London, UK and Helsinki, Finland 15 October 2007 - Xtract, the trusted partner in community marketing intelligence, has appointed three new members to its Board of Directors:
- Martti Mehtälä, former Managing Director of Microsoft Finland as Chairman of the board
- Alan Moore, the Engagement Marketing guru from SMLXL as Member of the board
- William Greenberg, senior Canadian management advisor as member of the board
“Martti, Alan and William bring strategic business, marketing and management strengths as we are moving the company to the next level. Xtract has a smart business model and excellent technology. Our solutions are being delivered and demanded by world?s largest brands and we are well set for this challenge,” says Jouko Ahvenainen, previous Chairman of the board and Chief Operating Officer of Xtract.
Martti Mehtälä, Chairman of the Board of Xtract adds: “In the digital age, customer knowledge and understanding of communities they belong to, is of fundamental commercial importance for all industries. In fact, companies will not be able to properly monetise their customer communities without relevant community marketing intelligence. Since Xtract specialize in analysing social networks and predicting customer behaviour, this gives us a unique competitive advantage, and an opportunity to provide our customers deep insight understanding about their end-customers’ behavioural patterns, likes and dislikes, which can be used for improved, more focused and more relevant marketing, saving in cost and speed to market.”
The other existing Xtract board members are Xtract’s co-founders Kimmo Kiviluoto, CEO and Jouko Ahvenainen, COO as well as Juha Mikkola, Senior Partner and a Co-Founder of Eqvitec Partners.
About Martti Mehtälä, Chairman of the Board
Martti Mehtälä has been the Managing Director of Microsoft Finland for 12 years, until June 2007. With over 25 years experience as a senior manager in the IT industry, he has a profound knowledge of the computer and software business as well as many lines of businesses. Martti and has been working in cooperation with many well-known international computer companies and various channel partners.
Martti started his career at Nokia Data in 1982 and then as the Country Manager of Computervision Inc (1984-1986). Back at Nokia, he held several senior management positions in sales and marketing within Nokia Data and ICL group. Before joining Microsoft he acted as Managing Director of Dava Oy, the second largest IT-distributor at that time in Finland.
Martti Mehtälä is also a member of the board for SysOpen Digia and chairman of the board and co-founder of NatureGate.
About Alan Moore, Member of the Board
Alan Moore is the originator of the term, philosophy and principles of Engagement Marketing . He started working on the concept in the late 1990’s, which, culminated in his writing of the book Communities Dominate Brands. His consultancy SMLXL helps businesses and customers (to) better engage with one another.
Alan’s recent book, Communities Dominate Brands, has provided an international platform for him to address, radio, television, conference and digital audiences globally.
He advises many global companies on strategic engagement marketing and how to navigate from the old commercial and media world to the new one.
Alan’s theories, work and practical guidance has played a key role in enabling the global company Nokia to rethink is marketing strategies, and product development. He is an executive director of Masthead, Media Solutions for Global Social Networks. He sits on the advisory board of CVON and he teaches a Mobile Social Networking course the Oxford University for further education.
About William Greenberg, Member of the Board
William Greenberg is currently a consultant to consumer manufacturing, private investment and technology firms where he structures relationships with strategic and financial partners and oversees new business initiatives. He advises senior management on a range of important issues related to financing, alliances/joint ventures, operations and technology and business development. He has co-founded several companies including KORE Wireless Inc. and Green Brook Corporation. Mr. Greenberg serves on the Advisory Boards of several firms including Inetasia Inc. and Active Products Ltd. He is a former director KORE Wireless where he also served the Board as Secretary Treasurer and Jetnet Internet working Services Limited where he was a key advisor to their management and served as a member of the CRTC CISC Sub-working Group on co-location in Canada.
About Xtract
Xtract is the trusted partner in community marketing intelligence. Our core strengths are in social network analytics and process optimization. We help mobile operators, media companies and consumer businesses to deliver efficient marketing by predicting customer behavior - giving meaning and life to raw customer data. Xtract enables marketing departments to leverage and deliver on the potential of their brand assets, by understanding their customers and their behavior, the communities they belong to and how they interact within those communities.
Xtract is based in London and Helsinki, and operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 blue-chip companies with intensive customer data.
Contact:
Jouko Ahvenainen, Chief Operating Officer
E: jouko.ahvenainen@xtract.com
M: +44 791 248 1154
Arlinda Sipila, Marketing Director
E: arlinda@xtract.com
M: +358 40 528 8651
