Avotus Appoints Richard Garnick as New CEO
August 10, 2007
By Mae Kowalke
TMCnet Contributor
Call accounting and telecom expense management solutions provider Avotus recently appointed a new CEO. The position is now held by Richard Garnick, also executive chairman of the company’s board. He replaces Fred Lizza who will remain involved with Avotus by serving on the advisory board.
In addition to his new role as CEO, Garnick also is now engaged in a partnership with Jefferson EquiCorp, an affiliate of Avotus investor Jefferson Partners. In that role, Garnick serves as a founding member and managing director of Jefferson EquiCorp’s global services group.
Jefferson EquiCorp has a 25-year history of combining capital formation with innovation. That expertise is being joined with Garnick’s experience with global IT/business process outsourcing (BPO) to create an “integrated global delivery model organization.”
Garnick has more than a quarter century of experience in the high-tech, IT/software services, e-commerce, BPO and telecom industries. Most recently, he served as president of Keane (News - Alert), Inc.’s North America and global business lines division and was a member of the office of the president at that company.
Before Keane, Garnick headed the Americas and EAS division of Wipro Technologies, where as a member of the management board he helped the company grow from a run rate of roughly $150 million to $2 billion over a four-year period.
In its announcement, Avotus acknowledged the contributions of former CEO Lizza, and thanked him for his service to the company.
“We are grateful to Fred for his dedication to Avotus and his contribution to the company during the past five years as we built a leadership position in the rapidly growing telecom expense management industry,” said David Folk, vice chairman at Avotus and a managing partner at Jefferson Partners, in a statement.
“The Board believes the market for TEM solutions is poised for dramatic growth and continued consolidation, and that Avotus will continue to take a leadership role in the industry,” Folk continued. “The appointment of Richard Garnick to the role of CEO underscores the Board's and Management's belief that there is an even greater opportunity to combine TEM with other scalable, business processes to provide unparalleled value for the enterprise.”
Hitting the ground running with his understanding the landscape, Garnick explained that Avotus as a company sits at the intersection of the IT and BPO industries, and thus has a definite opportunity to provide valuable solutions in the marketplace.
“Both of these industries will require a company with scale to help enterprises mine efficiencies in "procure to pay" and other processes that have not yet been realized,” Garnick said in a statement. “The groundwork that Avotus has built through its 20 year history and its industry leading TEM solution uniquely positions the company to take full advantage of the exploding trend of value-added globalization well beyond telecommunications.”
To learn more about call accounting and TEM, please visit Avotus’ TMCnet.com channel, Call Accounting.
Mae Kowalke previously wrote for Cleveland Magazine in Ohio and The Burlington Free Press in Vermont. To see more of her articles, please visit Mae Kowalke’s columnist page. Also check out her Wireless Mobility blog.