Brandimensions Significantly Strengthens Its Management Team and Board of Directors With Key Appointments
| Quelle: Brandimensions
TORONTO--(Marketwire - June 28, 2007) - Brandimensions Inc., the parent company to
BrandIntel and BrandProtect, today announced a number of key appointments
to its management team and board of directors. BrandIntel's President,
Bradley Silver, and BrandProtect's President, Roberto Drassinower, were
named co-CEOs of Brandimensions. Craig Wallace, previously the company's
CEO, was appointed vice chairman of Brandimensions' board of directors. In
addition, the company's board was expanded to include finance and industry
veterans, Joseph Canavan, David Folk and Ken Nickerson.
As co-CEOs of Brandimensions, Mr. Silver and Mr. Drassinower will lead the
company through an aggressive growth strategy. The co-CEO structure will
optimize focus on Brandimensions' two core business offerings -- brand
intelligence and protection -- and provide strong leadership and
accountability to ensure continued profitable growth.
"Bradley and Roberto both excelled in their respective roles as president
of BrandIntel and BrandProtect," said Craig Wallace. "Looking forward, I
am extremely confident in their abilities to take on this increased
responsibility as co-CEOs of Brandimensions, where they will bring
unparalleled operating level and industry expertise to the company,
allowing us to remain flexible, innovative and responsive to our clients'
needs."
Mr. Silver has over ten years of experience in creating technology
solutions, marketing, consulting, and brand development. Prior to joining
BrandIntel, he held the positions of vice president of sales for an
Internet brand development start-up company; executive marketing consultant
- IBM, for the largest privately owned employment workforce improvement
firm; and account executive for a leading supplier of client/server labor
management solutions. Mr. Silver has extensive experience and success
providing consulting, marketing, business development and strategic
development to Fortune 500 companies throughout his entire career.
Prior to joining BrandProtect, Mr. Drassinower founded DME Consulting Inc.,
a boutique management consulting firm that advised on several acquisitions
with aggregate revenues north of $200 million. He also served as the CEO
of SoftQuad Software Ltd., a company he acquired through a management
buy-out in November 1998. SoftQuad went public in March of 2000 and was
sold to Corel Corporation two years later. Previously, Mr. Drassinower was
president of Carolian Systems, a network management software solutions
company. He is a frequent presenter at investor forums, and earned "Best
Investment" by the Toronto Venture Group Venture Fair in 1999 for SoftQuad
and was named one of Branham Group's "Up and Comers" for the same year. Mr.
Drassinower currently serves on the board of directors of Bell IP
Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Canada.
"In addition to the creation of the aforementioned co-CEO leadership
structure, we are very pleased that we will continue to benefit from Craig
Wallace's tremendous experience and counsel as he serves as vice chairman
of our board," said Elias Vamvakas, Brandimensions' chairman.
Before joining Brandimensions in June, 2006, Mr. Wallace was president and
CEO of AOL Canada Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of America Online Inc., a
Time Warner company. Prior to joining AOLC, he was active in the Toronto
private equity community as a general partner of IceAngels LLP. Mr.
Wallace previously served as president and COO of publicly-traded
PCDOCS/Fulcrum Inc., which was sold to Hummingbird Ltd. in 2000. Earlier in
his career, Mr. Wallace was president and CEO of iSTAR Internet Inc., which
was acquired by PSINet Inc. in 1997. Prior to this, during his seven-year
tenure at Microsoft Canada, Mr. Wallace was a member of the company's
executive management team. Mr. Wallace is a member of the Canadian
Institute of Chartered Accountants and Institute of Chartered Accountants
of Ontario.
"We are also very fortunate to have attracted three distinguished
executives to our board," continued Vamvakas. "Joseph, David and Ken each
bring years of leadership experience and proven track records for success,
which will be invaluable as we take BrandIntel and BrandProtect to the next
level. We are well positioned for a record growth year and are rapidly
establishing ourselves as the leaders in online market intelligence and
brand protection services."
Mr. Canavan has over 20 years of leadership experience in the wealth
management industry and is the current CEO of Assante Wealth Management,
Canada's leading provider of integrated wealth management solutions. As
vice president and director, national sales at Fidelity, he helped grow $60
million in assets into $6 billion in four years and launched GT Global
(Canada), which became the fastest-growing mutual fund company in Canadian
history. Prior to joining Assante, Mr. Canavan was the president and CEO
of Synergy Asset Management which was acquired by CI Financial in October
2003. He has won many industry awards and was named "Person of Influence
of the Decade" at the Canadian Investment Awards. Mr. Canavan is a member
of the board of directors at the National Ballet of Canada and The
Children's Aid Foundation.
Mr. Folk is the co-founder and managing general partner at Jefferson
Partners, a technology venture capital firm. He has served on the boards
of numerous private and public companies and has been instrumental to the
success of Jefferson portfolio companies including Quack.com (acquired by
AOL), iStar (IPO, acquired by PSINET), Wescam (IPO, acquired by L-3
Communications), Applied Terravision (acquired by CGI). Mr. Folk currently
serves on the board of directors of TrueContext Corp.; Avotus Corporation;
BorderWare Technologies Inc. and Natural Convergence Inc. He also
co-founded and is chair of eMagine, a national philanthropic initiative
aimed to raise $1 billion in commitments from the entrepreneurial and
investment community over the next decade.
Mr. Nickerson is the founder and CEO of iBinary LLC., a private technology
research and investment firm. He recently completed both investing in and
operating as CEO of OpenCola Inc., a collaborative search engine company
(sold to OpenText Inc.), and CTO of ClearPulse Inc., a private research
company developing non-invasive medical technologies and The DocSpace
Company (sold to CriticalPath Inc.) along with several other start-up
organizations. Mr. Nickerson also served as general manager of the
Microsoft Network (MSN) in Canada, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft
Corporation, and was responsible for all e-commerce and consumer activities
in Canada. Mr. Nickerson is a member of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Association of Computer Machinery
(ACM).
About Brandimensions Inc.
Incorporated in 2001, Brandimensions is the parent company of BrandIntel, a
market intelligence company that analyzes online consumer-created content
to advance business decision-making, and BrandProtect, an online brand
security company protecting an organization's clients, brands and revenues
from fraud and other abuses. With over 150 clients, both businesses are
recognized in their respective sectors for transforming the way Fortune
1000 companies address brands' risks and opportunities due to the growth of
the Internet. Brandimensions' mission is to leverage the combined power of
technology and human analysis to make business strategy, sales/marketing
and operations better, faster and more efficient. Brandimensions is
headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with offices in the United States. For
more information, visit www.brandintel.com and www.brandprotect.com.