XRS Corp. has named two people to leadership positions and appointed Christian Schenk senior vice president-business development and strategy. The company also announced that Jon Van Winkle will take over as vice president-product management, and Arvind Sharma is the new vice president of engineering.
“As XRS expands its pioneering lead in the mobile marketplace, we are committed to aligning our leadership team to support continued growth and success,” said Jay Coughlan, chairman and CEO. “Christian, Arvind and Jon have each demonstrated their creativity and strategic guidance in our industry, and all three will be critically important leaders as XRS continues to break new ground in the mobile trucking intelligence segment.”
Van Winkle has 20 years of experience in transportation and logistics, online services, SaaS, knowledge management, health care, aerospace and defense. Before joining the company, Van Winkle was director of product management for Qualcomm’s Omnitracs Division, where he led the product definition and business plan for its flagship transportation management product.
At XRS, Van Winkle will be responsible for all aspects of strategic direction and oversight around the innovation, development and maintenance of XRS product offerings including NXT, the company’s new collaboration with Verizon Wireless and Samsung Mobile.
“XRS is in a vanguard position within the fleet telematics marketplace and has successfully defined an entirely new category of mobile trucking technology,” said Van Winkle. “I am excited to help lead such a progressive company with incredible potential for future product innovation and growth.”
Sharma is an experienced technical leader with more than 20 years of experience in software architecture, design and product development, with an emphasis on mobile technologies. Most recently, Sharma was director of software architecture, unified communications for Riverbed Technology.
In his role at XRS, Sharma will oversee all aspects of software development and architecture and lead the XRS engineering team in designing, testing and implementing new products and product enhancements.
Schenk has been with XRS since 2010.
In his new role, Schenk will continue to drive the company’s efforts to boost recognition for and availability of the XRS solution in the market through direct and indirect channel marketing, as well as through partnerships and alliances. Schenk will work closely with product management, sales and marketing in fueling the company’s growth strategy. He will report to XRS’ executive vice president of field operations, Jim DeSocio.
“I am proud of what we have accomplished at XRS in creating an entirely new platform that has been embraced enthusiastically by the trucking industry,” said Schenk. “I look forward to working with the rest of the leadership team to boost our market penetration and ensure further adoption of the XRS solution throughout North America.”
