NineSigma Names Director of Business Development and Two Program Managers

CLEVELAND, OH – January 30, 2006 – NineSigma, Inc., a Cleveland, Ohio-based innovation sourcing firm, announced today that it has hired Frank Evan as Director of Business Development, and Dr. Charles Roe and Dr. Frank Tropper as Program Managers. They will join existing NineSigma staff to help Fortune 500 companies acquire technical innovations developed outside their existing innovation networks.

“We’re managing strategic open innovation programs for more than 40 industry-leading companies,” said Paul Stiros, President and CEO of NineSigma. “We recognized that we needed to enhance our already-strong internal resources. The addition of Messrs. Evan, Roe, and Tropper will facilitate our growth plans and help us stay ahead of our clients’ increasing needs.”

Frank Evan named to Director of Business Development
Frank Evan brings to his role at NineSigma more than 20 years’ sales and consulting experience helping businesses address critical growth issues—managing profitable client-partner relationships, heading multi-organization, cross-functional teams, and managing multi-million dollar projects. As Associate Partner at IBM Business Consulting Services, Evan led his team to deliver business process and technology breakthroughs for his clients. At Keane, Inc., he created a new e-Solutions consulting practice and had total P&L responsibility for his $15M+ business unit. The team helped clients develop new customer service business models to deliver competitive advantage and revenue growth.

In his role with NineSigma, he will apply his goal-driven expertise to build relationships with innovation leaders at client organizations and help them acquire externally sourced technologies to meet business needs. “NineSigma is ahead of the curve in this field,” said Evan. “I’m excited about being able to introduce the company’s expertise to even more clients—and to helping those clients create more deals that are advantageous to all parties.”

Charles Roe, Ph.D. named Program Manager
In his more than eight years of managerial experience in the field of chemical engineering, Dr. Charles Roe has lead cross-functional quality initiatives and directed Six Sigma projects, consistently delivered greater organizational accountability and engineered substantial cost savings. At ICI Paints, Roe resolved supplier quality issues with raw materials and created an innovative documentation system for the $460M/year in chemical purchases of ICI’s North American operations. At General Electric, he provided design and process leadership for product quality, productivity, and equipment programs within the Automotive Lighting product lines.

In his new position, Dr. Roe will apply his problem-solving expertise and his design and process leadership skills to helping NineSigma clients identify areas of technical need and gaps in their global technology platforms. He will help them find and evaluate appropriate potential technologies and will facilitate the engagement process between clients and best-in-class solution providers. “As the speed of innovation in technology soars, so does the need for precise evaluation and sound adoption processes,” said Roe. “I look forward to helping NineSigma’s clients remain on the cutting edge with the most promising innovations.”

Dr. Roe earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech. He also earned a GE Corporate Management Award during his tenure at General Electric.

Frank Tropper, Ph.D. named Program Manager
A Ph.D. chemist, Dr. Frank Tropper’s management and research background runs the gamut, from senior manager of new product development to director of clinical research, and covers a wide spectrum of industries—medical imaging, diagnostics, drug discovery and development, to cGMP drug product manufacturing, to biomolecular materials research, and polymer chemistry. As Director of the Medicinal Chemistry Department at GLYCODesign, Tropper played an active role in building the company—during merger and acquisition phases and key partnering activities. He continued to serve during two company restructurings and a final merger with Inflazyme Pharmaceuticals. For Intelligent Capital Partners, Inc., an investment firm specializing in late stage venture capital funding of new technology companies, Tropper provided consulting services and technical assistance for evaluating young companies and their technologies. Tropper’s career began as Principle Investigator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Center for Advanced Material.

As Program Manager, he will assist NineSigma’s clients throughout the process of finding the right innovative technologies from the right providers and establishing an efficient, trusted relationship. “I’m eager to apply my scientific training and leadership skills to NineSigma’s efforts,” said Tropper. “Working together, we will give clients a genuine competitive edge in evaluating and acquiring technologies globally.”

Tropper graduated with Honors from the University of Ottawa with a B.Sc. and then completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry there. Awards included the Canadian NSERC Doctoral Prize and the School of Graduate Studies and Research Prize from the University of Ottawa for the most outstanding Ph.D. dissertation of the year. Tropper also tenured postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the University of California Berkeley and Stanford University.


About NineSigma
NineSigma facilitates open innovation strategies for Fortune 500 companies seeking to acquire technical innovations developed outside their organization. NineSigma’s clients span a variety of industries including automotive, biomedical, chemical, consumer products, electronics, food, materials, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications among others. Through its proprietary Managed Exchange (M:XTM) process, NineSigma matches technology seekers with unobvious or disruptive innovations that enable companies to drive top-line growth. For more information, visit www.ninesigma.com