Kellen Company Names Tor Holtan Chief Innovation Officer

Business Wire, August 6, 2007

ATLANTA -- Kellen Company, a global professional services firm, and the premier international association management company (AMC), has named Tor Holtan as vice president and chief innovation officer, effective August 1, 2007. Mr. Holtan will oversee the implementation of Best Practices throughout the company, assess and execute operations improvements and develop new products and services in the areas of marketing, distance learning and conferences. He will report to Chairman Peter Rush.

"Mr. Holtan has a long history of leading innovation at major national and international corporations," said Rush. "With his in-depth knowledge of the trends and innovations shaping the world, he will be instrumental in the continued growth of Kellen Company's business."

Most recently, Holtan was chief operating officer of Strategic Research Institute, a conference management company that he helped build from a start-up to a $14 million firm before it was sold in 2006. SRI was a business-to-business conference company targeting corporate level executives with topic concentration in finance, life sciences, marketing and energy. It held more than 120 conferences a year in key cities throughout the US, Europe and Asia.

Prior to SRI, Holtan served as president, Taiwan First Investment and Trust Company, a unit of Citibank, and as chief of staff in the Europe, Middle East and Africa Division Office of Citibank's Consumer Service Group. He began his career as a product manager at Colgate Palmolive.

Holtan holds a Master of International Management (MIM) degree from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird), and an undergraduate degree in Marketing from Washington State University. He has served on numerous boards and committees, including the House of Delegates of the United States Olympic Committee. Holtan was also the manager of both the 1984 Olympic and 1986 Goodwill Games US Team Handball teams. He is fluent in Norwegian.

"Kellen's franchise as the premier international association company offers me the opportunity to contribute both in process improvements and value added services to both their current and new clients. The potential I see in the company's domestic and international markets is exciting and will offer many opportunities for innovative approaches to support the dynamic growth of the company"

Kellen Company provides professional services to fill the rising demand from associations and other not-for-profit companies from its offices in Atlanta, Beijing, Brussels, New York, Tucson and Washington, D.C. Among the services Kellen offers are association management, government affairs, public relations, strategic advice, meetings management, creative communications and Web site development and marketing.

Kellen's global services component was accelerated by the acquisition of Ernst & Young Association Management in Brussels in 2004, now Kellen Europe. In January of this year, Kellen became the first association management company to operate in Beijing, China.

Note to editor: Headshot available for download at: http://www.kellencompany.com/downloads/Tor_Holtan.jpg