Management & Board
Arktis was founded 2007 by Rico Chandra, Giovanna Davatz and Mario Vogeli. Our board of directors comprises experts from the Homeland Security Domain as well as Nuclear Industry. The Arktis development team includes electrical engineers, physicists, computer scientists and product developers with a strong market focus.
Management
Dr. Rico Chandra, CEO, Founder
Rico has a PhD from ETH Zurich, earned in dark matter detector R&D carried out at CERN. He has a proven track record in technology and IP management, fundraising, and technology transfer. Rico's past work experience includes consulting work performed for the European Commission in security questions, strategic consulting of several SMEs, and technology consulting as a Council member of the Gerson Lehrman Group.
Dr. Giovanna Davatz, CSO, Founder
Giovanna earned her PhD in particle physics from ETH Zurich stationed at CERN, Geneva working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Her past work experience includes senior research assistantship at ETH Zurich. Giovanna has broad-based experience in experimental physics, software development, and Monte-Carlo simulation programs.
Mario Vogeli, COO, Founder
Mario earned his Master in business administration, technology and innovation management at the University of Zurich. During and after his studies he gained over 10 year of experience in various markets working for several start-ups, in consulting as well as with an multinational defense contractor.
Rick Muntz, General Manager US Operations
After a successful career in the medical device and diagnostic imaging segments of Health Care, Rick joined InVision Technologies in 1995, where he helped introduce the concept CAT Scan technology for the purpose of detecting IEDs in checked baggage. As VP of the Americas, Rick was responsible for the company's business from the initial pilot of 5 EDS systems in 1995, to the expeditious deployment of the EDS units following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Rick started working for Arktis in 2009 to become general manager of US operations.
Board of Directors
Dr. Sergio Magistri, Member of the Board
Sergio was president and CEO of InVision Technologies, the leading provider in the multi-billion dollar global market for explosive detection systems (EDS) in aviation security. He led the company for twelve years from an initial staff of 20 researchers to over 1,000 employees designing, manufacturing, marketing and supporting sales of EDS systems worldwide. InVision went public in 1996 and was acquired by General Electric in 2004 for $900 million net. He received his diploma in Electrical Engineering in 1977 and a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering in 1982 both from the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
Alexander Schlaepfer, Member of the Board
Alexander is partner at Aster Capital in Paris, France. His main areas of expertise are finance, M&A and general management. Throughout his career, Alexander has closed more than 20 M&A transactions in the US, China and Europe and has built new businesses in MV equipment manufacturing, power plant maintenance and in robotics. He held positions as VP Corporate Venturing at Alstom, VP Business Development at Alstom Power Service and as Managing Director of a local ABB business unit in Egypt. Alexander holds a BA from the University of Applied Sciences in St. Gallen and a Masters in Finance (MSc) from London Business School.
Dr. Alfons Traxler, Member of the Board
Alfons is Chairman and former CEO of Mecos Traxler AG. He has broad experience in product development, management and international distribution. Alfons had been working several years as an engineer in the air defence industry when he started his masters study at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). After graduation from the ETH in 1978, he joined the Active Magnetic Bearing research group at ETH Zurich, where he was responsible for the AMB lab. Alfons co-founded Mecos Traxler AG in 1988 as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich to design, produce and market industrial AMB systems.
Dr. Rico Chandra, Founder, Member of the Board
Dr. Giovanna Davatz, Founder, Member of the Board
Mario Vogeli, Founder, Member of the Board