Intelligent transportation provider Excelfore has appointed Rick Kreifeldt as executive director of the eSync Alliance. The eSync Alliance is an industry initiative for driving multicompany over-the-air (OTA) update and diagnostic data solutions in the automotive electronics space. By working together in the alliance, companies will benefit from a simplified development environment made possible by a standardized yet customizable, open, scalable platform. eSync is a platform of cloud and embedded components originally developed by Excelfore for providing secure transactions within a vehicle. “By bringing all the eco-system partners together, the alliance will deliver a more complete end-to-end OTA solution and can thus build something much more comprehensive than any individual company could on their own,” Kreifeldt said. “Bringing the automotive industry together on a common platform is a tough challenge, but as other similar projects have shown, the potential benefits of such cooperation are substantial and industry-changing.” Kreifeldt is founder and president of Motoforza Inc., where he has been the driving force behind technology strategy, business activity and organizational development, building extensive partnerships between automakers and suppliers in the areas of connected and assisted driving/autonomous vehicles. He was the founder and chairman of the Avnu Alliance, a consortium of more than 80 electronics and manufacturing companies working together to establish and certify Audio Video Bridging and Time-Sensitive Networking (AVB/TSN) standards. Kreifeldt also worked for more than 20 years at Harman, an infotainment and audio supplier.