SYDNEY -- Altium has promoted Gerry Gaffney, senior vice president and general manager of the company's Americas operations, to regional CEO.

Previously a sales and support organization, Altium's Americas operation will grow along with the Australian-headquartered company as a whole in order to further assist electronic designers everywhere to build the next generation of electronic products.

"While we've witnessed the forces of globalization first-hand, much of the world's technology innovation still comes from the West Coast of the US," said Altium chief executive Nick Martin. "Our Carlsbad office has proved to be an integral part of Altium's efforts to help enable that innovation to happen, and we want to give them additional opportunities to continue to develop this momentum and influence."

Since joining Altium in 2007, Gaffney has been instrumental in strengthening Altium's worldwide leadership and accelerating business growth. In his new role, Gaffney will report directly to Martin, and will become a member of the executive team, thereby expanding his role in organizational partnerships and other strategic relationships to a global level.

"We've seen a remarkable momentum build over the past several quarters in seat count growth and new logo acquisition, despite the current tough economic climate," said Gaffney. "There is an increasingly rapid migration by customers away from long entrenched use of older design tools toward Altium's next-generation electronic product design platform. Evidence of this momentum is our expanded reseller channel, needed to help address our growing customer base: We've appointed six new regional resellers in North America since July."