Effective April 1, 2017, Sesotec has hired Andrea Festelli as the new managing director for the two Italian subsidiaries. Born in Genoa, Festelli studied electrical engineering at the University of Genoa. Before moving to Sesotec, he worked for the Italian subsidiary of the GEA group for seven years, where he last held the position of managing director, and before that also was head of the service department. In the course of his professional career he has held positions in international sales, marketing, and R&D departments.

One of Festilli's major tasks will be to merge the two Italian companies: Sesotec Italy, business segment product inspection, and ASM, business segment food sorting. Says the new managing director about his objectives: "Sesotec successfully develops top technology for contaminant detection and material sorting and is globally present on all the important markets. In the last few years, Sesotec has achieved remarkable growth, and I am happy to now be part of this growth. What is particularly interesting for me is the possibility to develop the potential of ASM optical sorters in the product portfolio of the Sesotec group, because with respect to quality and functionality this definitely is a unique offer for our customers. And vice versa: we now also can provide ASM customers in Italy with Sesotec product inspection technologies combined with excellent service—a unique opportunity from which both we and our customers will benefit."

Xaver Auer, CEO of the Sesotec group, said: "We really are pleased to now have Andrea Festelli in our group. He has both industry expertise and relevant management experience. The complete merging and integration of our Italian subsidiaries will result in synergies, and the combination of product inspection and material sorting systems offers many advantages for our customers. For us this means that we will move forward even faster on our already successful course in Italy."