Bre Pettis will be leaving his position as the CEO of MakerBot in order to lead up a new division at the parent company, Stratasys, called “The Innovation Workshop.” Jennifer Lawton, who has been with the company since 2011, will be stepping into his place as CEO in 2015.
While this initially started as an anonymous tip to 3dprint.com, it has since been confirmed with the following statement from Stratasys CEO David Reis.
Stratasys and MakerBot are excited to announce some management changes at MakerBot that will take effect in the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2014 and into January 2015. Most notably, Bre Pettis will be transitioning from the day-to-day activities of management to a position with Stratasys where he will be able to influence and direct the vision of MakerBot and Stratasys; he will also be a member of the MakerBot Board of Directors. Jenny Lawton, president of MakerBot, will be promoted to the role of CEO of MakerBot; Frank Alfano is being moved from chief revenue officer to president. Aric Jennings, chief operations officer for MakerBot, will also transition into the international role of vice president of global manufacturing for Stratasys. We are excited about these promotions and pleased to continue the positive momentum that Stratasys and MakerBot have experienced and achieved.
The initial anonymous tipster gave us a little bit of information about the “innovation Workshop” as a quote from an internal email.
We have exciting news to announce about Bre. Now that we have a team in place to carry on with MakerBot and continuing to move Full Speed Ahead, Bre is launching a new initiative (separate from MakerBot), The Innovation Workshop, with Robert Steiner, Liz Randel and Aljosa Kempele, to showcase what is possible with MakerBot, Stratasys and Solidscape 3D printers. I can’t wait to see what they make … and for the launch party!
There’s nothing about this move or the workshop in the Stratasys Newsroom, or the MakerBot press release page. We’ve asked for some official information regarding this workshop, we’ll update you as it arrives.
Update: They told us we have to wait to hear about the innovation workshop, they aren’t quite ready to release all of that information. They did give us some background on Jennifer Lawton though.
Jennifer Lawton has been with MakerBot since 2011 and has been responsible for the overall strategy and growth of the company, including strategic partnerships, product development, and retail. In addition to her work with MakerBot, she is a respected company builder, technologist, and advocate for fostering entrepreneurship.
In 1991, Lawton co-founded Net Daemons Associates (NDA), an information technology consulting firm. With Lawton as CEO, NDA was recognized on the 1998 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held U.S. companies, and on the Deloitte and Touche Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists for 1997 and 1998. In 1999, Net Daemons was acquired by Interliant Inc. (formerly Sage Networks), where Lawton served as a senior vice president. She later worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence with Softbank and Mobius Venture Capital.
In 2001, Lawton left the corporate world to become the owner of the independent bookstores Just Books and Just Books, Too, as well as Arcadia Café in Old Greenwich, Conn. After ten years running successful retail ventures, Jenny re-entered the business and technology scene, serving as COO for Rockin’ Water and RAM Scientific, and SVP Operations for Mercury Solar Systems. She is currently a board member of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
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