SAN BRUNO, CA — (Marketwire) — 10/31/11 — , the world-s largest provider of online collaboration solutions to the construction and engineering industries, today announced it has appointed Adam Lewis and Paul Unruh to the company-s board of directors.
“We are extraordinarily fortunate to have the opportunity to add Adam and Paul to our team,” said Leigh Jasper, CEO of Aconex. “With their experience, unique insights and credentials in building and managing organizations, they will provide a new and valuable dimension to our board and help direct the growth of our company both in the United States and internationally.”
The new members join Chairman Simon Yencken and existing directors Michael Robinson, Keith Toh, Leigh Jasper, and Robert Phillpot on the board.
Adam Lewis is an alumnus of McKinsey & Company, where he spent 20 years as an advisor to major firms and governments in Australia & New Zealand, Asia, Europe and North America. A partner at the firm for 14 years, Lewis had a wide-ranging client portfolio across the steel, mining, chemicals, retail, telecommunications and retail banking industries. Lewis was also the managing partner of McKinsey-s Australia & New Zealand practice from 2002 to 2009, and was a member of McKinsey-s Asia council and global Director-election committees.
Prior to McKinsey, Lewis completed his MBA (Honors), majoring in Finance at the University of Illinois where he worked as a strategic planner for the National Center for Supercomputer Applications. His previous career was as a research engineer at PKE Electronics and RanData Corporation.
“I am honored to join the board of Aconex — a company that has made a tremendous impact on how the construction and engineering world conducts business. I look forward to contributing to continued success and seeing the company through to even greater achievements,” said Lewis.
Since leaving McKinsey in 2010, Lewis has established two successful advisory firms. Chop Wood Carry Water is a provider of independent advice for corporations. Cast Professional Services provides flexible consulting resources for corporations in need of short-term or project expertise. He also acts as advisor to Lazard investment bank; FIIG Securities; and the Grattan Institute, an economic and policy think tank based in Melbourne, Australia. He is also Chairman of Southern Innovation, a Melbourne-based high-tech company.
Paul Unruh-s 25-year career at Bechtel began in 1978 as the manager of financial systems development and culminated in 2003 as vice chairman and member of the three-person senior management group, where he managed the company-s service organizations including information systems and technology, finance, legal, external affairs, and shared services.
From 1997 to 2001, Unruh was president of Bechtel Enterprises, the project finance, development, and investments arm of the company, with more than $40 billion in projects developed and financed. Highlights during this period include: lead entrepreneur and founding board member of Genuity (later sold to GTE); and founding board member of Shell-Bechtel Joint Venture, InterGen N.V., which grew to a multi-billion asset base of 22,000 megawatts.
“As my career has progressed, I-ve gained an understanding for the extreme value in collaboration and implementing solutions that ease complex operational systems,” said Unruh. “Aconex-s innovation is inspiring and I-m excited to take part in helping the company grow even more.”
Currently, Unruh is on the board and audit committees, of Move Inc., Heidrick & Struggles, and Symantec Corporation, where his is audit committee chair. He is also a senior advisor and member of the oversight board and the LP Advisory Board for Telesoft Partners, and a member of the board and chair of the audit committee for Nexant, a Telesoft Partners portfolio company.
In related news, Petri Oksanen, a principal with Francisco Partners, has replaced Ezra Perlman on the Aconex board. Oksanen also serves on the boards of API Healthcare, Healthland, Source Photonics, and T-System. He is a former director of AdvancedMD (acquired by ADP) and worked at Morgan Stanley in the Technology Investment Banking Group. Earlier in his career, Oksanen held a variety of business development, program management, and software development roles at Microsoft. He focuses primarily on investments in the software sector.
Aconex is a web-based platform for managing the large volume of information created and exchanged during a project-s lifecycle. Using the secure, central platform, each organization involved in a project is able to access, distribute, track and archive its documents and correspondence in real time. This reduces administrative costs such as printing and distribution, improves productivity by streamlining the flow of information and reduces companies- exposure to risks such as disputes and delays.
From its 43 offices around the world, Aconex services US$260 billion worth of construction, infrastructure, energy and resources projects. Projects using the system include the $3.2 billion Panama Canal Expansion, the $6 billion Denver Transit Expansion Program and the $40 billion Yas Island development in Abu Dhabi. For more information and examples of Aconex in action, see . Follow Aconex on Twitter using and on Facebook at .
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