Executive team
Stefan Knerr
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Stefan Knerr holds a PhD in Pattern Recognition and has more than 20 years of experience in Handwriting Recognition Technology. He has been working for leading IT companies and international research institutes such as SIEMENS (Germany), CNRS (France) and the International Computer Science Institute (USA). Stefan has also played a key role in building the software company A2iA (France), market leader for bank check recognition, and leading it to success. In 1998 Stefan founded VISION OBJECTS to develop the most advanced handwriting recognition software using innovative recognition technology. Vision Objects has become the worldwide provider of the industry standard in handwriting recognition technology for pen-based user interfaces and data entry automation.
Jean-Marc Aïchoun
Vice President Sales and Marketing
Jean-Marc Aïchoun enriches Vision Objects’ team with his more than 20 years hands-on Sales and Marketing experience in the international software industry. Jean-Marc previously served in various key positions in marketing and sales for internationally renowned companies such as Philips, Verilog and Telelogic, significantly enhancing profitability and performance. Jean-Marc Aïchoun is an engineering graduate from the Institut National Polytechnique of Grenoble (France), and joined Vision Objects in 2005.
Pierre Laporte
Vice-President Engineering
Pierre Laporte brings to Vision Objects more than 20 years of experience in managing international Software Product Development teams. In the late 80s he launched E3X, a leader in electronic communication software that he continued developing after its acquisition by France Telecom. He then held senior management positions at Dorotech / SER, European leader of the CMS market in the 90s; then Business Objects, leader of the Business Intelligence market, where he went on to drive the project for integrating into SAP in terms of Product Development processes. Before joining Vision Objects, Pierre Laporte was leading the Product Development team of SYSTRAN, the Machine Translation pioneer. Pierre Laporte holds a PhD in Automatic Control and Signal Processing from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), and joined Vision Objects in 2010.
Denis Manceau
Director, Customer Services
Denis Manceau brings to Vision Objects an in-depth knowledge in software development, quality and support. His credentials include working for Amadeus and Schneider Automation, where he was responsible for setting up methodologies & tests and provided support to international companies. Denis joined Vision Objects in 2003 as Quality and Support Manager and quickly took the lead of the Product Development and Customer Service department. Denis has more than 10 years of experience and holds an MSc in Automation.
Pierre-Michel Lallican
Director, Research and Technology
Pierre-Michel Lallican holds a PhD in handwriting recognition and has been with Vision Objects from the very beginning. Considered as a pioneer in the field of on-line handwriting recognition, he brings his extensive knowledge to Vision Objects in his position of Research and Technology Director. Pierre-Michel’s fields of expertise include on-line and off-line handwriting recognition technology, symbol recognition, signature verification, language modeling and document analysis.
Christophe Droulers
Director, Product Development
Before joining Vision Objects as director Product Development, Christophe Droulers served as Technical Director for Be Europe, an infrastructure and multimedia software vendor and Christophe co-founded their European organization (Be Europe was purchased by Palm Inc). His experiences as Marketing Director and Partner Relations Director at NeXT in France and Developer Group Manager at Apple Computer, France, where he was one of the first employees in the early 80’s, bring to Vision Objects a very complete and valuable insight in market development that help Vision Objects better serve their customers’ needs. Christophe holds a degree in Electronics Engineering from E.S.M.E. Sudria, Paris.