[April 25, 2012]

Mark S. Biestman to Lead BEAR Data Solutions as President

Mark S. Biestman has been tapped as president to lead BEAR Data Solutions, a leading global IT solutions provider, as announced by Don W. James, chief executive officer.

With three decades in senior positions at cutting-edge organizations in the technology industry, Mark S. Biestman has been tapped as president at BEAR Data Solutions, a leading global IT solutions provider. Biestman will help guide the company's growth into new service areas with a focus on enhanced cloud-based computing, consultation, and collaboration for key customers and partners. (Photo: Business Wire)

With more than three decades in senior positions for publicly held and private organizations at the cutting edge of the information technology industry, Biestman will collaborate with the BEAR Data management team to map the next phase of corporate growth. He comes to BEAR Data from Rearden Commerce, a next-generation web services company, focused on commerce exchange, serving as president, global field operations. He has also served on BEAR Data's board of directors.

BEAR Data has demonstrated 26 consecutive profitable quarters, with an annual growth rate of 37 percent. The company has expanded its global presence more widely into the Pacific Rim. With a doubling of its revenue from $65-million to $112-million between 2010 and 2011, BEAR Data is on a path to double that growth again in the near future.

"Mark's strong leadership experience, as well as his IT industry stature, make him a natural choice to guide BEAR Data's growth into new service areas," says James. "He will help us build out a more comrehensive suite of technology and cloud services, taking advantage of the change in enterprise infrastructure to a more cloud-based computing model. Our points of differentiation long have been the consultative and collaborative ways in which we work with our customers and partners, which also are among Mark's key strengths."

While focused on maximizing revenue balanced against profitability, Biestman will help drive BEAR Data expansion efforts surrounding the company's hallmark services and solutions, as well as staff. With the recent addition of Mark McGourty, a former colleague of Biestman, as CFO, that plan already is taking shape. Biestman will be responsible for further differentiating BEAR Data in the market, investing heavily in the brand; benchmarking corporate success; identifying relevant investments; and providing sound educational support for customers to enable their own successes.

Previously, Biestman was executive vice president, worldwide field operations, for Eightfold Logic, an early-stage Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) provider of inbound marketing applications. He also co-founded and served as chief executive officer for Sports Retail Networks, an advanced Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) retail advertising and marketing communications platform.

In other roles, Biestman was chief executive officer and president of Real Clear Technologies and SEVEN (News - Alert) Networks. For Commerce One, he drove worldwide sales and global field operations as senior vice president, and he was vice president, Western U.S. sales, for Netscape Communications, navigating both through initial public offerings. Biestman began his career in sales with IBM (News - Alert) Corp., before moving into sales management with Tandem Computers.

Biestman received his bachelor of arts degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a certificate in the Stanford Executive Program from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Biestman is a trustee for the University of California Foundation. He and his wife, Karen Biestman, live in Diablo, Calif. They have two grown sons.

About BEAR Data Solutions

BEAR Data Solutions, Inc. (www.beardatasolutions.com), a San Francisco-based global IT service provider with 11 offices throughout the U.S. and around the globe, helps enterprise clients design, optimize, and support mission-critical IT infrastructures. By combining expert engineering resources, best-of-breed technologies, and superior customer service, BEAR Data delivers high-performance IT solutions and services including virtualization, unified communications, networking, storage, database, security, managed services, wireless, staffing, and support contract management. For more information, please visit www.beardatasolutions.com.

Accolades:

2012

• Selected to CRN Tech Elite 250

• Ranked on CRN VAR500 list

2011

• Selected to CRN Tech Elite 250
• Ranked 185 on the VAR500 list

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50253181&lang=en

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