SkillSoft Announces Senior Management Promotions

• Jerry Nine has been promoted to the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer of SkillSoft. Mr. Nine was one of the founders of SkillSoft Corporation, and following the merger of SkillSoft and SmartForce became Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing for SkillSoft. In this role, Mr. Nine was responsible for the Company’s worldwide sales and marketing activities as well as the operations of its SmartCertify and Books24x7 business units. Mr. Nine has played a key role in defining the Company’s overall sales, marketing and product development strategy, and under his sales and marketing leadership, SkillSoft has consistently achieved its business objectives. The sales and marketing functions will continue to report to Mr. Nine. Mark Townsend, Executive Vice President, Technology, and Colm Darcy, Executive Vice President, Content Development, will both report directly to Mr. Nine in his new role and will continue to work closely with Mr. Nine in meeting customer needs.

• Tim Ellinger has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations of SkillSoft. Mr. Ellinger has served as Vice President of Sales, Americas since October 2002 and has successfully guided the Company’s North American sales efforts since the merger. Mr. Ellinger has served in a sales management capacity both internationally and in the US, and he will use those experiences to oversee SkillSoft’s global sales and support organization.

• Doug Lyons has been promoted to Vice President of Sales for the Americas, succeeding Mr. Ellinger. As a North Eastern Regional Sales Director, Mr. Lyons has been critical to the Company’s growth and to the development of the sales organization, and this promotion is a reflection of his commitment, experience and hard work.

• Lee Ritze has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Development. In his current capacity as Vice President, Marketing and Professional Services, Mr. Ritze has led the Company’s global product marketing initiatives as well as its Professional Services and Marketing Communications organizations for the Americas. In his new role Mr. Ritze will be responsible for global product marketing, corporate development, and marketing communications for the Americas.
Tom McDonald, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Jerry Nine will both continue to report to Chuck Moran, SkillSoft’s President and CEO.

“I personally want to thank Jerry, Tim, Lee, Doug and the entire SkillSoft team for their continued hard work and commitment to SkillSoft’s success,” commented Mr. Moran. “Their commitment and perseverance, especially during the integration of SkillSoft and SmartForce, have enabled SkillSoft to reach for new heights, often surpassing them. Our philosophy is quite simple — we work for our customers. To this point, Mr. Townsend and Mr. Darcy have always worked closely with Mr. Nine and his staff to align our development objectives with our customer’s needs. This new structure formalizes what has been our practice for several years, and we believe our performance to date supports the effectiveness of this practice.”

About SkillSoft
SkillSoft is a leading global provider of comprehensive, multi-modal e-Learning content and software products for business and information technology (IT) professionals. Multi-modal learning (MML) solutions offer powerful tools to support and enhance the speed and effectiveness of both formal and informal learning processes. MML solutions integrate SkillSoft’s in-depth courseware, learning management platform technology and support services to meet customers’ learning needs.

SkillSoft focuses on a variety of IT, professional effectiveness and business topics that SkillSoft believes represent the critical skills required of employees in increasingly dynamic and complex work environments. SkillSoft partners with some of the world’s technology leaders to co-develop sound, standardized content that delivers a rich, comprehensive learning and performance support experiences.
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