OLI today announced the appointment of Dr. Susanna Holt as Chief Technology Officer, expanding the company’s leadership at a pivotal stage in the continued evolution of its platform and capabilities.
Andy Rafal, CEO of OLI, welcomed the appointment: “Susanna adds the executional leadership we need to accelerate our strategy. She brings a sharp focus on engineering practices that deliver clarity, reliability, and speed. With her leadership, OLI will continue building the solutions our clients rely on.”
Dr. Holt brings nearly 30 years of engineering leadership in industrial and enterprise software. At Autodesk, she progressed from developer to Vice President of Engineering, where she managed large global teams and drove platform-wide improvements in scalability, resilience, and cloud discipline. Earlier in her career, she contributed to the development of a geometric modeling kernel at D-Cubed (later acquired by Autodesk) and financial systems at Lufthansa AirPlus. She holds a PhD in Mathematics from Heriot-Watt University.
What makes Dr. Holt a strong fit for OLI is how she leads. A developer-turned-executive who still thinks in systems, she is known for building high-trust, high-accountability cultures and aligning teams around real customer outcomes. Her leadership style emphasizes clarity under pressure, collaborative execution, and engineering standards that remove friction. On AI adoption, she is pragmatic and value-driven, encouraging its use where it increases developer productivity, research efficiency, and product resilience.
Commenting on her appointment, Dr. Holt said, “I joined OLI because the mission is clear and the science is strong. My focus is on creating the conditions for great engineering, with clear priorities, modern practices, and systems that behave predictably under pressure. This will allow our teams to deliver reliable products and our clients to see value quickly.”
Dr. Holt has already begun working with OLI’s Technology, Product, Science, and Commercial teams to sharpen strategy and ensure execution that matches client priorities.