Laszlo Systems, a global leader in Rich Internet Application (RIA) software, announced that it has appointed George Shahid as chief financial officer, Chris Helgeson as senior vice president of engineering, and Reid Thomas as senior vice president of worldwide sales and distribution.  Continuing the company’s momentum, today’s news follows recent reports that Laszlo is growing at a strong pace, its technology having already served over 40 million people per month nationwide.

“Chris, George and Reid are terrific complements to our talented management team as they reflect our same commitment to excellence and proven ability to succeed,” said Steve Ciesinski, President and CEO, Laszlo Systems.  “In particular, Chris’s new role allows our Founder and CTO, David Temkin, to spend more time interfacing with our customers, as well as technical and business partners.”

“We are pleased to welcome such seasoned technology veterans to Laszlo – their combined expertise and strategic vision are already having a valuable impact,” commented Temkin.

Helgeson is responsible for driving Laszlo’s product development, including Laszlo Webtop and its affiliated applications, as well as continuing the advancement of OpenLaszlo, now in its fourth release.  With more than 27 years of engineering and management expertise, Helgeson most recently served as the vice president of engineering at eBay, Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY). Prior to eBay, he held VP of engineering positions at Automatic Data Processing (NYSE: ADP), Saba, Carnelian, and Verity.  He also held several senior management and technical positions throughout his career at General Magic, cc:Mail, Network Equipment Technologies, and Syntex (now Roche).  Helgeson is named on four software patents and has published three studies relating to human-computer interaction and biochemistry.

With over 20 years in global finance and operations, Shahid brings extensive leadership experience and established networks that will help uncover new market opportunities for Laszlo Webtop and other commercial applications. Previously, Shahid held a number of executive positions, including four years as chief operating officer and CFO of BlueRoads, a SaaS CRM company; chief operating officer of Portalwave, a SOA software company; chief financial officer of Loyaltylab Inc., a SaaS marketing CRM company, and Differential Inc.  Earlier in his career, Shahid spent six years with C*ATS software, a global provider of financial risk management software, where he helped to successfully execute the company's initial public offering in 1995.

Thomas joins Laszlo to help capitalize on the global demand for Laszlo’s products and services, specifically focused on the revenue drivers around Laszlo Webtop.  Thomas spent the past four years at Sylantro Systems Corporation as the senior vice president of worldwide sales. Under Thomas’ leadership, Sylantro grew to become an established VoIP market leader with service provider customers around the globe.  Previously, he held several executive positions in sales and marketing with VINA Technologies (NASDAQ: VINA), where he significantly increased the company’s market share and revenues, helping to enable the company’s IPO in 2000. In addition, Thomas spent nearly a decade at Octel Communications (now Lucent Technologies) in a variety of sales and marketing leadership positions. Thomas is named on one software patent and holds several honors in sales leadership.

For more information about Laszlo Systems, its products and services, please visit www.laszlosystems.com.  To download OpenLaszlo for free today, visit www.openlaszlo.org.