Vestas, the world’s leading provider of high-tech wind power systems, has added two employees to its North American management team. Vestas has hired Robert Pedersen as vice president and general manager of shared services and David Hardy as vice president of key account management.
Pedersen is responsible for ensuring the shared functions of finance and human resources are operating efficiently throughout Vestas’ manufacturing, sales and service, and technology operations in North, Central and South America. In addition, he is the functional lead for finance in Vestas’ shared-services global operations.
Pedersen is based in Portland, Ore., one of three regional shared-services offices in Vestas’ global operations. Pedersen began at Vestas in 2009 as the director of finance for the company’s blade-manufacturing operations worldwide. Based in Lem, Denmark, at that time, Pedersen was responsible for global planning and consolidation of eight factories across the United States, Europe and China as well as financial compliance. Prior to Vestas, he held finance and management positions at Dell in the United States and Denmark between 1999 and 2009.
Hardy leads the key account-management team for Vestas’ largest and most important customers in North America. Hardy’s team manages all aspects of the customer relationship, including sales, service, construction, government relations and technology. Prior to this role, Hardy worked with the Vestas North American sales team and executed a number of large wind turbine projects with utilities and independent power producers.
Before Vestas, Hardy spent 12 years in roles in sales management and executive sales management at GE, and several other high-tech industrial companies. He also spent eight years in the U.S. Navy in the nuclear submarine community.
Vestas, which has its North American headquarters in Portland, Ore., employs more than 3,200 people in the United States and Canada in positions such as sales, operations, manufacturing, engineering and research. Vestas employs more than 20,000 people worldwide.