Telecom Expense Management Industry Association (TEMIA) Selects New Board and Ratifies Amendments to Bylaws

    PLAINFIELD, IL, July 07, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Telecom Expense Management Industry Association (TEMIA) (http://www.temia.org), the authoritative voice for the Telecom Expense Management (TEM) industry, held its annual meeting on June 8, in Washington DC. The meeting was attended by 24 companies and 36 attendees. A new executive board was elected, bylaws were updated, and there was an open discussion prioritizing areas of focus. For one of its last acts the outgoing executive board voted to formally recognize and thank TEMIA's outgoing president, David Spofford for his work.

Larry Foster from PINNACLE Software Solutions (http://www.pinnsoft.com), a division of PAETEC, was elected President, Shahram Sharif from Anatole (http://www.anatole.net), was elected Vice President, David Perdue from Asentinel (http://www.asentinel.com) was elected Secretary, and Don Hobbs from Advantage IQ (http://www.advantageIQ.com) was elected Treasurer. In addition three, board members were elected including Chris Mezzatesta from Tangoe (http://www.tangoe.com), Joe Chopek from Avalon Global Solutions (http://www.avalonglobalsolutions.com), and John Perri from Comview (http://www.comviewcorp.com).

"I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as the second president of TEMIA," stated Larry Foster vice president/general manager of PINNACLE. "TEMIA has demonstrated how the power of collaboration can influence the industry for the betterment of our customers. TEMIA is poised to build upon the successes we have achieved and help our clients' maximize their investments by streamlining their relationships with their technology supply partners," added Larry Foster. Shahram Sharif, vice president of global strategy and business development of Anatole, stated, "I am delighted to be elected to serve as the vice president of TEMIA. I look forward to share best practices, promote TEM standards in Europe, reinforcing and accelerating the globalization of the TEM awareness and standards."

Upon being invited to be a member of the executive board for TEMIA, Joe Chopek, president of Avalon Global Solutions said, "Our firm joined TEMIA in order to better integrate our services models with those of other respected competitors and also to better serve the general client-user base with a more clear set of business metrics and pricing." "In my next two years as a TEMIA executive director, I expect to be heavily involved as the association advances Education, and I look forward to working on the Membership Committee helping to see the organization grow," added Joe Chopek. John Perri, founder and CEO of Comview said, "I'm excited to have been elected to the TEMIA Board. With more than 30 years experience in telecommunications and my continued enthusiasm for this industry, I hope to make a meaningful contribution both to TEMIA and the Telecommunications Expense Management industry."

Seven amendments to TEMIA's bylaws were approved by a nearly unanimous vote. Provisions were passed allowing the managing director and bookkeeper to assist in more activities reducing the workload for the executive board. In the future, members will directly vote for executive board members' positions.

About TEMIA

TEMIA, the Telecom Expense Management Industry Association, was founded in late 2006 by the country's largest Telecom Expense Management (TEM) service providers that cumulatively manage $31 billion of telecom and data spend. TEMIA's mission is to raise awareness and knowledge of the benefits of TEM solutions, to improve the quality and value of TEM solutions through the development and promotion of industry standards, and to cultivate shared industry knowledge among TEM providers, business partners, telecom service providers, and enterprise clients. For more information about TEMIA, please visit, http://www.temia.org/
or contact [email protected].

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