Acendre Board Member, Xbox Co-Founder and Developer of the HBO GO Platform to Drive Innovation and Growth
Arlington, VA and Melbourne, Australia, December 17, 2019 – Acendre, a leader in secure, cloud-based talent management software for government agencies and companies operating in regulated industries, today announced Otto Berkes has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. Berkes has over twenty years of experience driving innovation and growth through organizations, previously serving in leadership roles at CA Technologies, HBO, and Microsoft. Berkes has been an independent director for Acendre and succeeds Mike Giuffrida, founder of Acendre who will remain on the company’s Board of Directors.
“As an independent director at Acendre, I had the unique opportunity to get to know the company, people, product, and customers,” said Berkes. “The company has tremendous potential and I am excited to be working with the Acendre team to drive continued innovation and transformation.”
Berkes brings to Acendre extensive leadership experience and deep technology expertise designing and implementing new approaches, processes, and organization models to build the right products, infrastructure and go-to-market operations needed to support a high-growth SaaS company. Most recently Berkes served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at CA Technologies where he was responsible for Operation Tensor, a three-year, company-wide business transformation initiative aimed at shifting the majority of the company’s revenues to a subscription-based model. Additionally, Berkes served as the public face of CA where he was a leading spokesperson for the company’s products, vision, and strategy. Prior to CA, Berkes was the Executive Vice President and CTO for HBO where he was responsible for all of HBO’s technology including media production, internal business systems, technology operations, and the HBO GO platform. During his tenure he drove growth of HBO GO to become one of the largest streaming services in North America. Earlier in his career, Berkes co-founded Xbox with three colleagues and was promoted to Microsoft Partner for his pioneering work. Additionally, Berkes is a co-inventor on 13 patents focused on mobile and human-machine interactions technologies, is the recipient of Microsoft’s Xbox Founder Award in 2001, won an Emmy Award in 2014 for Technology and Engineering for HBO GO’s Mosaic User Interface, received an Edward R Murrow Award for Excellence in Social Media for work on CNN’s 2016 presidential election coverage, and is the author of Digitally Remastered: Building Software into Your Business DNA.
“Otto’s deep experience transforming organizations through innovation and focused growth made him the ideal candidate for the role,” said Bob Morse, Managing Partner at Strattam Capital and a member of Acendre’s board of directors. “The Acendre board is looking forward to working with him as he continues to provide customers with the outstanding solutions they expect.”
“I am extremely pleased to pass the torch to Otto.” Said Mike Giuffrida, Acendre’s Founder and former CEO. “I couldn’t imagine a better leader to continue to support Acendre’s growth and mission of helping companies with complex hiring requirements attract, hire, onboard, train and evaluate talent.” Giuffrida remains on Acendre’s board of directors and will be actively involved in corporate strategy.
About Acendre
Acendre is a leading provider of highly secure cloud-based talent management software that empowers organizations to enhance their workforces. The company’s innovative solutions provide data and insight that address the unique needs of organizations in regulated industries that require a high level of configurability to manage complex workflows and interoperability challenges. Acendre serves both public and private sectors, including government, education, healthcare, utilities, and mining. To learn more about Acendre, visit Acendre.com.
Press Contact:
Leslie Stefanik
Phone: 703-408-4301
Email: leslie.stefanik@acendre.com
