As communicated last September, bNovate has established a dedicated Sales & Marketing team to expand global sales and directly support the worldwide sales and distribution network for the BactoSense product portfolio.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. René Lenggenhager has accepted the role of CEO Sales & Marketing. René is an experienced CEO and General Manager with a successful career in the world's leading technology companies Comet-Group, Bruker BioSpin, Mettler-Toledo, Siemens Building Technologies, Cerberus and Landis+Gyr. He is an accomplished sales and marketing professional who is well versed in international businesses and lean management.
René, bNovate is very glad to have you on board! Please tell us what made you decide to work with this company.
bNovate has a meaningful vision and a great potential in global markets – that’s why I invested in this company from the very beginning and took on a board mandate.
We are all working for one important goal: Clean water will become very scarce in the near future and actively contributing to “Safe Water. Anytime. Anywhere" is an important purpose we all aim to achieve. My motivation is to carry out this mission globally and to strengthen the company, so that it can continue to innovate and expand.
The current way of testing bacteria in water is more than 100 years old and it takes 3 to 5 days to get a result. With BactoSense – our main instrument – this measurement can be done online and provides a reliable and more comprehensive result in only 20 minutes. What a difference from the outdated standard method!
You will share your CEO role together with founder Simon Künzi. How do you divide your responsibilities?
As my job title indicates, I will be responsible for building the Sales & Marketing organization. Simon in his role of CEO R&D and Operation will be responsible for driving our innovation pipeline as well as for managing the whole operational tasks. We are driving the company forward together and the combined different experiences make us a strong team. It is a great pleasure for me to work with Simon.
The bNovate headquarters is in Ecublens. How did it come that you opened new offices in Zürich?
When we decided to set up a Sales & Marketing department, our CMO, the head of Product Management, our Application Specialist and I were already based in this region. We were lucky to find a nice place in the city of Zürich, near the main station, where we moved in last month. Together with my team, I am therefore based in these new offices. Also, there is a great community of life science companies, universities and the ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zürich. This allows us to attract great sales and marketing talents to support our team's planned rapid growth.
Do you have other activities besides bNovate?
My planned workload for bNovate is theoretically 50% – currently it is quite a bit more. The rest of my time I work for other companies, under the umbrella of my own company Novaxent GmbH. I support them as board member or as strategic consultant.
What are the next major challenges for the company, what projects are coming up in the near future?
Rapid globalization is a major task. We have to identify, evaluate and on-board new sales partners. We also need to establish a direct sales force for selected countries and further develop the existing partners in Europe. The rapid global expansion requires teammates with a top skill set and high expertise in sales and marketing as well as channel management. The biggest challenge is to find the right people in time and bring them on board in a short time frame.
What is your personal goal, what do you want to achieve?
I want to make bNovate a renowned global partner for microbiological monitoring of water (and other liquids) – with a strong focus on the first phase, i.e., fully remotely operable online instruments. I want to help establish a new standard method for microbiological drinking water testing and later for other applications in other segments and industries.
René, we wish you a lot of fun and success in your position as well as exciting projects – and thank you very much for this interview!