Move Strengthens Management Depth and Positions the Company for
Global Expansion;
Bryan Martin Named Chief Technology
Officer and Remains Chairman of the Board;
Conference Call
Today at 5:00 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
As it enters its next phase of growth, 8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT) today
announced the appointment of Vikram Verma, an accomplished global
business executive and member of the 8x8 Board of Directors, as Chief
Executive Officer, effective immediately. Former CEO Bryan Martin will
assume the role of Chief Technology Officer and will continue as
Chairman of the Board of Directors.
"8x8 has been an innovator in the industry and today is the leading
provider of Unified Communications as a Service solutions," said 8x8
Chairman of the Board and CTO Bryan Martin "Our next frontier is to
scale domestically and globally to better serve our current
multi-national customers as well as to bring our cloud communications
services into new markets worldwide."
"I'm looking forward to working with Vik and the rest of the management
team to achieve these goals," added Martin. "With a solid foundation in
place, we now have a real opportunity to capture the growing mid-size
and international market for our services. The expertise Vik brings in
guiding growth technology companies on a global basis is what 8x8 needs
to accelerate this plan."
8x8 Lead Board Director Major General (Ret.) Guy Hecker said, "After
working closely with Vik for the past year and a half on the Board of
Directors, the Board unanimously believes he brings the management,
operational and international expertise to lead the Company through this
next stage. Combined with Bryan's technological vision and deep
knowledge of the industry, 8x8 will be well equipped to aggressively
pursue its strategic business objectives."
Mr. Verma, who has served on 8x8's Board of Directors since being
recruited by Mr. Martin and General Hecker in January 2012, brings over
23 years of diverse executive experience to 8x8, including President of
Strategic Venture Development at Lockheed Martin and Chairman of the
Board and CEO of Savi Technology. As a member of the 8x8 Board, Mr.
Verma has been instrumental in working with management to define the
Company's strategic plan for continued profitable growth through
increased mid-market penetration, global expansion and ongoing
investment in innovative unified and mobile communications services.
"I am honored to join the senior management team of 8x8 at this exciting
time in the Company's growth," said Verma. "8x8 is well positioned to
take advantage of the significant global market opportunity that exists
for cloud-based unified communications, a market that in the U.S. alone
is only about 10% penetrated. I look forward to working closely with
Bryan, the Board of Directors, our senior leadership team, and the
employees at 8x8 to build on the Company's current success and position
the Company for continued growth across multiple domestic and
international markets."
Mr. Verma was President of Strategic Venture Development for Lockheed
Martin from October 2008 through August 2013. In that role, he
successfully identified and executed opportunities for monetizing
existing Lockheed Martin technologies and programs in new global
commercial markets through collaborative technology incubators,
intellectual property portfolio licensing and strategic partnerships
with international corporations. From 2006-2008, Mr. Verma was the
President of the IS&GS Savi Group, a Lockheed Martin technology and
information services division providing real-time supply chain
management and security solutions for government and commercial markets
worldwide. Previously, he was Chairman of the Board and CEO of Savi
Technology, Inc. (Savi), a leader in RFID-based tracking and security
solutions and a pioneer in cloud-based managed service offerings. Savi
was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2006.
Mr. Verma began his career in 1990 at Savi as a Design Engineer, joining
while it was pre-revenue. By 1994, he had been promoted to Chief
Operating Officer, and in 1995 he helped negotiate the acquisition of
Savi by Texas Instruments, which subsequently sold the business to
Raytheon Company. Mr. Verma became President and CEO of Savi in 1997. In
partnership with venture capitalists from Silicon Valley and Asia, he
led the management buyout of Savi from Raytheon Company in May 1999.
Over the next seven years, he engineered the transformation of the
business through organic growth, expansion into the UK and continental
Europe, the acquisition and integration of an Asia-based high technology
company and the launch of a global joint venture with Hutchison Ports (a
subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa) to track and secure cargo containers
worldwide via wireless and cellular networks.
Mr. Verma holds a B.S.E.E. degree from the Florida Institute of
Technology, an M.S.E.degree from the University of Michigan in
electrical engineering, and the graduate degree of Engineer in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has been granted
eight patents and has won numerous accolades, including being named one
of 40 "Technology Pioneers" by the World Economic Forum, in Davos,
Switzerland in 2003.
Conference Call Information
Management will host a conference call to discuss this announcement
today, September 9, 2013 at 5:00 pm EDT. The call is accessible via the
following numbers and webcast links:
Dial In: (877) 843-0417 (domestic); (408) 427-3791 (international)
Replay:
(855) 859-2056 (domestic); (404) 537-3406 (international)
Conference ID: 55179445
Webcast: http://investors.8x8.com
Participants should plan to dial in or log on ten minutes prior to the
start time. A telephonic replay of the call will be available three
hours after the conclusion of the call until midnight September 15, 2013.
About 8x8, Inc.
8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT) empowers business conversations for more than
33,000 small and medium-sized businesses with cloud communications
services that include hosted
PBX telephony, unified communications, call
center software and video conferencing solutions. The company has
been delivering business communications services since 2004 and has
garnered a reputation for technical excellence and outstanding
reliability. In 2012, 8x8 was named a market "leader" in Gartner's
Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) in
North America and was recognized as the No. 1 Provider of Hosted IP
Telephony by Frost
& Sullivan and Synergy
Research Group. For additional information, visit www.8x8.com,
or connect with 8x8 on Google+,
Facebook,
LinkedIn
and Twitter.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and
Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements
include, without limitation, information about future events based on
current expectations, potential product development efforts, near and
long-term objectives, potential new business, strategies, organization
changes, changing markets, future business performance and outlook. Such
statements are predictions only, and actual events or results could
differ materially from those made in any forward-looking statements due
to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results and trends may
differ materially from historical results or those projected in any such
forward-looking statements depending on a variety of factors. These
factors include, but are not limited to, customer acceptance and demand
for our products and services, the reliability of our services, the
prices for our services, customer renewal rates, customer acquisition
costs, our ability to compete effectively in the hosted telecom services
business, actions by our competitors, including price reductions for
their telephone services, potential federal and state regulatory
actions, compliance costs, potential warranty claims and product
defects, our needs for and the availability of adequate working capital,
our ability to innovate technologically, the timely supply of products
by our contract manufacturers, and potential future intellectual
property infringement claims and other litigation that could adversely
affect our business and operating results. For a discussion of such
risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from
those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in
the Company's reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, as well as other reports
that 8x8, Inc. files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their
entirety by this cautionary statement, and 8x8, Inc. undertakes no
obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement for any
reason, except as required by law, even as new information becomes
available or other events occur in the future.
8x8, Inc.
Joan Citelli, 408-654-0970
Joan.citelli@8x8.com
Source: 8x8
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