AITX, a North American provider of railcar services, launched a European railcar platform to offer European manufacturers, operating lessors and freight shippers access to resources, expertise and partnerships across fleet management, leasing solutions, regulatory management and maintenance operations.

With this launch, AITX added Mahindhann Krishnapillai as head of AITX Rail Europe. Based in Paris, Krishnapillai will open AITX’s continental headquarters in Europe and will grow the firm’s capabilities on the continent.

Krishnapillai is a European rail industry expert with more than 15 years of operational and technical experience working across several European rail leasing and repair companies. Most recently, at VTG France, Krishnapillai was operations director overseeing the company’s fleet management and maintenance business for more than 100 European freight shipping customers. Prior to that, he was technical director at CIT’s leasing platform, NACCO, where he grew revenue across 15,000 railcars, spanning sales, maintenance, ECM and safety.

Earlier in his career, Krishnapillai demonstrated a steady ramp up of increased responsibility and technical prowess as head of wagons management and maintenance at DB CARGO EuroCargoRail and several roles across engineering functions.

In addition to hiring Krishnapillai, AITX also added Dan DiStefano as operating partner to bolster its European platform. DiStefano was previously president at CIT’s NACCO for more than five years, overseeing all rail operations and growth and working directly with Krishnapillai. Most recently, DiStefano was executive vice president of international rail for ITE Management.

“With access to capital and in-depth rail industry expertise, we are excited to partner with European shippers to help them move goods and drive their business,” Texas Howard, president of AITX, said. “We see Mahindhann as the perfect leader to help us achieve our goals in Europe. Not only does he have a depth of experience and established relationships in the European rail market, his commitment to operations, technical excellence and safety is an immediate match to our core values. We are happy to welcome Mahindhann to AITX.”