Velodyne Lidar, Inc. today announced Anand Gopalan as its new CEO. Gopalan, who previously was Velodyne’s CTO, assumes the position from Velodyne’s legendary founder David Hall. Hall will continue as full-time Chairman of the Board and remain actively involved in directing the company’s technology, product vision and business strategy.
Gopalan is a distinguished engineer and technology executive with experience building and leading worldwide engineering organizations. He came to Velodyne in 2016 to form an advanced research and development team. Gopalan leads Velodyne’s customer-focused technology and product development teams to address market needs for lidar solutions designed for high performance, cost optimization and high-volume production.
Over the past three years, Gopalan has worked closely with Hall to develop the company’s technological roadmap and strategic vision. Gopalan is recognized across the industry as a thought leader in business as well as in technology. Recently, Gopalan became more active as a spokesman for the company, expertly explaining the benefits and the workings of lidar to audiences around the world. It is the policy of Velodyne to promote from within the company and Gopalan was a natural choice, having proved himself in 2019.
Gopalan and the Velodyne team look forward to building on the company’s growth trajectory. Due to the breadth and versatility of the Velodyne lidar portfolio, the company continues to make revolutionary contributions to the ever-expanding autonomous industry. Velodyne is a recognized leader in a wide range of markets including automotive, mapping, on-demand mobility, robotics, security, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and more.
Under Gopalan’s leadership alongside Hall, Velodyne brought to market a series of breakthrough lidar products, including the Alpha Prime™, Velarray™, VelaDome™ and a new game-changing lidar sensor, soon to be used for powerful Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Due to its low cost, this sensor will advance automotive safety for the everyday car owner. At CES 2020, Velodyne will unveil the new lidar sensor and Gopalan will discuss his vision for the company at a press conference in the Velodyne booth #7520 on Tuesday, January 7, at 11:00 a.m. PST.
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SOURCE: Velodyne Lidar
