Actel names new sales director for Europe

With nearly 20 years of experience at multinational distribution and OEM companies, van der Heijden will lead Actel’s growth initiatives in Europe for its industry-leading, low-power field programmable gate array (FPGA) and programmable system chip (PSC) solutions, accelerating the deployment of these products into existing and emerging high-volume markets. Van der Heijden comes to Actel from Semtech Corporation, a supplier of analog and mixed-signal ICs, where he served as sales director for Europe. Before joining Semtech, van der Heijden held various sales management positions within OEMs and distribution companies, including Cypress Semiconductor, Motorola, Memec Benelux and Sonetech Distribution. “Representing one third of our worldwide revenue, Europe is a key area for Actel,” said Jay Legenhausen, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Actel. “With his extensive OEM sales management and distribution expertise, the addition of Eric to our team can further enable Actel to continue its rapid market expansion in the European region, where we see strong demand for our innovative low-power and power management solutions, such as the IGLOO FPGAs and Fusion Programmable System Chips.” Van der Heijden holds bachelor’s degrees in electronics and marketing from HTS Electrotechniek in Eindoven, The Netherlands and studied post-graduate management and business at the Bureau Management and Organization in Tilburg, NL and the Management Centre Europe in Brussels, Belgium.