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Zonar Announces New CEO, Other Executive Hires

Ian McKerlich will serve as Zonar’s new president and CEO, replacing Brett Brinton, who remains with the organization as a strategic advisor. The company also makes two new key technology hires.

December 6, 2016
Zonar Announces New CEO, Other Executive Hires

Ian McKerlich will serve as Zonar’s new president and CEO.

2 min to read


Ian McKerlich will serve as Zonar’s new president and CEO.

SEATTLE — Zonar, a supplier of smart fleet management technology, announced that Ian McKerlich has taken over as president and CEO.

McKerlich, who had been serving as president at Zonar, succeeds Brett Brinton in the CEO role as part of a planned leadership transition resulting from the majority investment stake in Zonar by Continental AG. Brinton remains with the organization as a strategic advisor.

“The entire team at Zonar is focused on continued innovation and modernization of connected intelligence solutions for commercial transportation so that we meet fleets’ evolving safety, efficiency, and compliance needs,” McKerlich said. “With an expanding leadership team and support from Continental AG, we’ve dramatically improved our ability to do just that.”

In addition to McKerlich’s new role, Zonar has promoted technology industry veteran Larry Jordan to senior vice president of product management. Jordan is responsible for managing all Zonar products across their lifecycle. One example is the Zonar Connect tablet and platform announced in October, which is designed to help commercial fleet managers take greater control of their operations.

Meanwhile, Zonar has also made key technology hires: Arun Jacob has been selected as vice president of software development and Chad Maglaque has been tapped for vice president of program and partner management.

Jacob joins Zonar as a seasoned technology executive who has built and led the delivery of products and services at companies including Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney Co., Evri.com, Vulcan, and others.  At Zonar, Jacob will be in charge of software development, where he will lead engineering teams to deliver Zonar applications and application programming interfaces (APIs).

Maglaque joins Zonar as a product and technology leader with over 20 years of experience managing large-scale products and services for startups and Fortune 100 companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Walmart Labs, Macy's, and internet-pioneer RealNetworks.  Maglaque will be responsible for program management, product delivery, and managing the company’s partner programs.

“Adding experienced leaders such as Chad and Arun will improve our ability to quickly deliver Zonar products to customers and work with partners and application developers to make sure we meet all of their fleet management technology needs,” McKerlich said.

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