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Olivier Schmitt, chief technical officer—"how do we know what we don't know?"—is in charge of driving Goldmund’s R&D department. He oversees all their development projects to ensure alignment with the group's global strategy. Since working for Goldmund, Olivier has initiated a product development improvement program. This includes the development of standardized platform architectures which aim at drastically shortening new product development cycles.


For more than 10 years prior to Goldmund and after several international positions in engineering, project management and entrepreneurship, Olivier worked as management consultant to exercise expertise in R&D processes and driving change programs in technical organizations. Industries he is quite familiar with include consumer electronics, aerospace defense, automotive, railway and automation. Olivier graduated from the French ENSTA ParisTech institute of technology and holds an Executive MBA from the ESCP Europe Business School in Paris. He is a member of the product management development association and is also active in various networking circles for Lean Management and Entrepreneurship. He is fluent in French, English and Italian.

Dr. Véronique Adam—"toute la suite des hommes pendant le cours de tant de siècles doit être considérée comme un même homme qui subsiste toujours et qui apprend continuellement"—is Goldmund's senior R&D project manager and their acoustics lab's group leader. For the last 10 years she has been the mastermind behind all technological breakthroughs in Goldmund's portfolio of audio technologies like Leonardo and Proteus; and patents like the U-Room home theatres.


Véronique maintains and develops a unique set of processes and tools to rapidly design perfectly time-aligned loudspeaker systems and massive multi-channel media rooms for a unique listening or movie experience. She travels extensively to visit Goldmund clients and to insure that their main installations and setups reach acoustical perfection. Véronique holds a PhD. in Acoustics from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) where she graduated in Microtechnics and where she was a lecturer prior to joining Goldmund. She is on the management board of the Swiss section of the worldwide Audio Engineering Society and, as a regular expert, is involved in different projects with universities and research centres. She is a heavy fan of operas and other live performances. She is fluent in French, German and English.
 
Quentin Berthet is another senior R&D project manager who for more than 10 years has managed product development projects for Goldmund. Among others the company owes him the last generation of Mimesis acoustics processors with up to 32 audio channels of signal processing. He is currently at the heart of the development of a new generation of Goldmund products and systems. His fields of expertise include project management, embedded electronics, software development and mechanics.


Quentin holds a Master in Telecom engineering from Switzerland's HES Geneva School of Engineering. He is involved in numerous alternative development groups combining audio-video technology and artistic content including for instance the world-famous Geneva Mapping Festival. He is fluent in French and English.


Torje Nikolai Thorsen—"a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way"—is Goldmund's fourth in-house R&D project manager. Torje joined the group more recently and is the last of several generations of engineers who has perfected the schematics at the heart of Goldmund’s power amplifiers. He brings his expertise in wireless audio design to the R&D team and is in charge of managing a new set of 'lifestyle' products.


Prior to joining Goldmund, Torje was lieutenant in the Royal Norwegian Navy as weapons officer sonar and ROV, hence his knowledge to drive projects with leadership. He worked in electronics services for aerospace and defense as well. Torje studied at the Norwegian Naval Academy for two years and graduated with honours from the French INSA Toulouse (National Institute of Applied Sciences) with a Master's degree in electrical and electronics engineering. He is a fan of music and audio design, being even a producer of musical programs. He is fluent in Norwegian, French and English.


In August, Rodolphe Boulanger, Antonio Sanna and Véronique Adam visited me to set up the loaner pair and thereby duplicate the service which is usually provided by one of their dealers.