Philips has appointed Sophie Bechu as chief of operations and executive vice president.
Bechu joins Philips from IBM, where she worked for more than 30 years and where she was most recently vp/strategic outsourcing, North America delivery. In this role, she was responsible for the information technology services delivery for clients in North America and this portfolio included health care and life sciences businesses in the U.S.
According to the company, the appointment of Bechu is the latest example of its efforts to align the organization in order to better capitalize on health technology market opportunities. It follows other appointments this year, including Jean Botti, who became Philips’ chief innovation and strategy officer, and Pieter Nota’s appointment to the newly created position of chief marketing officer.
Bechu has also become a member of Philips’ executive committee and reports directly to Philips CEO, Frans van Houten.
“I am delighted that Sophie Bechu comes on board and she joins our company at an enormously important time as we extend our leadership in health technology,” said van Houten. “Sophie has extensive experience in operations, service delivery, procurement, supply chain, quality, engineering and strategic outsourcing, and I am confident that she will use her experience to further drive operational excellence across the company.”
