What you’ll learn:
- Industrial AI software provider IFS has appointed a new chief information officer, Robi Gone.
- Gone, formerly of Shell, succeeds Helena Nimmo, who is retiring.
- Gone has served as Shell’s IT global general manager for finance, leading the energy company’s digital transformation through next-generation ERP systems.
Industrial AI software provider IFS announced it had appointed a new chief information officer, Robi Gone, who succeeds Helena Nimmo, who is retiring.
As the new CIO, Gone will lead global IT strategy for IFS, the multinational software company that develops and delivers enterprise software for manufacturing, aerospace and defense, energy, and construction. Gone is joining IFS from Shell, where he has held senior IT leadership roles for more than a decade, according to a release from IFS.
See also: IFS debuts package of ‘digital workers’ in next iteration of agentic AI industrial software
Most recently, he served as Shell’s IT global general manager for finance, where he led the energy company’s digital transformation through next-generation ERP systems.
In this role, Gone oversaw global programs spanning finance platforms, enterprise performance management, and SaaS implementations, according to the IFS release.
Podcast: Do manufacturers dream of 'digital workers'?
Prior to Shell, Gone held consulting positions at Deloitte and Accenture, building expertise in enterprise IT and transformation.
According to IFS, Gone brings a track record in designing and delivering large-scale digital backbones. he will report directly to IFS CEO Mark Moffat and will join the IFS executive board.
Moffat said Gone’s “expertise in leading enterprise transformation at Shell and building large-scale digital platforms will be instrumental as we continue to modernize and scale our global IT landscape. Robi brings exactly the expertise we need at this stage of our growth.”
The CEO added that Nimmo had shaped IFS’s IT strategy, strengthened the company’s security capabilities, embedded AI across the organization, and had been an advocate for diversity and inclusion at the industrial AI software company.
See also: HighByte releases Intelligence Hub 4.3, expanding agentic AI on factory floors
Gone said: “I am excited to be joining IFS at such a pivotal moment. IFS has established itself as the undisputed global leader in industrial AI, and I look forward to ensuring our own technology foundation exemplifies that same innovation, enabling us to scale efficiently while delivering excellence for our people and our customers.”
Among other announcements, IFS at its recent conference in New York, Industrial X Unleased debuted “digital workers”—an AI-based “workforce” programmed with 50-plus (soon to be 100-plus) agentic skills that assists industrial organizations, attached to specific of high-volume operational tasks that humans would no longer need to perform such as field dispatch, supplier coordination, customer order management, and inventory replenishment.
See also: AI that augments the workforce … and doesn’t replace it
In glitzy presentations, company leaders also announced collaborations with Anthropic, Boston Dynamics, Siemens, 1X Technologies and others to drive smarter, safer, and faster operations, particularly at the technician and fieldworker level of the workforce.
About the Author
Scott Achelpohl
Head of Content
I've come to Smart Industry after stints in business-to-business journalism covering U.S. trucking and transportation for FleetOwner, a sister website and magazine of SI’s at Endeavor Business Media, and branches of the U.S. military for Navy League of the United States. I'm a graduate of the University of Kansas and the William Allen White School of Journalism with many years of media experience inside and outside B2B journalism. I'm a wordsmith by nature, and I edit Smart Industry and report and write all kinds of news and interactive media on the digital transformation of manufacturing.


