Davor Sutija Steps Up as CEO of Thinfilm

Dr. Davor Sutija has been promoted to CEO of Thin Film Electronics ASA (Thinfilm). He takes over from Rolf Åberg, who continues in an executive board position.

“Davor is a technologist with business acumen. Since graduating from Wharton and Berkeley, he has a proven track record in business development and bringing innovative products to market,” said Morten Opstad, chairman of the board.

Dr. Sutija joined Thinfilm in January 2010 as executive vice president with responsibility for business development and marketing. Previously, he worked for Microsoft and FAST, where he was senior vice president for product marketing. Sutija also has general management experience from Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC).

Rolf Åberg has been acting CEO since last summer and a member of the Thinfilm Board of Directors since 2006. “The board has been looking for the right person to take Thinfilm to the next level and commercialize our memory products. Now we have found him,” said Åberg.

“With Rolf at the helm, we have made great progress. As we now ramp up our go-to-market activities, I am very pleased that he will continue as an executive board member supporting these activities,” Opstad continued.

Thinfilm is the first in the world to produce polymer memories in large scale using roll-to-roll printing.

“My main task is the successful commercialization of Thinfilm technology. We have a unique and proven technology, we are ready for volume production, and we have a product with excellent commercial prospects. We experience strong interest both in the printed electronics market in general, as well as in specific markets such as toys and games,” said Dr. Sutija.

While concentrating on toys and games applications, Thinfilm is also pursuing the next generation of printed electronics products, combining Thinfilm’s printed memory with other printed technologies, such as transistors, sensors, and displays.

“Printed electronics is a disruptive technology where Thinfilm Memory costing a few cents will empower numerous new applications and open many new markets. Our ‘Memory Everywhere’ vision reflects this market outlook,” Dr. Sutija continued.

The printed electronics market is still in its early stages, and according to industry analyst group IDTechEx, is expected to grow to more than USD 50 billion in market value over the next ten years. IDTechEx predicts that logic (i.e., memory and transistors) will be the largest segment in this market, representing more than 30 per cent of the total.

Dr. Sutija is a graduate of Wharton’s Jerome Fisher Management and Technology program, and has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he developed novel microsensors. Sutija was at the Senter for Materialteknologi (Centre for materials technology) at the University of Oslo, before becoming CEO at SiNOR AS (now REC-SiTech) in Glomfjord, and was at FAST since 2003. He has also served on the boards of Norwegian technology firms SensoNor, Birdstep and Owera.