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12 MARITIME REPORTER & ENGINEERING NEWS ? FEBRUARY 2013 FIVE MINUTES WITH TROND K. JOHANNESSENPlease tell us how you came to lead Hatteland Display. As so often in life, it was a co- incidence that I got introduced to Hat-teland Display in 2008 by a former col-league from McKinsey &Company that had contacts in the Board of Hatteland Display. One thing lead to another and in early 2009 I started as CEO and my former colleague as CFO.When you took over the President and CEO post what did you see as the com-pany?s main strengths? It became clear to me very early that Hatteland Display had a very strong brand and a clear position as the market leader in maritime displays. This coupled with a very skilled organization with strong innovative capabilities con-stituted a strong platform for further de-velopment.Weaknesses? Almost immediately after I joined Hat-teland Display in February 2009 the Þ nancial crisis hit us with full force. We experienced a signi Þ cant drop in both revenues and order intake. In this situation it became clear that the com-pany had a few operational challenges that needed to be dealt with. We had to streamline our development processes and take a close look at the manufactur- ing processes to improve efÞ ciencies.From the outset, what were your short and long term goals with the company, and to date, how has reality stacked up to goals? The short term goal was to build a platform for growth and the long term goal to realize growth in both sales and proÞ ts. The way to make this hap- pen was to further strengthen the number one position in the market by having the most innovative, best value and highest quality products in the market. In short we have delivered on these goals in an excellent way. We have experienced growth in a difÞ cult market and our new SeriesX product platform is clearly shap-ing the future of marine displays and computers.Similarly, how have your goals changed? I would not say that our goals have changed. I believe we need to con-tinue to build on the strong platform we have and continue to stay ahead of com-petition as technologies evolve. If we manage this we will continue to grow.I am familiar with Hatteland Display for many years, but perhaps some readers are not. Can you give a brief overview of the company, its product and service offerings today? Hatteland Display is a leading manufacturer of type approved marine displays and panel computers for the professional market. Our customers are the major system integrators and OEMs of everything from bridge solutions to automation systems. Our products are on board merchant vessels, naval vessels and leisure boats. We supply customized hardware and do not have our own soft-ware systems except for necessary Þ rm-ware and API software. One of our key strengths is to be able to cost effectively customize state-of-the-art hardware in relatively small volumes for custom-ers. Hatteland Display is located on the west coast of Norway with sales ofÞ ces around the world and a well established manufacturing and logistics network in Asia.If you could pin it down to one or two topical items, what are the main driv-ers in the marine electronics display business today? On the market side one of the key drivers is the implementation of mandatory ECDIS for most vessel cat-egories before 2018. This will lead to a Trond K. Johannessen, President & CEO, Hatteland Display, shares with MR his insights on the evolution and future di- rection of this Marine Electronics subsector, modern marine displays.By Greg Trauthwein, Editor Trond K. Johannessen President & CEO, Hatteland DisplayMeet the Hatteland Family ...MR #2 (10-17).indd 12MR #2 (10-17).indd 122/3/2013 2:03:06 PM2/3/2013 2:03:06 PM