News and Highlights

Alacra makes EContent Hot 100...again!!

This December, for the sixth year in a row, Alacra was named to EContent Magazine's Hot 100 list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry. As an exciting bonus, we were also named to their 20/20 highlight list of the the 20 companies that generated the most banter among the EContent 100 judging team during their month-long decision process.

Alacra Compliance - A Model Of Excellence

In September, Alacra Compliance was named a Model of Excellence award winner by InfoCommerce Group. InfoCommerce Group (“ICG”) is a leading consulting, publishing, conference and research company focused on the data publishing industry. Their annual Model of Excellence awards recognize innovative companies which effectively combine world-class software with high quality data. According to InfoCommerce Group's President Russell Perkins, “Alacra Compliance cleverly marries a vertical search engine with federated search capabilities for premium content. The result is an innovative workflow application that helps financial institutions get their arms around rapidly changing regulatory requirements.” Read More...

Operation Santa Clause

For the first time and at the behest of our V.P. of Sales and Marketing, Fran Falchook, Alacra took part in the NY Post Office's Operation Santa Claus, a program started in the 1920's by the US Post Office in an effort to help needy children. You can read all about Fran's quest to select some classes for us to help, and how she wound up choosing a child to provide a dream holiday for on her own with the help of her husband and daughters. It is worthwhile to note, the most profound effects of this project were not on the thrilled and grateful classes we selected, the real effects were on us, the Alacra team. From the moment Fran brought the letters in, the Alacra staff was ignited. A line of employees quickly formed at Fran's desk, eager and happy to help. Everyone was delighted to choose and shop for a child. The highlight was the teachers phone calls, shocked by our generosity and elated by the children's reaction, the endeavor lit US ALL up like a Christmas Tree! What a way to end the year!

Alacra Employee News

Alacra welcomed several new employees to our global family this quarter and also made several internal promotions.

Catherine McEwing joined Alacra's London team in November as Director of Content and Project Management. Cathy previously worked at the London Stock Exchange where she was responsible for the Historical Data Products group. Prior to the London Stock Exchange, Cathy was developing and implementing the strategy for Thomson Financial's Investor Relations products in Europe and Asia. Cathy will aid in managing our growing number of content relationships, oversee the London based Project Managers, and take on various customer and content project assignments.

Gail Jewsbury, former Senior Sales Executive in London, has been appointed to Sales Director, Europe starting the first of the new year. Gail was our very first employee in Europe, joining the company in 1998. Over the past eight years, Gail has made many significant sales for the company and has successfully expanded Alacra's presence in many European strategic accounts. Her accounts have also had consistently high retention rates, topping 95% over the past three years. Gail will be responsible for leading our sales and account management team as well as directly managing several named accounts in Europe.

Jeffrey Tanenbaum has just joined our New York Sales team as a Senior Account Executive. With more than 10 years in the financial information industry, Jeff has attained a strong background which is sure to help him at Alacra. Most recently, Jeff was Sales Development Manager at Reuters, teaching sales methodologies to and coaching the sales force. Prior to this role, Jeff focused on selling Investment Research into corporations for Multex. Jeff also spent time at Thomson where he sold insider trading activity for CDA Investment.

Owen Hourican, a veteran of Alacra UK, has been promoted to Senior Account Executive on the Alacra New York Sales team. Owen has been with Alacra since August 1999 and was initially the Manager of Client Services in the UK for three years. Owen then moved into a hybrid role which meant dividing his time between Content Relationship Management, Project Management, and working as an Account Manager supporting Gail Jewsbury. Owen previously worked for Reuters before joining Alacra. We are all excited to have Owen here in the U.S.

Craig A. Kissel has joined Alacra as our Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Kissel was the Chief Financial Officer for GovPX, Inc. for the past thirteen years. In this role, he was responsible for the finance, administrative, HR and legal operations of the thirty million dollar firm. Previously, Mr. Kissel was Director of Finance for Knight Ridder Financial Americas and spent ten years in the ITT Industries Group in various financial management positions. He holds a BS in commerce from Rider University and an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of Scranton.