Rockwell Automation Announces Senior Leadership Transition
1.10.2019 16:01:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK) announces senior leadership transition to be effective November 1, reporting to Blake Moret, Chairman, and CEO.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191001005364/en/
Ernest Nicolas, currently vice president, global supply chain, is promoted to senior vice president, Operations & Engineering Services, reporting to Blake Moret, Chairman, and CEO. (Photo: Business Wire)
Ernest Nicolas, currently vice president, global supply chain, is promoted to senior vice president, Operations & Engineering Services. He will have global leadership accountability for the six functions in OES that include, Global Supply Chain (Strategic Sourcing, Materials, Logistics, and Customer Care), Quality & Continuous Improvement, Engineering Services, Manufacturing Operations, Manufacturing Services, and Workplace Services. Nicolas will lead more than 9,500 OES employees and contractors and 19 manufacturing plants globally.
Mike Laszkiewicz, senior vice president, Operations & Engineering Services, announced his intent to retire effective January 31, 2020. He will continue to report to Moret until his retirement and will work to ensure a successful transition. “I appreciate Mike’s continued service to ensure smooth leadership transitions in the coming months,” said Moret. “Mike has held many leadership roles through his thirty-year career, notably leading the Power Control Business in CP&S before his senior leadership role in OES. His counsel to me has been tremendously valuable.”
“Ernest is precisely the kind of leader I want to accelerate our growth. Ernest brings a wealth of manufacturing and supply chain leadership experience, and a passion for people, with genuine care for team success,” said Moret. “I value his thoughtful and strategic counsel.”
Nicolas joined Rockwell Automation in 2006 as a Lean, Six Sigma Project Manager and has held several roles within the Operations & Engineering Services (OES) functions, including vice president, Global Supply Chain and vice president Strategic Sourcing and Supply Management, director Asia Pacific Manufacturing Operations and plant manager Twinsburg Operations.
Before Rockwell Automation, Nicolas spent 9 years in various roles of increasing responsibility at General Motors Corporation. He is a member of the Executive Leadership Council (ELC), the advisory board for the Grainger Center of Supply Chain Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and on the board of directors for the Milwaukee Urban League.
Nicolas holds a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) in Operations Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Master of Science (M.S.) in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Kettering University.
About Rockwell Automation
Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., Rockwell Automation employs approximately 23,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191001005364/en/
Contact information
Ike Theodore Umunnah
Director, Global Public Affairs
1-414-382-5679
itumunna@ra.rockwell.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Samsung and Mistral AI Announce Strategic Partnership for Intelligence-Driven Semiconductor Infrastructure8.9.2026 19:15:00 EEST | Press release
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Mistral AI to enhance its semiconductor engineering and manufacturing capabilities that will reinforce its leadership in AI chip technologies. The announcement of the partnership was made during the state summit held in Paris between South Korea and France. Under the agreement, Samsung will integrate Mistral’s AI services and solutions—including its flagship large language model, Mistral Large—across its semiconductor operations to develop customized on-premises AI models optimized for intelligence-driven infrastructure. Mistral’s powerful AI platform is expected to provide Samsung with a unique stack of tools that will transform how semiconductors are designed and manufactured. The on-premises enterprise solutions will especially ensure security and flexibility required to process highly sensitive technologies and operational data entirely within the boundaries of Samsung’s semiconductor in
Sensereo Airo Wins IFA Berlin Innovation Award8.9.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Sensereo, an environmental intelligence company developing next-generation sensing products for safer, healthier and smarter living, was presented with the prestigious IFA Berlin Innovation Award for its Airo modular indoor air quality system. The award was presented during IFA Berlin on Thursday, Sept. 4, recognizing Airo for its innovative approach to helping consumers better understand and manage the quality of their indoor environments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260906292649/en/ Winner of a 2026 IFA Innovation Award, Airo is Sensereo’s flagship environmental intelligence platform, combining advanced sensing technology with a modular design that allows users to monitor multiple aspects of indoor air quality and environmental conditions through a single, consumer-friendly system. Designed to transform complex environmental data into useful, actionable information, Airo helps households better understan
Verdantis Rebrands as the AI Super-Agent for MRO, Sets Sights on AI-Native Enterprise Asset Management8.9.2026 17:06:00 EEST | Press release
Verdantis, the AI company for spare parts and MRO inventory optimization in asset-intensive industries, today unveiled its new brand identity as the AI Super-agent for MRO and announced it is building toward a fully AI-native Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) platform. Verdantis’s super-agent orchestrates nine specialized AI agents across the decisions that decide plant uptime: spare parts, criticality, demand, reorder, and work order planning. These decisions set working capital, maintenance spend, and whether a critical asset runs and, in most plants, they are still made in spreadsheets and disconnected systems. The positioning is for the teams who own uptime - maintenance, reliability, and MRO supply chain leaders in oil and gas, mining, utilities, chemicals, and manufacturing. And it reflects an AI-first architecture: agents decide and act by default; people supervise, override, and teach the system. Every human override creates feedback that helps the system learn. That principle
HyperLight Welcomes VentureTech Alliance to Series C, Deepening TFLN Integration Across the Semiconductor Ecosystem8.9.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
HyperLight Corporation ("HyperLight"), a leader in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics, today announced that VentureTech Alliance ("VTA") has joined its Series C financing round. VTA is a venture investment firm focused on the semiconductor industry, with a portfolio built across the semiconductor technology stack — including circuit design, foundry-adjacent process technology, EDA, advanced packaging, and photonics. VTA's participation extends the ecosystem alignment that defined the round, which brought together investors spanning silicon ICs, foundry manufacturing, electronics manufacturing services, networking, and global infrastructure capital. With VTA's addition, the syndicate now reaches further into the semiconductor manufacturing and design-enablement layers on which high-volume photonics production depends. "The transition to TFLN is not a component decision — it is an ecosystem decision," said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. "Getting TFLN into volume requires the proc
EcoOnline Appoints Conor O’Loughlin as CEO8.9.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
EcoOnline, a global provider of software that transforms how organisations protect people and the planet, today announced the appointment of Conor O’Loughlin as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. O’Loughlin succeeds Tom Goodmanson and will lead the Company into its next chapter of growth and innovation, continuing EcoOnline’s mission of keeping employees safe across the globe and supporting more than 11,000 customers. O’Loughlin is an experienced, growth-oriented technology operator and founder. He co-founded fitness technology company Glofox, scaling it into a global SaaS business serving customers in more than 80 countries before its acquisition by ABC Fitness in 2022. Following the acquisition, he served as Platform President and later Global Chief Revenue Officer at ABC Fitness, leading strategy across the company’s revenue-generating activities. “Keeping people safe at work is more important than ever, and EcoOnline does it with a depth of expertise that few can match
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom