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Management Team
Steven van der Velden - Chairman & CEO
Steven van der Velden has extensive entrepreneurial experience in logistics, telecommunications, e-commerce and investment management. He is involved in various ICT ventures throughout Europe, North America, the Far East and Caribbean, and formerly co-founded E-commerce Park NV in Curacao, which developed a 50,000-square-foot data center and Internet hosting facility, the International Telemedia Association (known today as Network for Online Commerce), and InTouch Telecom SA/NV, where he served as CEO until the company was successfully sold to GTS in 1999. He earned his MBA from Rotterdam School of Management and his master's degree in law from Leiden University.
Dr. Armin G.Hessler - Co-President, mobile platform business
Dr. Armin G. Hessler previously headed Vodafone's Global Data Center Management, Service Excellence and Enterprise IT, Strategy & Innovation. Before that he was director IT Operations & IT Customer Services and director of Global Web Enablement at Vodafone. Hessler has also served Terenci AG (Mobile b2b Solutions), Mannesmann AG (director of international projects), AT&T-Unisource NV (director of operations). He also served Telefónica de España (Spain) and was Associate Professor (University of Technology Aachen, Germany). Armin holds various university degrees, studied/served at the University of Technology Aachen, Universidad de Barcelona and as "Visiting Doctoral Fellow" at the Wharton School of Business.
Martin Zuurbier - Co-President, mobile platform business
Martin Zuurbier has over 15 years of direct experience in the telecommunications industry. He was the chief technology officer of Benoit Telecom Holding AG, a telecom service provider in Europe. Zuurbier later served as director and founder of Vocalis Telecom Group located in The Netherlands and Switzerland. He was responsible for building, maintaining and operating a telecommunications network spanning eight countries in Europe including all back-office billing and CRM capabilities. He has been instrumental in developing new switching technology for the telecoms industry.
Pat Carroll - Founder and Executive Chairman of ValidSoft
Pat Carroll has over 20 years of experience in information technology and financial markets. Throughout his career, Carroll has been at the forefront of industry thinking, representing organisator on industry bodies and leading participation in industry initiatives. At ValidSoft, he leads the R&D function and is responsible for intellectual property and new patents. ValidSoft is regarded by leading research analysts as an innovator and a leader in the field of security having received many name checks in key research notes. Prior to founding ValidSoft, Carroll was employed as head of Electronic Trading Technology in Europe for Goldman Sachs International where responsibilities included technical strategy related to electronic trading, client connectivity and straight through processing (STP). In addition, Carroll co-headed European Equities Technology and was a technical advisor to the Investment Banking Division (PIA). Carroll has extensive financial services and technical experience (over 25 years) and has previously worked in a senior capacity with J.P Morgan, Credit Suisse Financial Products and Bankers Trust Company.
Paul Burmester - ValidSoft CEO
With over 30 years of experience in the technology industry, Paul Burmester still continues to be amazed and excited by the latest developments. Burmester has driven six successful exits during his career and has focused on building up early stage privately funded technology businesses to the point of market success and profitable exit through IPO or acquisition. The most recent of these being four in the mobile industry with SpinVox, a leading developer of "Speech to Text" technology being sold to Nuance for $103M; ViAir, the first company to develop real time mobile access to Exchange & Notes, was acquired by Visto for $65M; Paragon Software, the inventors of SyncML, was sold to Phone.com for $515M & Mobile Systems International, the leading designer of mobile networks, sold to Marconi for $618M. Currently based in London, Burmester has lived and worked in various countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Mark Nije - CFO
Prior to becoming CFO, Mark Nije was general manager Europe for the Benoit Telecom Group, from 2004 and later for Elephant Talk, after the acquisition of the Group. Nije is experienced in project and investment management, business development, logistics and telecommunications, with primary responsibilities in accounting, finance and business control. Nije started as project manager and management consultant for Tebodin Consulting Engineers and for Reitsma and Wertheim Merger & Acquisition specialists in the Netherlands. In 1990 he co-founded Logistic Management International NV (LMI), an international cargo transportation and airport handling company at the airport of Curaçao, former Netherlands Antilles. He also served as board member and vice-chairman of the Curaçao Exporters Association. From 2000-2002 he was a partner of QAT Investment SA, the Luxembourg venture capital fund, where he has been active as investment manager and/or board member in various ICT related ventures of QAT. Within the Benoit Telecom Group, he was GM/CFO and specifically managed the various asset acquisitions and audits. Since 2008 he is CFO of Elephant Talk. Since then Elephant Talk grew from a 'small business filer' to an 'accelerated filer' and was upgraded from its quotation on the OTCBB to a listing at the NYSE. Nije earned his MBA with focus on finance & marketing from the Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus University, the Netherlands, including an exchange program at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and a Bachelor of Science in Building Construction Management from the University of Reading, United Kingdom.
Alex Vermeulen - General Counsel
Alex Vermeulen worked for 20 years as manager with ING, one of Europe's leading financial groups. Amongst others Vermeulen served as general manager for the Caribbean area and as general manager of Postbank Insurances, a leading direct writer in the Dutch market. In Italy he was responsible for all the life insurance activities of ING and was director of various ING entities, including the investment funds company. In 2003 Vermeulen started his own consultancy company in Italy, initially with advisory services in the life insurance market and broadening later on to other sectors. In 2006 Vermeulen started working for Elephant Talk as consultant. In 2007 he joined Elephant Talk full time as general counsel. Alex studied law at the Leiden University and took his masters in 1981.
Willem Bekkema - Global Manager Human Resources
As the global manager of human resources (HR), Willem Bekkema is responsible for the development and execution of an international HR management strategy designed to meet the growth ambitions of the Elephant Talk Group. Before joining Elephant Talk, Bekkema managed human resources for Atradius Collections, a global leader in business-to-business debt collections with twenty offices across the world and a presence in 220 countries. For driving the company's HR agenda to fit its new international plans, he was awarded a Star Performance Award by Atradius. Earlier in his career, Bekkema served in various senior HR positions for Arcadis, PA Consulting Group, and TomTom International. As global manager of HR for TomTom, Bekkema was key in growing the company worldwide, staffing new branches in Europe, Asia and Oceania. Bekkema has a business law bachelor's degree from the Hanze University in Groningen and also a master's degree in organization and management sociology from the University of Amsterdam.
