TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 31, 2016) - TeraGo Inc. ("TeraGo" or the "Company") (TSX:TGO) (www.terago.ca), a national provider of complete end-to-end data solutions, today announced that its Corporate Governance Committee has recommended, and its Board of Directors have approved the director nominees that will stand for election at the Company's next annual general meeting of shareholders ("AGM").
Antonio (Tony) Ciciretto, Matt Gerber, and Gary Sherlock will stand for election at the AGM as new nominees, each of whom are independent, while Nicole German, Jerry Grafstein, Stewart Lyons, Michael Martin and Jim Nikopoulos will stand for re-election. Richard Brekka and James Sanger of Second Alpha Partners, LLC will each continue on as directors of the Company, elected by the holder of the two (2) Class B Shares of the Company, Second Alpha Partners I(A), L.P., pursuant to the Company's articles. The proposed number of directors on the Board will increase from nine (9) to ten (10).
"On behalf of the Board, I'd like to acknowledge and thank Mr. Charles Allen and Mr. Grant Ballantyne, both current directors who will be retiring from the Board at the AGM, for their long service and substantial contributions to the Company over the years", said Stewart Lyons, President and CEO of TeraGo. "Their tremendous work on the Board for the last 16 years and 9 years, respectively, has not gone unnoticed as they've led the Company from its early years of operations as a small wireless internet company to its position as Canada's premier enterprise class network, data, voice and cloud services provider. Their contributions will be sorely missed."
Mr. Lyons added, "At the same time, pending the approval of our shareholders, we are excited to welcome Messrs Ciciretto, Gerber, and Sherlock, three seasoned executives with many years of business and senior management experience in our industry to our Board of Directors. During their careers, they have each made significant contributions to the success of an IT services company not too dissimilar from ours. We look forward to benefiting from their new perspectives and experiences as we continue to position TeraGo for future success and to deliver value to our shareholders after our most recent transformation."
All new director nominees are proven leaders with successful track records of value creation in the IT services industry. A brief biography of each follows:
Antonio Ciciretto:
Mr. Antonio Ciciretto brings more than 25 years of experience and proven leadership leading both large corporate divisions and small high-growth organizations in the Information Technology, Telecommunications and Cloud markets. He recently served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco Peer1 (formerly known as Cogeco Data Services) for over 7 years, where he was responsible for leading the market growth and development of Cogeco Peer 1 with operational responsibilities for business strategy, marketing, sales, finance, network & data centre operations, services development and customer care. Holding a Master's Degree in Science from State University of New York and a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering Technology from Ryerson University, Mr. Ciciretto co-founded, in 2008, and was the President of the TVN Group, a private investment firm. From 2003 to 2007, he was Vice President, Rogers Business Solutions. Prior to that, he held various senior roles at Bell Canada for 15 years culminating with the position of Senior Vice President Sales & Operations at Bell Nexxia. He is a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
Matthew Gerber:
Mr. Matthew Gerber has over 25 years of global high technology market experience concentrated in the IT infrastructure and mobile computing markets. Mr. Gerber is currently CEO and a board member at Rohinni, a developer of next generation lighting systems for mobile computing applications based in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Mr. Gerber is also currently a board member at Digital Fortress, a hybrid managed cloud and colocation services provider based in Seattle, Washington, and Pearson Packaging, a robotics packaging machinery manufacturer based in Spokane, Washington. Prior to his current responsibilities, Mr. Gerber held operating or board roles at several significant cloud computing businesses, including: 2nd Watch, one of Amazon Web Services largest global business partners; IT-Lifeline, one of Amazon Web Services first business partners (which was subsequently sold to Reynolds & Reynolds); and Blue Box Group, the first provider of hosted managed private cloud services on top of OpenStack (which was subsequently sold to IBM). Prior CEO roles for Mr. Gerber include Digital Fortress, IT-Lifeline and SprayCool (a provider of data center infrastructure technology). Mr. Gerber holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Master of Business Administration with Distinction from Hofstra University.
Gary Sherlock:
Mr. Gary N. Sherlock served in roles including Chief Executive Officer and Co-CEO of Peer 1 Dedicated Hosting Inc. for eight years. During that time, he led a turnaround of Peer1 Hosting, which was in financial and operational distress, repositioning the company strategically upmarket, restructured the organization, expanded domestically and globally, growing to 570 employees while delivering best in class operating metrics. Peer1 was acquired by Cogeco Cable in January 2013 for $650 million. Prior to joining Peer1, Mr. Sherlock was Vice President, business development and Controller at B.C Hydro and Power Authority. He has over 20 years of experience in executive positions in both corporate and operational roles in a multi-billion-dollar environment. Mr. Sherlock has spoken at conferences around North America on risk management, business planning and activity-based costing. Mr. Sherlock is a Chartered Accountant and Certified Management Accountant. He graduated with distinction with a Bachelor of Administration from the University of Regina.
About TeraGo
TeraGo provides businesses across Canada and globally with network and voice services, data center services and enterprise infrastructure cloud services. TeraGo manages over 3,000 cloud workloads, seven data centers in the Greater Toronto Area, the Greater Vancouver Area, Ottawa, Kelowna and Winnipeg and owns and manages its own IP network. The Company serves over 4,000 business customers in 46 major markets across Canada including Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg. TeraGo Networks is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) and was selected as one of Canada's Top Small and Medium Employers for 2015 and is recognized as a Canadian Telecommunications Employer of Choice for 2015. TeraGo Networks was also recognized by IDC as a Major Player in MarketScape Cloud Vendor Assessment.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes certain forward-looking statements that are made as of the date hereof. Such forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements relating to upcoming makeup of the Board of Directors of TeraGo and the future success of the Company after its recent transformation to a multi-product IT services Company. All such statements are made pursuant to the 'safe harbour' provisions of, and are intended to be forward-looking statements under, applicable Canadian securities laws. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements reflect the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to conditions, risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the pending shareholders' election of the director nominees to the Board at the Company's next AGM and the risk that TeraGo's growth strategy and rate of growth will not generate the results intended by management, and those risks set forth in the "Risk Factors" section in the annual MD&A of the Company for the year ended December 31, 2015 available on www.sedar.com. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a number of factors could cause actual future results, conditions, actions or events to differ materially from the targets, expectations, estimates or intentions expressed with the forward-looking statements. Except as may be required by applicable Canadian securities laws, TeraGo does not intend, and disclaims any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether in words, oral or written as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.