Pavithran comes to Diebold from Unisys Corporation, where he served as the Global Competency leader for the open source practice and director of application services for global commercial industries. He has broad experience in business and software development, as well as a proven record of managing and directing large, global development organizations.

In his new post, Pavithran will be responsible for assessing the company's software platform and implementing a comprehensive, global software strategy. He will report directly to Charles E. Ducey, Jr., senior vice president, global development and services for Diebold.

"This appointment demonstrates the importance of global software development in Diebold's strategic direction," said Ducey. "Kumar's global experience makes him the right person to re-align our software development strategy, and allows us to better leverage the integration of our software, hardware and services platforms."

Pavithran also worked as vice president and business partner at Percipia Networks, where he was responsible for business planning and product strategy. Before that, he served as director of software engineering at Lucent Technologies and supervised the company's next generation software development organization.

Originally from Chennai, India, Kumar earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Ill. He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Regional Engineering College in Trichy, India.