GRAPHISOFT Gains Former Bentley Executive—Huw Roberts Becomes VP for Americas

GRAPHISOFT has announced that Huw Roberts has been appointed Vice President, Americas, a position that oversees the BIM innovator’s software business in North, Central, and South America. Mr. Roberts has a distinguished leadership record in the AEC industry and he will serve as a member of the company’s Executive Team.

Huw Roberts—Background

Huw Roberts has three decades of experience in the architecture and software industries, helping professionals in AEC maximize their investments in new and emerging technologies and driving business success.

01 – Longtime BIM/CAD industry veteran users and observers will recognize Huw Roberts and his long tenure at Bentley Systems. He joins GRAPHISOFT today operating out of their Metro Boston office.

Prior to joining GRAPHISOFT, Mr. Roberts served as Chief Marketing Officer at BlueCielo, a global Asset Lifecycle Information Management software company based in the Netherlands. Prior to that position, Roberts was Vice President of Marketing at Bentley Systems, a global leader in software solutions for design, construction, operations, and infrastructure.

An architect by profession, Mr. Roberts is a highly regarded industry visionary and expert on the best practices for integrating technology into the design, delivery, and operational management of buildings and infrastructure. He has served in many industry organizations, including the U.S. National CAD Standards, IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability), and as chairman of the AIA’s Technology in Architecture Practice committee. He has also been a regularly featured speaker at major industry events and universities worldwide.

“GRAPHISOFT provides exceptional solutions for architects.  As the pioneer in BIM, the company continues to deliver exciting innovations that provide architects with significant advantages in their work.  ARCHICAD benefits from a community of dedicated customers, each of whom wants to deliver great architecture,” said Roberts.  “My career has been committed to helping the AEC industry benefit from technology and transformation, so I am very excited to join a team that shares that mission.  I look forward to helping GRAPHISOFT provide innovation and value throughout the Americas,” he added.

“Huw is an innovative B2B technology executive who applies creativity, rigor, and leadership to grow business value by maximizing market impact, driving business transformation and empowering teams.  We are thrilled to have him join our leadership team,” said Viktor Varkonyi, GRAPHISOFT CEO.  “Huw’s skills and experience will be pivotal in ensuring that GRAPHISOFT is best equipped to deliver the most value to customers and drive growth in the Americas.”

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

Those who attended the Smart Geometry conferences years ago and—naturally, Bentley users—will recognize Huw Roberts’ long and distinguished tenure at Bentley. Huw’s marketing expertise at Bentley may serve GRAPHISOFT extremely well due to two primary factors. The first factor is that he comes from a key rival in the AEC software space serving architects, lending him a unique perspective of how a rival tends to think and operate in markets where they compete. In particular, he was the strategic lead in numerous key Bentley strategies affecting both marketing and product strategy initiatives. This kind of direct industry experience seems invaluable as compared to executives who come into AEC companies from non-AEC industries. The AEC industries are too complex, multi-layered, and fast-moving to imagine outside executives, no matter how talented, succeeding at the highest level without this key background information. 

The second advantage is that he brings success with him in how Bentley competed with chief industry rival Autodesk, in North America in particular, and abroad. This too is key information that GRAPHISOFT now gains from the appointment of Roberts. Another final thought is this. Bentley’s customers are huge companies in many cases—in architecture, they are often some of the biggest. In North America, a lot of GRAPHISOFT’s customers are smaller firms, which is strange given that company’s dominance of larger firms in Asia. It will be interesting to watch for gains of larger firms in the Americas given Roberts’ experience in serving and marketing to them.