WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Nov. 13, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GetFugu, Inc. (OTCBB:GFGU) (www.GetFugu.com), the next generation mobile search tool, announced today that it has appointed several key directors and executives to the Board of Directors and senior management team. In addition, the Company has updated its corporate governance policies and obtained Standard & Poor's listing.
GetFugu has added five independent directors to the board, Michael Jay Solomon as Chairman; and Alan J. Bailey, Donald A. Kurz, Michael J. O'Connor and Chuck Timpe as Directors.
Solomon served as President of Warner Bros. International Television, a division of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) from 1989 to 1994. Since that time, he has led Solomon Entertainment Enterprises, a television communications company that distributes independent content to the international market. Solomon co-founded and was Chairman/CEO of television syndication company Telepictures Corporation (NASDAQ) in 1978, and served as President of Lorimar Telepictures Corp. until 1989. Before that he served eight years with United Artists and 14 years with MCA/Universal, now owned by General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE). Solomon was a founder of the American Film Market Association and The Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Israel, and has served on the Board of Overseers of New York University's Stern School of Business for 20 years. He has an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Emerson College.
Bailey is a veteran of the entertainment industry with 35 years of senior level corporate finance, audit and compliance experience. He served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer at Paramount Pictures from 1975 through March 2009. Bailey is an Operating Partner in Transworld Capital Group which specializes in structuring complex financial transactions. Bailey is also Vice President of the Shanghai Film Art Academy, a motion picture and television college based in Shanghai with more than 3,000 active film students. In April 2009, he formed new media company Dynamic Media International Inc. where he serves as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Bailey previously served as Vice President in charge of offshore financial operations at Gulf + Western Industries, and served in public accounting with an affiliate of Ernst & Young and with Grant Thornton as a senior audit supervisor. He is a Fellow of the English Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Kurz has over 25 years experience in strategy, finance, marketing and public company leadership. Kurz serves as CEO of Artemis Capital Partners, LLC, an innovative hedge fund he co-founded in 2006. He founded management consulting firm Insight Creative Solutions Inc. in 2005. From 1990 to April 2005, Kurz was employed by EMAK Worldwide, Inc. (formerly Equity Marketing), a NASDAQ company providing Fortune 1000 clients with integrated marketing solutions, where he served as Chairman, President and CEO for his last six years. Kurz spent a decade as a management consultant with Coopers and Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers), Cresap McCormick and Paget/Towers Perrin, where he was elected a Senior Partner and managed the New York office. He sits on the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees of The Johns Hopkins University, and has served as adjunct professor or guest lecturer at Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, Andersen School of Management at UCLA and the Young Presidents Organization. Kurz received a Bachelor of Arts from the Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
O'Connor has served as Vice Chairman of telecommunications provider Globalive Communications Corporation since August 2008. He has 20 years experience in finance, mergers and acquisitions in telecommunications, as well as designing and implementing sophisticated financial planning tools in support of major capital raises. O'Connor served as one of six founding members of the Executive Committee of Orascom Telecom from November 1999 to July 2008, whose parent company Weather Investments boasts more than 110 million subscribers. He founded the Center for Economic and Financial Analysis at Science Applications International Corporation, one of the largest consultancy companies in the country. O'Connor began his career at the Economic Council of Canada/School of Policy Studies at Queens University. He holds a master's degree in economics from Carleton University.
Timpe is a senior financial executive with extensive experience in public company finance, compliance and technical accounting issues. He has served as a Director since 1998 and Chairman of the Audit Committee since 2002 for IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc. (Nasdaq:IPCM), and as a Director of Internet social network CrowdGather, Inc. (OTCBB:CRWG) since May 2009. From 2003 to November 2008, Timpe served as Chief Financial Officer of Hythiam, Inc. (Nasdaq:HYTM). He was Chief Financial Officer from its inception in 1998 to 2003 of Protocare, Inc. Timpe was a Principal in two consulting firms he co-founded, Chief Financial Officer of National Pain Institute, Treasurer and Corporate Controller for American Medical International, Inc., now Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE:THC). He specialized in public company audits at Arthur Andersen, LLP. Timpe received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Missouri, School of Business and Public Administration, and is a certified public accountant.
GetFugu has added two executives to its senior management team: Carl Freer as President and Director, and Derek Norton as Chief Operating Officer.
Freer is an international entrepreneur, whose wide-ranging interests have led him around the world starting, building and selling businesses for high multiples. Fascinated by the juncture between commerce and technology, Freer devotes his energy to serving both by creating methods designed to ease the flow of information between humans and machines. He will oversee the Company's unique brand integration, targeted advertising, marketing and promotion strategies.
Norton is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture capitalist with 20 years of business building and executive management experience in technology, Internet and media. Prior to joining GetFugu, he served as Managing Partner of Watertower Group, a boutique venture capital fund he founded in February 2002. Norton also served as a Principal with Entertainment Media Ventures, a $120 million early stage fund focused on broadband infrastructure, consumer Internet and digital media sectors. He also founded and built Jeffries Technologies into one of Inc. Magazine's 500 fastest growing privately held U.S. companies, providing network enterprise architecture and systems integration to Global 2000 businesses. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Southern California.
On Nov. 2, 2009, GetFugu's Board of Directors adopted an Audit Committee Charter, Compensation Committee Charter, Nominating and Governance Committee Charter, Code of Ethics and Insider Trading Policy. These corporate governance policies have been implemented to insure that the Company provides transparency to its shareholders and the investment community. Documents outlining GetFugu's corporate governance policies are available on the Company's website at www.GetFugu.com.
Standard and Poor's has issued a research report on GetFugu, and company information is now available via S&P's Corporation Records Listing Program. A full description of GetFugu is published in the Daily News section of Standard Corporation Records, providing increased awareness of the Company among the brokerage and investment communities.
GetFugu premiered the beta version of its unique "See It, Say It, Find It, Get It" vision, voice and location recognition services on Sept. 9, 2009.
About GetFugu, Inc.
GetFugu is the first technology architect to provide a carrier agnostic, platform agnostic mobile search platform. GetFugu will change the way people access the web with their mobile phones. It is designed to encourage use of its applications by integrating the mobile phone's core strengths (image recognition, voice recognition, location recognition) into a single customizable application. Additionally, GetFugu offers the only mobile ecommerce platform available worldwide today. The GetFugu platform will soon be available for 97% of the mobile phones available (over 3.3 billion handsets) worldwide.
For more information on GetFugu, please visit our website at: www.GetFugu.com
Forward-Looking Statements
Except for statements of historical fact, the matters discussed above are forward looking and made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect numerous assumptions and involve a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control, that may cause actual results to differ materially from stated expectations. These risk factors include, among others, limited operating history, intense competition, and difficulty in developing, exploiting and protecting proprietary technologies; as well as additional risks factors discussed in the reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available on its website at http://www.sec.gov. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update any information.