Netherlands-based market data software vendor Screen Consultants plans to establish permanent offices in the UK, Scandinavia and North America, following key executive hires earlier this year, officials say.
To head its UK consulting business, Screen recruited Evert-Jan ten Brundel as business development director in April, and now plans to follow the hire by establishing a local office over the course of the next 12 months. Ten Brundel most recently served as group managing director of economic forecaster IHS Global Insight, prior to which he also served in a senior client services role at Morgan Stanley and spent almost a decade helping to build the DataStream International business, which was acquired by Primark, itself later bought by Thomson Financial.
Screen continues to maintain a relationship with London-based consultancy Spearhead & Partners, which re-sells its INFOmatch market data inventory management software in the UK. However, ten Brundel sees considerable potential to sell additional consulting services in the UK market, particularly to buy-side firms that want to control data expenditure, as well as firms addressing new business requirements and seeking help to define project requirements, manage Request-for-Proposal (RFP) processes, select vendors and implement solutions.
"We already have contacts with many institutions, primarily on the sell-side, but see a need for further work to be done on the buy-side where structured cost review programs still have to be conducted in quite a few places," ten Brundel says.
Elsewhere, the vendor has hired Marc Michels as managing director of its Screen Nordic AB business in Stockholm, and business development manager Mark Algvere. Michels, who is also founder of Torsborg Investments, was previously a colleague of ten Brundel's at Global Insight and at Datastream, between which he served as commercial director for continental Europe at Thomson Financial and vice president at Forrester Research. Algvere most recently served as head of operations at Swedish fund manager Scientia Fund Management and was previously a salesperson at back-office software vendor Wahlstedt Sageryd Financial Services. Both Michels and Algvere joined Screen in the second quarter of this year and are based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Currently, Michels and Algvere work from a serviced office space in Stockholm, though Michels says he plans to establish a dedicated office by the middle of next year. This will provide a permanent base from which the vendor can sell both consulting services and its INFOmatch inventory management software, since Screen does not yet have any redistribution partnerships covering the Nordic region. "Screen Nordic AB is the exclusive distributor of all Screen Consultants' services in the region," Michels says.
Taking Aim at America
To support its North American business, the vendor also engaged Michel Audet, principal of Canadian consultancy firm Audco, earlier this year to act as Screen's representative in Canada. Based in Quebec, Audet has already helped to initiate a successful client engagement with a major Canadian financial institution, says Peter Fruitema, managing director at Screen in The Netherlands.
The vendor is now looking to hire a full-time representative in New York, and is also considering a potential partnership to build up its US business, though he declines to name names. "We have found a company that is very much in our business and that we could have a good partnership with, to help us with additional work," Fruitema says.