DETROIT—Guardhat, developers of a biometric health-monitoring hard hat for industrial and construction workers, has launched an advisory board to extend access to expertise across product, partnership development, regional expansion, employee recruitment and more.
The board will help Guardhat further develop, embed, and promote its connected worker technology to ensure greater safety and productivity across key industrial verticals. The Guardhat advisory board’s first two appointees are Florian Budde and David Sutherland.
Budde is a former senior partner at McKinsey & Co. He built the firm’s global chemicals practice from the ground up and led it for eight years. He also led McKinsey’s global energy and materials practice, which operates in the oil, gas, power, metals, mining, and chemicals industries, in the Europe-Middle East-Africa region from 2012 to 2015. Budde has advised world’s leading companies in these fields through extensive transformation projects, and authored articles and books on strategic management of chemical companies. In total, Florian has led nearly 600 projects across strategy, mergers and acquisitions, organizational and functional excellence, across petrochemicals, technical polymers, fibers, organic intermediates, inorganics, specialties, and more.
Sutherland currently serves as chairman of the board of U.S. Steel and is the former president and CEO of IPSCO, Inc., a North American steel producer, as well as a board director of GATX Corp. and Imperial Oil Ltd. He is also a former chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute and served as a member of the boards of directors of IPSCO Inc., the Steel Manufacturers Association, the International Iron and Steel Institute, the Canadian Steel Producers Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers.
“David and Florian have seen firsthand both the constraints and opportunities in steel, oil and gas, construction and chemical production, globally, from the boardroom to the production floor,” said Saikat Dev, Guardhat’s co-founder and CEO. “Kicking off our advisory board with such trusted and eminent counselors is both humbling and incredibly exciting. Right now, because of converging trends around tech cost, worker shortages, and digital transformation investment, we can meaningfully change industrial work to make it safer and smarter. With David, Florian and future advisors on board, Guardhat will more quickly enter new markets, reach new customers, and connect with key partners. Their first-hand insights about the needs of the industries we serve will help propel us to the next phase of our growth.”
Guardhat holds 13 patents in real time location systems, wearable solution design and connected worker software. For more information, visit: www.guardhat.com.