Kateeva, a developer of inkjet deposition equipment solutions for OLED display manufacturing, today announced that the company has expanded its executive team by appointing Marc Haugen as chief operating officer (COO).
Mr. Haugen brings extensive semiconductor equipment industry experience to Kateeva. As a former executive at Applied Materials and Lam Research, he implemented operational disciplines designed to maximize supply-chain and manufacturing efficiencies. As COO, his role will be to help drive Kateeva’s operational performance as a technology leader and key enabler of the global display industry. He reports to chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Dr. Alain Harrus.
Mr. Haugen assumes the COO title from Kateeva co-founder, Dr. Conor Madigan, who remains president, and who will now focus on leading the company’s technology and new product development.
“We believe that Marc’s operational roles for global capital equipment companies make him particularly well-qualified to help Kateeva extend its market leadership by applying operational disciplines that will allow us to scale our operations effectively,” said Dr. Harrus. “We also expect his expertise will enrich our capability to deliver the technology solutions our customers need to win in their marketplace.”
“We’re very pleased to welcome Marc to Kateeva,” noted Dr. Madigan. “As COO, we expect he will further tighten interaction between the field, manufacturing, engineering, finance, and other key functions to support our product development, sales, and operations performance. In addition, he will be responsible for implementing processes to improve efficiency, predictability and reliability, with the goal of reducing overall operating costs.”
“I believe that Kateeva enjoys a strong foundation to build momentum for growth,” said Mr. Haugen. “The technology is industry-leading, the team is outstanding, and the customer base includes leading display companies. This is a terrific opportunity to support Kateeva’s innovation roadmap by driving operational excellence across the company.”
Mr. Haugen has spent three decades working in the semiconductor industry. As group vice president of worldwide operations and supply chain for Applied Materials from 2013-2016, he led a team of thousands of people in factories across the globe, with an annual multi-billion-dollar spend. From his base in Singapore, he directed supply chain operations, volume manufacturing, new product manufacturing, quality and logistics to support the company’s semiconductor systems, display and energy business segments.
Before that, he was corporate vice president of global product operations at Lam Research. While there, he directed the integration of products, product operations, and product development processes, including Lam’s acquisition of Novellus Systems, as well as its acquisition of Austria-based SEZ. During this time, he also served as vice president/managing director of SEZ.
Immediately prior to Kateeva, Mr. Haugen was EVP of global operations and engineering at Cepheid, a molecular diagnostics company. He began his career in 1987 as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. After that, he held operations roles with increasing responsibility at Applied Materials and Lam Research.
Mr. Haugen holds a BS degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He earned his MBA with a special focus on international/Asia business strategy from the University of California Los Angeles and the National University of Singapore (UCLA/NUS Executive MBA Program).