NineSigma Expands European Presence With New Headquarters

CLEVELAND, OH--(Marketwire - April 9, 2008) - NineSigma, the leading provider of open innovation (OI) solutions, today announced the expansion of its European activities with the opening of its new European headquarters in Leuven, Belgium. The company's European operations will be led by Andy M. Zynga who was recently appointed as chief executive officer, NineSigma Europe. From Belgium, NineSigma will be able to support its strong base of current clients, as well as offer its innovation sourcing services to European companies looking to develop or expand their open innovation initiatives.

Zynga comes to NineSigma with more than 25 years of experience in high tech and executive consulting, most recently serving as a member of the executive committee of Telindus, a global network integrator and outsourcing company with more than $1 billion in revenues and 3,000 employees in 14 countries. Prior to Telindus, Zynga built four successful high tech and service businesses in Europe and the United States. Andy also spent 6 years at KPMG Consulting (now Bearingpoint) in Germany and London, where he successfully grew a division of the "Information, Communication, and Entertainment" (ICE) Consulting Practice into a major international player.

"We have a significant opportunity to grow NineSigma in Europe as more companies are beginning to examine the open innovation model and embrace external ideas and technologies that can truly help their businesses," said Paul Stiros, president and CEO of NineSigma. "Andy has proven that he can build and lead successful companies, and is well respected within the European high-tech community. With him in place as CEO of our European operations, we have high expectations and will be very aggressive to quickly build a successful organization."

NineSigma Europe will continue to offer the same open innovation services being offered in the United States and Japan, including process integration and innovation transaction consulting services. From the European office, NineSigma is focused on developing new European customers that are actively engaged in new product R&D and have a relatively broad technology portfolio. NineSigma is currently leveraging its Japan and U.S. offices to expand opportunities with European companies that have a multi-national presence.

"There is tremendous potential in Europe for open innovation, and the fact that we already have a good number of customers in Europe is a clear indicator of the readiness of European businesses to get support for their innovation sourcing needs," said Zynga. "Our proven track record combined with our ability to educate and prepare companies for open innovation will continue to be critical to our success with European businesses. Cost competitiveness is a key issue in Europe, and accelerating the innovation cycle through NineSigma can lead to reduced research and development costs. We have a number of successful international clients around the world whose stories certainly resonate well with European companies, and I look forward to leveraging their experiences to positively impact our growth and success in this region."

Zynga earned a dual master's degree in business administration and mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany.

About NineSigma

NineSigma partners with Global 1000 companies to transform their innovation capabilities by connecting them with the very best innovators from around the world. NineSigma's proprietary process for Open Innovation enables companies to dramatically improve speed to market while lowering product development costs. NineSigma's open network of innovators is the largest of its kind and spans industries, geographies, and technical disciplines. Companies such as Xerox, GlaxoSmithKline, DuPont, Kraft, P&G and Unilever engage NineSigma to build new innovation capabilities that leverage research and innovation globally to deliver greater value to their customers. NineSigma is a private company with offices in the United States, Belgium and Japan. For more information visit: www.ninesigma.com.

Contact Information: Contact information for NineSigma Europe is: NineSigma, Inc. Aarschotsesteenweg 307 3012 Leuven, Belgium Tel: +32-16-89 30 16 Contact: Dan Dyer 513-478-7818