KWI appoints senior board members

KWI, the London-based supplier of trading and risk management systems for the energy market, has made two board-level appointments as part of an effort to grow its business.

Michael Laven, one-time chief executive of derivatives technology firm Infinity, becomes KWI’s new chief operating officer, and David Pitt, the former European president of Convergent, the systems integrator for the utilities and energy market, joins KWI as European vice-president of field operations. "This is a real coup for KWI. These appointments add real weight to the board and pave the way for a period of rapid expansion,” said David Bucknall chief executive of KWI.

KWI said Laven will work closely with key members of the senior management team, and will have responsibility for the expansion and performance of business operations right across sales, services and development. Laven was chief executive at Infinity for four years, where he prepared the company for an IPO and managed its multi-million dollar acquisition by Pennsylvania-based technology firm SunGard.

Laven joins KWI from Cohera, the B2B infrastructure start-up, where he was president and chief executive. He launched Cohera with $24 million funding from investors and managed its sale two years later to PeopleSoft, the California-based provider of collaborative enterprise software.

Pitt will direct the European offices and sales team to grow KWI's sales and services capability in the region. Pitt launched Convergent in January 2000 and was part of the team that negotiated the company's sale to global technology services company Schlumberger in May this year. Previously he spent five years as managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Indus International, the Atlanta-based enterprise asset management systems solutions provider.

Founded in 1993, KWI employs more than 160 people in its headquarters and development centre in London, and regional offices in Houston, San Francisco, Boise in Idaho, Frankfurt, Stockholm and Sydney. Its blue-chip clients - power generators, traders and retailers - predominately use its flagship risk management product, kW3000, and include US energy agency, Bonneville Power Association, Norwegian state-owned power utility, Statkraft, and Czech electricity company, CEZ. More than 1.5 billion MWh are managed using KWI's software.