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Here
is a brief synopsis of what I have been doing for the past 18 years...enjoy.
I
joined Centrepoint Technologies in November of 2004 as their VP, Sales.
Since then, the company has undergone a radical growth path, from
roughly 20 employees to over 65. We are doing very well and are the
growth engine for the company. Centrepoint has been known for some
time by the name of their product, the TalkSwitch hybrid phone system
(hybrid because it works both on the PSTN and by Voice over IP). Now
in 2006 we are going strong and ready to move to the next level.
Prior
to Talkswitch, On September 28, 2001, the company where I was working,
Orchestream Holdings PLC in London was struggling, and decided to
put through the 7th in a long line of layoffs, this time including
myself. 15 days later I had incorporated a company that became Dyband
Corporation, a privately-held software company selling IP Traffic
Management software. A Board of Directors - made up entirely of investors
- began running the company in April of 2002. Many great achievements,
and many issues, ensued. My relationship ended with the firm in 2004.
"That's all I have to say about that".
The history of my involvement in Dyband is an intereting one. In late
1999, once the acquisition of PC DOCS/Fulcrum by Hummingbird was complete,
I moved on to join CrossKeys Systems Corporation, where I was hired
as the Director of Alliances. I was tasked with signing up business
partners for CrossKeys whose
products and services were complementary to the CrossKeys performance
management software.
Soon after joining, CrossKeys purchased a phenomenal company in Allentown,
PA called Dynamic Broadband Networks, and in February of 2000
I began working with them to develop the Dyband software into the
company. This evolved into a Director of Sales role for me. On April
12, 2001, CrossKeys was purchased and was thenwholly-owned by Orchestream
Holdings PLC of London, UK.
The Dyband team was operating as a business unit of the main company
and everyone on the team was motivated,
energetic and dedicated - a great environment to work in.
On September 28, 2001, however, the fortunes of Orchestream changed
dramatically for the worse. They fired 1/3 of their worldwide staff
and unfortunately, terminated the entire Dyband business and business
unit. Soon thereafter Orchestream liquidated its various assets, selling
some back to Alcatel (formerly Newbridge) and the rest to a competitor,
Metasolve.
As the
Director of Marketing, I developed the PC DOCS/Fulcrum '3-cubed' marketing
strategy surrounding the release of their third version (3.0) of three
pieces of software - thereby the '3-cubed' moniker. A great deal of
marketing was done prior to the launch to ensure a solid viewing community
watched
the launch, and it was a highly effective marketing campaign, resulting
in very strong FYQ4 results. The entire event was streamed live over
the Internet. This was an innovative (and cost effective) approach
for the company to reach as many of their consituents as possible
in the shortest possible timeframe. Analyst feedback, investor and
customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive. A highly successful
and memorable print ad campaign accompanied the '3-cubed' program,
and struck straight at our competition - a fact not lost on the customer
base. A VP of Marketing at Microsoft mentioned how clever the campaign
was in his presentation at KM World that year.
I repeated the successful May 21 cybercast / live streaming event
for the Hummingbird launch of their Enterprise Information Portal
on Dec. 6, 1999, although
by the time the event occurred I had moved on. Hummingbird was not
an environment condusive to ongoing efforts from the former PC DOCS/Fulcrum
marketing group.
I was
a member of the Advisory Board for the Algonquin College Technology
Marketing Program, and co-authored and delivered a h ighly
successful module of the 'Product Management / Product Marketing'
program. I remain on the technology solutions advisory board for the
college wireless laptop program for their business students.
While
at iSTAR in the Advanced Solutions group, I lead the team (under the
VP-Marketing) that marketed solid intranet (based on Open Text Livelink)
and e-commerce (based on the Open Market OM-Transact engine) marketing
strategies and programs for the iSTAR customer base. A monthly newsletter
helped both corporate and consumer customers keep track of what iSTAR
was doing.
Some of the advertisements my team and I created at PSINet/iSTAR were
innovative and effective, particularly in the consumer space. Our
bicycle advertising campaign included print and radio components,
with the ads running on the sides of buses, billboards, in magazines
and in a variety of electronic formats. The PSINet Fiber ad was so
popular that it was used by the parent company in the US. We also
had some effective ads around the speed of the network.
Once PSINet had acquired iSTAR, I became the Director of the iSTAR
Dial Business Unit,
running a fully autonomous group of engineers, accounting, sales,
systems administrators, marketing, sales and customer support. This
was a very successful venture, adding over 3,000 new users a month
and moving to profitability in under one year. PSINet later spun this
group off into a separate company, Inter.net.
In
my roles at Phone Power / Telecom Canada and Bell, I was a highly
successful salesperson, exceeding objectives regularly and increasing
my scope of responsibility steadily until
I was the prime account manager for Transport Canada and the Canadian
Coast Guard, two large Federal accounts. I attended President's Club
twice and received numerous sales awards. This
gave me a strong understanding of the role needed between sales and
marketing, the critical interworking that must exist to make these
two roles mutually successful.
When I worked for Bell Canada/Stentor in the role of Business Television
Specialist, I was responsible for creating the direction for the Federal
Government team
in BTV and Interactive Distance Learning. In order to assist with
this, I authored a section of the Bell Canada website and an Interactive
Distance Learning Whitepaper. |
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