Image Navigation, the medical technology company with its United States headquarters in Fort Lee, has appointed Dr. Sotiris Giakis as Chief Clinical Officer, putting an internationally recognized implant surgeon in charge of clinical strategy for a device that has quietly changed how a growing number of dentists approach implant surgery. Giakis will oversee the company’s advanced surgical workflows, clinician education programs, and ongoing scientific evaluation of its flagship IGI system, extending a technology first developed for orthopedic and neurosurgical precision into everyday dental practice.

What Image Navigation Actually Builds

Image navigation, the general technology category, refers to any system that uses visual imagery to guide precise movement through real or mapped space. In computer vision and AI contexts, that typically means translating image content into coordinate based mapping for digital wayfinding. In medical technology, where Image Navigation the company operates, the concept takes a far more literal and consequential form, a surgical GPS that overlays a live tool position onto a patient’s own pre operative imaging in real time.

The company’s flagship product, the IGI 2.0 Hybrid Surgical Navigation and Robotics System, takes a patient’s pre operative CT scan and converts it into a three dimensional map of their own anatomy. During surgery, an on screen avatar of the drill is superimposed directly onto that scan, letting the dentist see the intrabony position, angle, and depth of the instrument in real time without any added radiation. The system’s TRAX tracking technology delivers high accuracy positioning with a 20 millisecond refresh rate and effectively no on screen lag, while a proprietary MiniLOCK attachment keeps the patient’s anatomy precisely aligned with the surgical plan even if the patient moves slightly during the procedure. A robotic auto stop feature adds a final layer of safety, automatically halting the drill motor the instant it strays outside the planned surgical trajectory.

A Surgeon Already Deeply Embedded in the Technology

Giakis brings direct, hands on familiarity with the exact system he is now being asked to help guide strategically. A specialist in robotic implant and oral surgery, he was among the first clinicians in Greece to adopt real time, robotically supported navigation technology into daily surgical practice, applying the IGI system directly in his own private practice well before joining Image Navigation in a formal leadership capacity. That early, practical experience with the technology’s real world clinical demands, rather than a purely administrative or research background, positions him to guide the kind of advanced surgical workflow development the role specifically calls for.

Beyond his clinical practice, Giakis has built a substantial record as an educator and speaker, presenting and teaching at major professional gatherings including the Hellenic Congress of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the Computer Guided Implantology program at the Athens University Medical School, and the first Hellenic Congress of Oral Surgery. That combination of clinical credibility and teaching experience mirrors the two responsibilities Image Navigation has specifically assigned to the new role, advancing the company’s clinical evidence base while also expanding education and training for the dentists adopting the technology.

A New Jersey Address Behind a Global Technology

While Image Navigation’s core research and development work continues out of Jerusalem, where the company was founded in 2007, its United States operations run out of Fort Lee, giving the company a genuine New Jersey footprint even as its clinical reach extends across dental practices internationally. That structure, global development paired with a U.S. commercial base in Bergen County, reflects a fairly common pattern among medical device companies seeking both proximity to the New York metropolitan dental and medical community and a foothold in the broader American healthcare market.

The appointment of a Chief Clinical Officer specifically signals a maturing phase for the company’s go to market strategy, one focused less on convincing dentists a navigation system is worth adopting at all and more on deepening the clinical evidence, training infrastructure, and workflow refinement needed to expand adoption among practices already sold on the underlying concept. With Giakis now overseeing that effort, Image Navigation is betting that a surgeon who has already lived inside the technology’s day to day clinical reality is better positioned to guide its next phase of growth than a purely administrative hire would have been.