Ericsson has appointed Rob Tiffany to lead the company’s new internet of things “center of excellence” in North America.

Tiffany started yesterday and reports to Ericsson’s Shannon Lucas, head of global customer unit emerging business for North America. Lucas reports to Niklas Heuveldop, who is Ericsson’s chief executive for the North American market.

As detailed by an Ericsson representative, the company’s new IoT “center of excellence” will “bridge the divide between customer needs and market readiness by co-creating new solutions with service providers, industrials and technology companies. The CoE is a blend of technology and business model innovation focused on cultivating a strong ecosystem of partners who move at speed.”

The news is noteworthy considering it represents a further investment by Ericsson into the IoT sector. In its own mobility report (PDF), Ericsson predicted the number of cellular IoT connections will reach 4.1 billion in 2024—increasing at an annual growth rate of 27%. “Massive IoT cellular technologies such as NB-IoT and Cat-M1 are taking off and driving growth in the number of cellular IoT connections worldwide,” the firm wrote. “Of the 4.1 billion cellular IoT connections forecast for 2024, North East Asia is anticipated to account for 2.7 billion—a figure reflecting both the ambitions and size of the cellular IoT market in this region.”