Bentley Systems announces retirement of Founder Keith Bentley, elevates Julien Moutte to CTO

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced forthcoming retirements.

As of April 2023 founder Keith Bentley will step down as Chief Technology Officer to assume the role of Technology Advisor through his anticipated retirement later in the year, and will continue thereafter his service on Bentley Systems’ Board of Directors. His successor as Chief Technology Officer will be Julien Moutte, currently Vice President of Technology; and David Hollister, currently Chief Investment Officer, will retire as of March 31, 2023. He was succeeded as Chief Financial Officer by Werner Andre at the beginning of 2022.

CEO Greg Bentley said, “It is practically unique for any mature software company to have had, for its lifetime, a chief inventor who has also been its chief evangelist, both for the work of its engineer users and developers. Bentley Systems was founded in 1984 to commercialize Keith Bentley’s software for infrastructure engineering, and Keith’s contributions to the substance and articulation of our work have never slowed down, culminating in our market-leading iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twins. Keith has been working closely and continuously with Julien Moutte over the past two years. Together they are committed to assuring that iTwin benefits will extend to every one of our application and cloud services users.”

Soon-to-be CTO Julien Moutte joined Bentley Systems as Vice President of Technology in January 2021 from SAP, where he was head of technology for SAP Marketing Cloud. Julien’s technical expertise ranges from cloud operations and high availability platforms to multimedia and mobile. He is an IT entrepreneur and investor and during the past 15 years has launched more than 10 companies in Europe and the United States. Based in Barcelona, Julien is fluent in Spanish, English, and French, and in 1998 graduated in computer science at Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France. Julien worked in startup ventures, and at SAP, with Bentley Systems’ Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Cumins, to whom he reports.

Julien Moutte said, “Working with a visionary CTO like Keith Bentley is a rare privilege and a humbling experience, which I have enjoyed greatly for the past two years. Our iTwin Platform is uniquely positioned to help us and our users advance infrastructure for a world in dire need. I’m honored to succeed him, privileged to continue benefiting from his wisdom, and as Bentley Systems’ CTO I look forward to furthering his life’s work.”

David Hollister served as Bentley Systems’ CFO between 2007 and 2022. Greg Bentley said, “David Hollister has zealously and adroitly stewarded our financial, portfolio development, and investment activities, and our IPO in 2020 would not have been possible without his drive and orchestration. I am further grateful to David for having nurtured such a capable CFO successor, Werner Andre, who has performed admirably over the past year. It is difficult to imagine David ever ‘taking it easy,’ but along with all his colleagues and Bentley Systems’ external constituencies, I thank and congratulate him upon his retirement!”

Keith Bentley and David Hollister will participate in Bentley Systems’ quarterly operating results presentation on February 28, 2023.