Press Releases

VIPdesk Expands Executive Team

Kelly Christiano joins as vice president of sales

Alexandria, VA, August 17, 2000 – VIPdesk, the fast-growing Internet concierge service, today announced they have hired Kelly Christiano as the vice president of sales.

As the newest member of the VIPdesk team, Kelly Christiano will be responsible for developing and implementing the company's sales strategy. She plans to establish a system for streamlining all aspects of the sales process from lead generation to collateral development to post-sales activities, such as client relations. Additionally, Christiano will grow the VIPdesk sales group by hiring professionals with specialized experience in the company's target industries.

"Personal assistant services provide tremendous benefits to both the businesses that offer this as a value-add and the end-users who enjoy them," said Christiano. "VIPdesk understands the growing reliance on these services, and offers a personal concierge solution that is not only essential to helping professionals find a work/life balance, but that is quickly becoming a cost of doing business."

Christiano was referred to VIPdesk by Stephen Barnes, chief financial officer and Paul Schmitt, managing director of Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners, a Safeguard Scientific Fund. Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners is one of VIPdesk's early supporters, having participated in the company's initial funding efforts. The recommendation from Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners is representative of a growing trend in the venture capital community, which involves helping portfolio companies build their internal resources by referring professionals from within their network.

"Traditionally, the most successful business relationships are a result of a referral of one kind or another," said Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners CFO, Stephen Barnes. "As venture capitalists, we have a personal interest in growing our portfolio companies which often times includes referring professionals from within our own personal network. It is our hope that these referrals will result in a marriage of sorts, in which both parties will meet their personal and business objectives."

Christiano joined VIPdesk after eleven years with ARAMARK Corporation, a leading provider of managed services. At ARAMARK, she gained experience in both sales and operations in the services and information technology (IT) sectors. In her most recent position, Director of Strategic Opportunity Development / E-Business Products, Christiano was intimately involved in the development, sales and marketing of new product service ideas for Food and Support Services (FSS) for Fortune 1000 clients including EDS and Pfizer.

Prior to her role as Director of Strategic Opportunity Development / E-Business Products at ARAMARK, Christiano held several IT and operations-related positions, including acting as Information Technology Manager and Senior Staff Analyst. Among her early career successes at the company, Christiano doubled the company's point-of-sale system client base, increasing the number of accounts in the campus division from 20% to 40%, by selling to large institutions such as the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida.

"Christiano brings a fresh perspective and an enormous amount of experience to VIPdesk," said Mary Naylor, Founder and CEO of VIPdesk. "She understands the challenges of taking a business from 'brick to click' and is poised to help the company grow and sell our services."

Christiano received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School of Business – University of Pennsylvania.

About VIPdesk (www.vipdesk.com)

VIPdesk's founder, Mary Naylor, a thirteen-year veteran of the concierge industry, has developed a personal assistant infrastructure platform that serves many blue chip clients. This innovative platform is the ultimate customer and employee loyalty strategy – VIPdesk enables its clients to extend their brands into the daily lives of their customers and employees by offering a service to streamline busy lives. VIPdesk is a unique Web-enabled concierge service providing personal, real-time assistance from live, local concierge agents. Fueled by $3.75 million in venture capital funding, the company is also in the process of rolling out the service to 25 new markets and is aggressively hiring home-based concierges for the users to place requests 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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