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PTC’s Mike Campbell Joins Bentley as Chief Product Officer

Head of digital twins, AR and CAD for PTC has moved to infrastructure software.

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Mike Campbell, best known in the CAD industry for his role at PTC, has switched disciplines and is now chief product officer at Bentley Systems.

The affable and approachable Campbell served as head of PTC’s CAD division. Campbell handled every question from us about Creo and PTC with deep knowledge and infinite patience.

We had thought Campbell would be a lifer at PTC—the heart and soul of the company’s most important division—first with Pro/ENGINEER, then with its current CAD flagship, Creo. Campbell had risen to the head of the division (EVP for CAD) before being asked to lead the newer, more glamorous divisions—Digital Twins (in 2015), IoT (EVP, ThingWorx in 2017) and finally AR (in 2019).

The obvious question is: What does Mike Campbell know about infrastructure software, the software Bentley Systems produces? Campbell’s entire career has been in MCAD. He is a mechanical engineer by education (BSME, Boston University). His experience and leadership in digital twins and AR must have played an outsized role in this appointment. Bentley has been keen to advance the AEC industry’s implementation of emerging technologies, such as digital twins and AR, and PTC is recognized for its pioneering efforts in these technologies.

It’s not the first time that MCAD industry veterans have crossed over into AEC territory. Ron Close, with high-ranking roles at Dassault Systèmes and before that, at SolidWorks, was appointed CMO for BIM leader Graphisoft.

As chief product officer, Campbell will lead 1,500 people in the product group. He will report not to Greg Bentley, the company’s CEO, but to Nicholas Cumins, who came from SAP and has been at Bentley since the beginning of 2022.

“Mike brings to Bentley his vast experience of software innovation at PTC, and a unique perspective on the evolution of engineering software applications to incorporate cloud services,” says Cumins in the press release. “We share a belief that infrastructure engineering can learn from product engineering’s advancements in going digital, including leveraging digital twins and industrializing digital workflows.”

Other Personnel Moves at Bentley

Along with the Campbell announcement, Bentley predicted “naturally continuing executive retirements” for James Lawton, chief digital officer, and Florence Zheng, chief talent officer, as well as “expanded executive roles” for the same James Lawton, Claire Rutkowski and Suzanne Little (chief colleague success officer).