New Management Team for Search Engine Factory, SurfRay

COPENHAGEN and SANTA CLARA, California -

- The Danish search engine factory SurfRay now has a new management team in place including a new Managing Director, and two new board members with international experience from careers at Microsoft, Novell, IBM and Digital.

Search engine company SurfRay, which develops and markets the leading search solutions Ontolica and MondoSearch, has a new management team in place.

New Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Soren Pallesen will head up the sales, marketing and development of a number of recognized Danish search engine tools such as MondoSearch and Ontolica. These solutions are especially developed for use by companies, authorities and organizations that have difficulty finding, structuring and gaining an overview of information contained in content-heavy websites, intranet sites and other IT systems.

“Our market potential is extremely under-exploited, to the extent that I don’t think a situation like this has arisen in Europe previously. As a software company the challenge for us is to ensure that the products we develop are a precise match for customers’ needs,” says SurfRay CEO Soren Pallesen.

SurfRay, which was founded in 1998 and previously acquired Mondosoft, currently has over 2,400 contracts with over 1,000 companies in more than 30 countries. SurfRay has offices in Copenhagen, DK and Santa Clara, CA USA and employs about 20 employees. The technical personnel under Soren Pallesen’s management come from the former SurfRay Company and are currently in the process of appointing three additional developers in Copenhagen.

Soren Pallesen joined the board in March when SurfRay 2009 A/S purchased the former company’s assets. Soren is 43 years old and has worked with a number of high-tech startups, as well as having a number of years of international experience including time at the analysis company Gartner and as a director of the software companies Baan and E.piphany.

After successfully completing the restructuring of SurfRay, major shareholder Skaelskoer Bank asked Soren Pallesen to take on the management of the company as its new CEO. Soren Pallesen has also been able to attract two new board members to the company, both of whom have international careers and extensive experience of developing start-ups. The two new board members are Ken Tomassen, Managing Director for Novell in Denmark, Finland, Norway and The Middle East, and Soren Steen Rasmussen, who has followed an international career at Microsoft and is currently a Vaekstfonden partner and a board member in a number of Danish growth companies. Flemming Philipsen joined SurfRay in March 2009 as chairman of the board.

“The potential for growth at SurfRay is massive both by growing our large existing customer base, and continuing to sell our leading search solution to more new customers,” says Soren Steen Rasmussen, who, like Ken Tomassen, joined the board on 12 July 2009.

New royalty-free photos of Soren Pallesen are available here: www.klintfoto.dk/SurfRay.htm

The CVs and contact info of the new Managing Director and board members are available below:

CEO Soren Pallesen has worked with a number of start ups. He joins SurfRay from a position as Venture Partner at Vaekstfonden, where he was responsible for new business areas and for strategic planning and management for a number of the fund’s portfolio companies. Soren Pallesen began his career as European Market Analyst for international analysis company Gartner Group, where he worked for seven years. Subsequently, he has worked as a Director of 1CT, as International Product Marketing Manager for E.piphany and Product Marketing Director at Baan.

Board Member Soren Steen Rasmussen has extensive experience from a large number of board-level positions in IT companies. He is a former Vice President in Macromedia, responsible for Microsoft’s Enterprise and Partner sales in Asia and the Nordic Region and Sales Director for Microsoft. Soren is currently a Partner at Vaekstfonden, one of Scandinavia’s largest technology focused venture companies, with responsibility for analysis and business development of the fund’s IT and Telecommunications investment portfolio.

Board Member Ken Tomassen is Managing Director of Novell in Denmark, Finland, Norway and The Middle East. Prior to his career at Novell, which began in 2004, he worked for IBM Software Group for 10 years where he was responsible for software sales in Denmark and key accounts in the Nordic Region. He was also stationed in Paris with responsibility for software sales to SMBs in EMEA.

Chairman of the Board Flemming Philipsen is the Managing director and owner of Kapa Consult Aps and an internationally certified business consultant. Since 1983 he has worked as an independent business consultant specializing in crisis management, reconstructions, generational handovers and capital injections.

Source: SurfRay

Julie Pyatt of SurfRay, 1-800-625-1175, jpy at surfray.com