Local Matters Names 25 Year Finance Veteran and Former US West Dex CFO as New Chief Financial Officer
DENVER, Colo. June 24, 2005 – Local Matters, a leading provider of strategic technology search solutions for telephone directory publishers, mobile and directory assistance service providers, today announced the appointment of Ernest J. Sampias, current chief financial officer for McDATA and former CFO for US West DEX as its new chief financial officer. Sampias will join Local Matters in August and report to Perry Evans, chief executive officer.
Sampias held the position of CFO of McData, the $400M publicly-traded technology company based in Broomfield, Colo., since June 2002. Before joining McDATA, Sampias worked for US West for fifteen years in various senior financial management positions. His last assignment for US West was as chief financial officer of US West DEX, the Yellow Pages Directory subsidiary of US West with annual revenues of $1.6 billion. In this role, he also had responsibility for strategy, business development and real estate.
"Ernie's extensive experience in piloting one of the world's largest Yellow Pages companies is invaluable because he knows firsthand how the directory services market operates, what publishers need, and what it takes for a company like Local Matters to be successful with long-term strategic partners in this industry," said Perry Evans, CEO of Local Matters. "Ernie's strong financial acumen and proven track record of driving scaled growth and profitability in technology businesses contributes a critical building block in Local Matters' leadership mission in the local search market."
Sampias has more than 25 years of related experience in financial management roles at a number of companies, including Convergent Communications, Inc., Aerojet-General Corporation, and Nimbus, Inc. Sampias is a certified public accountant and holds a masters degree in taxation from DePaul University.
"I am excited to join the Local Matters team as I believe the company has significant growth opportunities in the Internet local search, enhanced directory assistance services, and the burgeoning mobile local search markets," said Ernest Sampias. "Local Matters is very well positioned to advance both the quality and availability of local search information, and I'm looking forward to helping build the infrastructure needed to achieve the company's aggressive business objectives."
About Local Matters
LMI was recently formed through the combination of three leading participants in the local search market: Aptas, Inc. ("Aptas"), Information Services Extended, Inc. ("ISx") and YP Web Partners, LLC ("YP Solutions"). This transaction combined two leading providers of Internet local search solutions with a leading provider of voice-based local search solutions.
Local Matters, Inc. (LMI), with more than 40 customers in 18 countries is the largest global provider of advanced search and content solutions to incumbent media publishers and directory assistance service providers. Local Matters is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the high growth markets for Internet local search and enhanced directory assistance services and the burgeoning mobile local search opportunity stemming from the convergence of Internet, voice and mobile services. Local Matters is committed to enabling its customers to offer content and feature-rich local search portals and Enhanced Directory Services that are well differentiated from traditional Internet search portals.
Contact:
Kathryn Marshall
104° West Partners
Tel: 303-601-9434
jennifer.roane@104degreeswest.com
