Utopy Recruits Technology Veteran Doron Aspitz as New CEO; Former Blue Pumpkin CEO Brings Enterprise Software Expertise and Record of Success

Business Wire, Oct 31, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- Utopy, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise-class speech analytics solutions, has named technology veteran Doron Aspitz as its new president and chief executive officer. Most recently the chief executive officer and chairman of Blue Pumpkin, the leader in workforce optimization solutions for customer contact centers, Aspitz brings over 20 years of strong operational and technology leadership experience to Utopy.

With particular expertise in sales and marketing, Aspitz is poised to build and execute Utopy's long-term business model, add to the company's customer traction and strengthen strategic industry relationships. Working closely with Utopy co-founders -- executive chairman Roy Twersky and chief technology officer Yochai Konig, Ph.D. -- Aspitz will also help drive the company's vision as well as oversee all aspects of its growth, providing day-to-day guidance towards operational efficiency and profitability.

As the CEO and co-founder of Blue Pumpkin, Doron led the company from its inception to its successful acquisition by Witness Systems earlier this year. Given his remarkable accomplishments in the customer service industry at Blue Pumpkin, Aspitz understands the importance of how businesses interact with their customers and is now applying his unique experience to extend Utopy's market leadership in speech analytics.

"Utopy today is reminiscent of the early days of Blue Pumpkin," explained Paul Stockford, chief analyst for Saddletree Research. "Product innovation, a sharp focus on customer needs and an understanding of market demand are driving the company. With the recent addition of Doron Aspitz to the executive management team, Utopy is clearly ready to embark upon the next phase of company growth and become a leading force in the emerging speech analytics market."

Utopy solves a persistent challenge: how to glean high-value business intelligence from daily customer interactions. CRM and ERP systems track customer transactions, but cannot provide the rationale for these transactions. In contrast, Utopy's speech analytics solutions analyze the vast amount of everyday customer interactions to capture routinely-discussed business events, competitive information, marketing campaign responses, complaints and operational inefficiencies. By effectively tapping into this hidden wealth of business intelligence, enterprises can increase revenue with refined and timely offers, improve customer loyalty with better service, as well as lower their cost of sales and service by pinpointing operational deficiencies.

"We have confidence in investing in Utopy, because the company uniquely provides critical solutions that give businesses true insights into their performance, directly from the voice of their customers," said Philip Black, senior managing member of Blacksmith Capital. "With Doron on board, we are even more optimistic. He is recognized as a results-oriented CEO with a track record of success. Utopy's rapidly-evolving position in the marketplace is an excellent match for his skills of building a business and attracting the best executives. He's an inspirational leader with the intelligence, business acumen and marketing savvy needed to take Utopy to the next level of growth. We look forward to his leadership."

"We are excited to have Doron on board, especially given his stellar history," added Twersky. "His expertise and proven ability to leverage a technology vision to capitalize on a broad market opportunity will surely help create strong momentum for Utopy, as we expand and dominate the growing speech analytics market."

With Aspitz at the helm, Blue Pumpkin rapidly rose from start-up in 1997 to overtake incumbent competitors as the global market-share leader in contact center workforce optimization software in 2004, according to Frost & Sullivan analysts. Under Aspitz' leadership, Blue Pumpkin ranked as high as #5 on Inc magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America, and successfully served Blue Pumpkin's 1,250 customers, including such companies as AOL/Time Warner, Apple, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BMW, EDS, FedEx, JetBlue, Mercedes, Verizon and Visa.

About Utopy

As a leader in speech analytics technology, Utopy offers solutions that enable companies to gain business intelligence from every customer interaction. Leading companies are using Utopy SpeechMiner(R), the award-winning and patented product suite, to identify, evaluate and catalog consumer sales and service conversations, thereby transforming the voice of the customer into structured information for the benefit of the enterprise. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Utopy's team has extensive experience in speech analytics, service operations, mission-critical intelligence systems as well as the processes associated with improving business performance. For additional information about Utopy, please visit www.utopy.com, email info@utopy.com, or call 866.44.UTOPY (866.448.8679).