Maritime Information Systems AS, Norway (MARIS) has appointed Ove Bråthen Director, Sales Scandinavia. Mr Bråthen, who holds an electronics degree with focus on radar and underwater acoustics, brings more than 25 years’ international sales experience to the company, having spent the first six years of his career with the Royal Norwegian Navy.
After working at sea on a number of seismic research vessels, Mr Bråthen spent the next decade as Sales Manager for Schlumberger Oilfield Services, selling high-tech products to the seismic, offshore and defence industries. He moved to Abu Dhabi to become Project Manager for Vessel Traffic Systems (VTS) in the Kongsberg Group, with main responsibility for projects in the Middle East. He was subsequently promoted to the position of Area Sales Manager Asia, based in Hong Kong, with responsibility for VTS sales.
In 2001, Mr Bråthen joined Evry AS, Norway’s largest IT service provider, where he spent seven years as Key Account manager and Bid Manager and, for three years, he served as Project Manager, Information, Support and Training with responsibility for training 20,000 people using the new IT platform. During the last 18 months he has been working in the ECDIS industry, focusing particularly on quality assurance, support and documentation.
Mr Bråthen takes over from Line T. Øverland, who has accepted a challenging position with Det norske Veritas (DnV). He said: “I look forward to serving MARIS customers in such a way that they can focus on safe vessel operation and have full confidence in the reliability of their navigation tool, MARIS ECDIS.”
Steinar Gundersen, Deputy Chief Executive (Corporate) MARIS AS added: “Ove Bråthen brings a wealth of industry experience to MARIS and his unrivalled knowledge and commitment will prove invaluable as the company continues to grow.”