June 20, 2024
TISA members appoint Stephanie Leonard as new TISA President at the organisation’s Annual Assembly, held at TomTom’s headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Stephanie Leonard is TomTom Head of Government & Regulatory Affairs. After twelve years at the helm, Thomas Kusche-Knežević, TISA President and Senior Editor at Westdeutscher Rundfunk will leave the role.
Stephanie Leonard, on accepting the new position of President says ‘I am delighted to take on the position of TISA President, building on the work I have done as Chairwoman for the last 12 months. I am grateful to Thomas for his support, and I am looking forward to building on his success and making TISA a dynamic organisation that supports its global membership with a range of value-added services facilitating standardisation and harmonisation. In this modern world, we need to ensure traffic and travel information is 100% correct, 100% of the time on all roads. Standardised delivery channels will continue to play a critical role to achieve this vision, but there are multiple topics and domains which also need TISA’s trusted expertise to standardise and harmonise. Increasing the quality of traffic data available in National Access Points and helping stakeholders conduct their quality assessment with the 5-star rating is a critical area where we will all benefit from TISA’s leadership. Another is building the bridge between the automotive world and the natural disaster recovery world. We need urgently TISA’s help getting information about critical emergency alerts and warnings from natural disaster authorities into our vehicles. This expanded scope will give us plenty of work for the next coming years but I’m excited to work with the rest of the TISA team to bring these tangible results to our members and the wider ITS community.’
Matthias Unbehaun, Executive Director of TISA says ‘Stephanie has been working with us for the last year as Chairwoman and it has been a pleasure to have her on board. She provides a dynamism and energy as well as a background firmly rooted in the ITS and navigation industry. We are looking forward to accomplishing great things together and welcoming further members into the organisation. We also thank Thomas for his dedicated commitment and support to TISA. During his time, TPEG has significantly evolved, and under his watch it has been necessary to
continue to foster and assure the quality assurance of TPEG services. His assistance and guidance in this domain and on other important developments in ITS has been invaluable. I am sure that his impact on TISA will continue to be felt for years to come.’
Thomas Kusche-Knežević says ‘I feel honoured to have steered TISA for the last twelve years. Since TISA’s inception in 2007, TISA’s priority was the safety of travel through the creation of an international framework for the development of traffic and traveller information standards and services. TISA’s product TPEG is now deployed by many services and received by many millions of devices worldwide. Success is of course the result of hard work, cooperation, partnership and communication, but it is impossible without the right people. I believe as an organisation we cultivate collegiality, great partnerships and friendship, which is also an important factor in our success! I will leave with great memories. I wish Stephanie, the TISA team and its members all the best for the journey ahead.’
For more information please contact:
TISA / TISA – Silversquare Louise, Avenue Louise 523, B-1050 Brussels
T +32 2 669 77 72 / Email: s.chaufton@tisa.org
About TISA
TISA is an international association that leads the development of trusted traffic & travel standards and harmonised services for our members to ensure that travel is safe, efficient, and sustainable for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is a world where traffic and travel information is 100% correct, 100% of the time on all roads. Our members include vehicle manufacturers,
navigation service providers, solution providers, user device manufacturers and public sector stakeholders.
It is focused on proactive implementation of traffic and travel information services and products based on existing standards, including primarily RDS-TMC and TPEG technologies. TISA supports the maintenance and development of standardised technologies leading to economic implementation and rapid market acceptance across a wide range of travel information services and products. TISA was established in December 2007 as a non-profit organisation under the
Belgian law, taking over the activities from the former TMC forum, the TPEG forum and the German Mobile.Info project.