Benjamin Holtz - President & Chief Executive Officer

Benjamin Holtz is a founding partner of Green Beacon, and serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer. Before Green Beacon, Ben spent four years with Breakaway Solutions, as the Managing Director for European Operations. Ben was responsible for Breakaway's expansion into the European marketplace - including starting the business and overseeing its growth to 85 employees. Prior to going to Europe, Ben was responsible for Breakaway's Onyx consulting practice, which included overseeing projects, business development, methodology and partner relations. Ben spent extensive time with clients architecting their CRM solutions and ensuring that the solutions would be highly utilized. Ben participated in hundreds of CRM projects while at Breakaway. Ben was also responsible for Breakaway's geographical expansion and business development to California and Illinois.

Ben has also worked for Platinum Software Corporation (known today as Epicor Software Corporation) where he participated in hundreds of ERP implementations. At Platinum, Ben served in many roles, including General Manager for International Operations, GM for Asian Operations, and European Consulting Manager. Ben spent four years at Platinum Software where he participated in over 400 ERP projects. Ben also served as the Director of Business Systems Consulting at Arthur Andersen in Seattle, Washington. He started his career at Arthur Andersen as a staff member in the Audit division.

Ben received a BA in Business Administration, Concentration in Accounting from the University of Washington.

Richard Smith - Vice President, CRM Strategy

Richard Smith is a founding partner of Green Beacon, and serves as the Vice President of CRM Strategy. Richard brings over a decade of experience in the financial services and high tech markets in project delivery and product management.

Prior to Green Beacon, Richard worked for Breakaway Solutions as a Delivery Partner managing the full lifecycle delivery of CRM and eCommerce implementations for the Financial, High Tech, and Internet Commerce markets, including the design and implementing of hundreds of successful CRM implementations and custom software development projects. Previously, Richard was the Manager of US Corporate and Retail Product Management for Dr. Solomon's Software and a Senior Product Marketing Manager for ON Technology Corporation.

Richard received a BS in Business Management and Computer Science from the Boston College Carroll School of Management.

Peter Dear - Vice President, Application Management

Peter Dear is a founding partner of Green Beacon, and serves as the Vice President of Consulting. Peter brings years of experience in the high tech market in application development, system implementation, project management and technical design while working for Breakaway Solutions.

Peter's experience includes managing the full lifecycle delivery of CRM and custom implementations for the Financial, High Tech, Insurance, eCommerce and Telecom markets. Peter utilized his development skills in designing and implementing the technical architecture for over numerous CRM implementations, and conducted Onyx DBA training for the Breakaway clients and staff. Prior to working in consulting, Peter was an Associate Director for Boston University where he managed the activities of over 30 employees.

Peter received a BS in Business and Hospitality Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Kostas Tzigizis - Vice President, Delivery

Kostas Tzigizis is a founding partner of Green Beacon, and serves as the Vice President of Delivery. Prior to Green Beacon, Kostas was a technical lead and architect at Breakaway Solutions. His responsibilities included performing consulting, web design and development, application development, system implementation, and technical architecture & design services. He worked directly with clients to design, develop and deploy complex systems. His focus was on CRM and high end business to business web environments. At Breakaway, Kostas utilized his technical expertise to participate in the full life cycle of multiple client projects. In addition to his specific roles on projects, Kostas also participated in design and architecture reviews to assist other projects.

Prior to joining Breakaway Solutions, Kostas spent three years in the manufacturing industry, concentrating in Mechanical Engineering and manufacturing processes for the Foxboro Company.

Kostas received a Masters of Science in Management Information Systems from Boston University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University.

 

Thomas D. Berger- Vice President, Sales
Thomas Berger serves as Vice President of Sales at Green Beacon. Tom is responsible for overseeing and managing all sales, lead generation and presales activities at Green Beacon. Prior to joining Green Beacon, Tom served as Director of Sales for Innoveer Solutions (formerly Akibia Consulting) where he grew the New York practice by 300% in just two years. Tom has served in a sales capacity at several leading consulting firms, including CIBER, Enterpulse, and Breakaway Solutions, the last of which he successfully opened the New York branch and assisted with the successful opening of Breakaway's UK and Philadelphia offices. Bringing over a decade of experience in the CRM market, Tom has worked with industry leaders such as Siebel, Onyx, Salesforce, SalesLogix, and others. Tom began his career in IT as a project manager, and made the transition to sales and sales management.

Originally trained as a paleoanthropologist, Tom ran archaeological projects prior to entering IT consulting, searching for the origins of modern humans and the origins of agriculture and settled village life while excavating sites in the Middle East.

Tom holds a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College, an MA in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, and has held a doctoral fellowship at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. 
 

Kenneth Heiman - Chief Technology Officer

Kenneth Heiman brings over a decade of consulting, technical, and management expertise to his position. Ken joined Green Beacon in 2002, and, after five years delivering successful customer projects, was promoted to the role of Chief Technology Officer. As CTO, Ken is responsible for overseeing the technical excellence of all of Green Beacon's customer projects, and for setting the technical strategy for the organization.

Prior to joining Green Beacon, Ken spent the previous five years in the high tech arena, performing consulting, web design and development, application development, system implementation, and technical architecture & design services. Ken's previous position was System Architect at Analine Technologies, an Internet company developing hosted solutions for hazardous waste management. Before Analine, Ken worked at Breakaway Solutions, an internet consulting company, providing design, implementation, and mentoring / leadership skills in the development of high-quality, cutting-edge solutions for clients in the Financial, High Tech, and Internet Commerce verticals. Ken began his professional career after graduate school in application development at a series of engineering and oil & gas companies in Houston, Texas.

Ken holds summa cum laude undergraduate degrees in Computer Science/Math and Physics/Math from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska and attended graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Graduate School of Computer Science & Engineering.