformation.
Whether you’re a mid-career professional looking to move into industry leadership or a manufacturer aiming to scale digital innovation, this episode offers actionable takeaways and real-world examples to guide your journey. Stefan discusses how companies can transform their business models, empower frontline workers, and overcome common roadblocks in large-scale IT deployments—all while staying agile and future-ready.
Key Takeaways:
Tune in to discover how manufacturers can unlock ROI, rethink digital strategy, and stay competitive in an AI-augmented, data-driven future. This episode is a must-listen for leaders ready to scale transformation and future-proof their factories.
Brandin and his team help our customers with setting up the Pathfinder platform and getting up-to-speed on all the features and functionalities, in addition to assisting them with standardizing their processes where needed.
Brandin is a seasoned manufacturing leader, who has spent more than a decade designing and setting up assembly lines in both the US and China, optimizing them, and working with human operators to maximize productivity and quality.
Jesse works closely with our marquis customers to understand their needs, and figures out the best solution that immediately adds dollars to their bottom line.
Jesse has two decades of enterprise sales experience. He has held sales leadership roles at pioneering technology startups.
Andrey takes inventions and converts them into innovations. He leads our product engineering team to turn our scientific prototypes into robust customer-facing products.
Andrey co-founded and successfully exited a startup to immigrate to the US. He spent his next eight years building the core data science infrastructure for Amazon’s supply chain planning team, and the CV/ML infrastructure for Microsoft’s HoloLens organization.
Zeeshan focuses on delighting our customers by understanding their needs and defining product and strategy to meet and exceed these needs. He works closely with our sales leadership to grow our customer base.
Zeeshan was a scientific leader at Microsoft’s HoloLens division, where he invented AI technologies to assist frontline workers across industries. Earlier, he shipped IoT platforms and visual defect detection software for manufacturers at Siemens and MVTec GmbH.
Huy takes our product roadmap and figures out what’s achievable with today’s AI advances, and what we need to invent to solve our customers’ pain points.
Huy led teams of scientists and engineers at NEC and invented technologies for driver assistance systems that are part of 500,000+ Honda cars. He is an inventor on more than 20 US patents, and his research papers are cited by every lab from MIT, Stanford, and CMU to Apple, Google, and Baidu.
