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Michael
Lee - Mr. Lee brings over 13 years of experience in the IT and
communications industries. Most recently, Mr. Lee was President
and CEO of Ardent Communications, a tier-one national service provider
of enterprise WAN services, including VPN, Web hosting and remote
access to businesses across the United States. At Ardent Mr. Lee
oversaw the complete restructuring and rebranding of the company
from a provider of broadband access to hotels into a strong, growing
national access and value added services provider.
Prior to Ardent Communications Mr. Lee was Chief Business
Development Officer at TelePacific Communications, a Los Angeles-based
next generation integrated communications provider ("ICP")
of converged voice and data services to businesses in the Western
United States. Mr. Lee also served as Chief Technology Officer of
TelePacific and was one of the original employees since the founding
of the Company.
Before joining TelePacific Mr. Lee founded DigitalVelocity,
a provider of wide area enterprise communications solutions, where
he developed the network methodology, marketing, operational plans,
and assembled a technical and management team to fully develop and
deploy the service. DigitalVelocity was successfully launched
in Los Angeles in 1998 and was merged with TelePacific in January
1999. Previously, Mr. Lee was a principal at CERFnet, one of the
original commercial ISP's in 1994. CERFnet was acquired by TCG,
which was later acquired by AT&T. Subsequent to this acquisition,
Mr. Lee served as National Director of Internet Sales for AT&T
CERFnet. Mr. Lee also managed large-scale deployments of these systems
for several Fortune 2000 corporations.
Email Michael Lee
Amit
Rikhy - Mr. Rikhy brings over 15 years of domestic and international
experience in corporate finance, strategy, mergers and acquisitions,
and business development in both venture-funded start-ups and large
companies. Most recently, Mr. Rikhy was the Chief Financial Officer
at Ardent Communications. In that position he lead the financial
and strategic restructuring of the Company, enabling the Company
to dramatically improve its balance sheet, increase revenues and
reduce costs, renegotiate its debt and contracts, and substantially
increase the financial health of the company as it transitioned
from provider of broadband access to hotels into a strong, growing
national access and value added services provider.
Prior to Ardent, Mr. Rikhy was the acting CFO and Vice President
of Corporate Development for TelePacific Communications where he
was responsible for all aspects of the finance department, including
financial development activities, reporting, budgeting, and analysis.
In this position, Mr. Rikhy successfully organized resources and
capabilities across functional areas and business units to develop
TelePacific's business plan and executed on the plan. These actions
resulted in an improvement in revenue, reduction in expenses, restructuring
of the company debt, and an improved capital expenditure and expansion
model.
Mr. Rikhy also brings to Fortus a vast wealth of experience in
many of the issues facing today's companies. He has extensive funding,
turn-around, restructuring and mergers and acquisitions experience
gained in a number of senior management positions prior to TelePacific.
Mr. Rikhy has been responsible for the development and acquisition
of international real estate interests in deals valued at approximately
$1 billion, providing Mr. Rikhy with extensive contacts within the
financial and investment capital industry. During his career he
has also honed his expertise in contract negotiations, complex transaction
structuring, due diligence and business modeling.
Peter
Benedict - Mr. Benedict is a 10 + year marketing veteran in
the IT, telecommunications and wide area networking service provider
and equipment vendor space with an expertise in turn around and
rebranding efforts.
Most recently Mr. Benedict was the Senior Vice President
of Marketing and Investor Relations at Ardent Communications where
he was responsible for marketing communications, public relations,
investor relations and product marketing. At Ardent Mr. Benedict
was a key player in redirecting Company to a new enterprise-focused
business model and communicating this corporate shift to customers,
investment community, media, analysts, shareholders and employees.
Prior to Ardent Mr. Benedict was the Senior Director
of Product Marketing and Media Relations at Tachion Networks and
was responsible for the huge traction the company found with service
providers, the press/analyst community and Wall Street. Before Ardent
Mr. Benedict was with Alcatel USA where he was instrumental in the
acquisitions and roll up of Xylan, Packet Engines, Assured Access
and Internet Devices where he oversaw the marketing campaign and
rebranding effort in combining the product sets of all four companies
into a coherent product line of converged voice/data solutions focusing
on providing data and voice platforms to enterprises throughout
the worlds. He was also responsible for all public relations activities
regarding Xylan Corporation's enterprise switch/router product.
Mr. Benedict also brings extensive LAN experience,
having run the marketing and public relations efforts for a number
of vendors of LAN integration technologies, including CCC Group
(videoconferencing and server management), Sony Electronics Business
and Professional Products Group, and IBM Global Systems.
Peter Benedict brings a wealth of experience in developing
and executing comprehensive public relations and marketing programs
with a variety of established and startup communications companies.
He has proven experience running media and analyst relations, having
launched and promoted a wide variety of service provider data solutions
including IP telephony, multi-service access, ATM/frame relay, Internet
access management, VPN policy management and dial/broadband remote
access services.
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Fortus Management Partners
800 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 1500
Los Angeles, CA
90017
888-759-5772
info@fortus.net |
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