Brussels, 09 June 2026 – The independent nonprofit organization UniversalAutomation.Org (UAO) is now pursuing its goal of open software-defined automation under new leadership. Benoît Thooris, formerly Vice President at Schneider Electric’s U.S. subsidiary, was elected in May of this year as the new President of UAO, which was founded in 2021. During his more than 20 years with the French tech group Schneider Electric, Thooris held various leadership roles in Europe as well as in South and North America. As Vice President in the U.S., the 44-year-old Frenchman was most recently responsible for the go-to-market transformation of the regional industrial business and was already working intensively there to accelerate market acceptance of open and software-defined automation solutions. In addition to his experience in areas such as industrial automation, digital transformation, and global corporate management, Benoît Thooris also brings in-depth technical expertise to his new role, having earned his engineering degree from the renowned Grande École ENSAM in Paris.
“With UAO, we’re in the right place at the right time”, emphasizes the newly elected UAO President. “The diverse technological and supply chain disruptions industrial companies are facing around the world, as well as the impact of software and digitalization, have raised the necessity for open automation like never before. I am therefore delighted to be able to play an active role in the transformation of our industry going forward. As UniversalAutomation.Org, we offer a proven and immediately usable technical approach that enables true open software-defined automation.”
Annual General Meeting Elects Board of Directors
In May 2026, UAO’s Annual General Meeting was held as a virtual event. Among other agenda items, two new members were elected to the Board of Directors. Harry He succeeded Sam Huang as the representative of Kyland Group, while Brad Mozisek was elected to represent Wood on UAO’s Board of Directors.
At Kyland Group, a technology company specializing in industrial internet and network communications and one of the international market leaders in its industry, Harry He currently serves as Deputy General Manager and General Manager of the Smart Control Business Unit. Previously, the automation specialist held senior positions at Emerson Process Control (Sales Director) and Schneider Electric (VP Process Automation).
Brad Mozisek works in Wood’s Digital Integration Group as a Business Manager and Automation and Control Expert. He also serves as a Program Manager at Wood’s Open Process Automation Center of Excellence. In this leadership role, he focuses on the development of reference architectures and application frameworks. As a chemical engineer, Mozisek has more than 19 years of experience with automation projects in the process industry. His employer, the British group Wood, provides process automation and plant engineering services to renowned industrial companies around the world.
Harry He and Brad Mozisek complete the eight-member UAO steering committee, which consists of representatives from the following companies: ASRock Industrial, ExxonMobil, Intel, Kongsberg Maritime, Kyland, Schneider Electric, Wood, and Yokogawa.
The annual general meeting also reappointed Gregory Boucaud to serve another two-year term as Chief Marketing Officer of UniversalAutomation.Org. Boucaud has been in charge of the nonprofit organization’s global marketing efforts since 2021.
Ready-to-use offering for open software-defined automation solutions
With its common implementation of the IEC 61499 automation standard – managed as a Guarded Source and available to members at no license cost – UniversalAutomation.Org provides an independent automation layer for OT components. Unlike and therefore not in competition with approaches such as NOA or OPC UA, this enables a fundamental decoupling of automation hardware (PLC) and software, serving as the basis for automation that is fundamentally vendor-independent and significantly more flexible (e.g., in accordance with IEC 61499). For users of this approach, this has the advantage that code created once can be reused across vendors and deployed decentrally on various hardware components. In addition, the lifecycles of hardware and software run completely separately from one another, which significantly simplifies issues such as integration and migration in particular. UniversalAutomation.Org has now grown to more than 110 members.
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