Industry Veteran Martin Vowels Joins digiMine Management Team as CFO
SEATTLE, WA (May 25, 2000) – digiMine announced today that Marty Vowels has joined the senior management team as chief financial officer. Vowels brings over eighteen years experience in high growth enterprises, including eight years with Microsoft Corporation. His arrival is timely given the company’s rapid growth. Employee hiring has far exceeded original projections with over 30 employees in the first eight weeks. “I am amazed at how rapidly we’ve progressed,” comments Dr. Usama Fayyad, co-founder and CEO of digiMine. “This kind of explosive growth calls for very experienced leadership to manage the ramp up of our finance and administration infrastructure and to take us through future rounds of funding and an eventual IPO. We’re extremely pleased to have someone with as much experience and mature leadership as Marty to help us manage this phenomenal growth.”
Vowels’ expertise encompasses strategic planning, acquisitions, pre and post IPO preparation, and financial and operational management. Vowels worked with startups like Corbis, Eagle River, Nextel, Nextlink, and Light Sciences. He was with Microsoft Corporation during its high growth period from 1986 to 1995 and played a critical role in building and managing its early finance and administrative operations. During his last two years with Microsoft, Vowels was a senior director of information technology where he built and managed systems to operate Microsoft’s domestic and international finance, administration, and manufacturing groups. Prior to Microsoft, Vowels spent five years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the emerging business services group focusing on audit and tax services for startup businesses in a variety of industries.
“I am very excited about joining digiMine,” said Vowels. “I’ve been fortunate to be involved in several successful start-ups. There are key elements I look for in a great start-up, such as a huge, growing market, a great management team, and a revolutionary product. digiMine has all of these success factors and more. I was particularly impressed with the quality of digiMine’s investors, the focus of the management team and the unbelievable commitment of the development team. We have a great road ahead of us.” “Due to customer demand, we have accelerated our beta program by a factor of three from our original development plan,” added Fayyad. “Marty has already built out our finance & administration teams and is managing HR and facilities, which has allowed us to focus on product and service features and the development of key customer and partner relationships.”
Vowels rounds out digiMine’s executive team of established industry experts. Co-founder Usama Fayyad, Ph.D., world-renowned expert in data mining and data warehousing technologies and the driving force behind emerging industry standards, serves as President and CEO. Bassel Ojjeh, a leader in eCommerce and data warehouse product development, is co-founding partner and COO. Nick Besbeas, a notable fifteen-year veteran of the direct marketing industry and an expert in large database web marketing, analysis and tracking, is Executive VP of Sales & Marketing.
About digiMine
Founded in March 2000, digiMine is setting new standards for the delivery of powerful analytics and personalization to businesses. digiMine’s advanced data warehousing and data mining services are securely delivered via the Internet, which enables a fast and reliable way for businesses to act with precision and speed. digiMine provides invaluable business intelligence and decision support through intuitive reports with customizable and interactive visuals. Typical deployment occurs within a few weeks, dramatically reducing costs, complexities and the burden on IT departments. www.digiMine.com. For additional information about digiMine call (425) 896-1700 or visit the company Web site at www.digiMine.com.