From the Sector

Based in Porto, Portugal, Rodrigo Siza will focus on nurturing new regional collaborations to benefit the needs of Lectra’s customers, and faciliate their success in the Industry 4.0 era. Rodrigo will rely on Lectra’s highly experienced teams located in the region.
“Rodrigo has very effectively established long-term partnerships with our fashion and apparel, automotive and furniture customers in Portugal. He has helped our customers to emerge stronger from the world crisis which heavily impacted them. After 10 successful years as head of Lectra Portgual, Rodrigo is now also in charge of meeting the expectations of our Spanish customers,” stated Daniel Harari, Lectra Chairman and CEO.

Players in the region are witnessing a strong dynamic, notably fashion brands in Spain and fashion and automotive industrialists with heightened added-value in Portugal. With the recent announcement of a new strategy to focus on Industry 4.0, Lectra is in a strong position to support these businesses in the digitalization of their processes.
For industries faced with more demanding consumers and ever-shorter product development and manufacturing cycles, integrating all steps along the extended supply chain, from design to cutting, is now a top priority. This is particularly apparent in Spain and Portugal, two countries positioned, in their own way, at the heart of Europe’s fashion and automotive industries.
Rodrigo started his career at Tradetex, a trading company of textiles for clothing, as a textile designer. From 1991 to 1999, he was an associate of V-Sistemas Informatica, specialized in the development and distribution of technical solutions for the textile industry. In 2000, he joined Lectra Portugal as a design and merchandising manager, and then evolved into the position of international consultant in 2004. He left Lectra in 2005 to take the position of Sales Director of RPB Têxteis e Vestuario, a company that makes clothes, before returning to Lectra in 2007 to take over the management of the Portuguese subsidiary. Rodrigo has a masters in marketing from Minho University and a degree in design and communication from Porto University, both located in Portugal.

German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Brigitte Zypries presented the first-ever German Global Health Award at “Global Health – the International and the German Agenda”, an event with more than 200 participants from around 30 countries taking place in the context of the B20 Health Conference. The prize honours German companies, associations or individuals for innovative projects and partnerships in global health that contribute to health system strengthening in developing and emerging countries.

The German Global Health Award, under the patronage of Federal Minister Brigitte Zypries, is granted in two categories by the German Healthcare Partnership (GHP), the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and BIO Deutschland. Federal Minister Zypries lauded the work of the recipients, saying “Both projects demonstrate how the German healthcare sector drives innovation to attain the worthwhile goal of supporting global health at home and abroad,” adding, “The recognition of such work is especially important in the context of the meeting of the Health Ministers of the G20 countries taking place in Berlin later this week.”