Greg Butterfield and SageCreek Partners Use “Mentor Capital” to Help Technology Companies Succeed

Monday, March 30, 2009 7:00AM

-Innovative firm provides mentoring and strategy coaching in the U.S. and EMEA to help companies drive critical business results-

March 30, Alpine, Utah–How do you follow success? For a set
of key senior executives, you use your collective experience to help other
companies succeed. A set of renowned executives in the U.S. and EMEA has joined
to create Sage Creek Partners. Sage Creek Partners is creating and
driving a new category of service: Mentor Capital. Working as a companion to
technology companies and their investment partners and boards, the company is
comprised of Greg Butterfield, Dwain Kinghorn, Steve Erickson, Tracy Tolbert, Mark Bonham, Volker Wiora and Srinivasa “Venky”
Venkataraman who have
led multiple technology companies including Altiris, Computing Edge and Fortune
500 firm ACS from launch to global leadership to successful exit.

Instead of investing
money, Sage Creek provides the strategic guidance, the mentoring, and the
direct connections to resources including funding, key hires and merger and
acquisition partners to help emerging and growth companies succeed. SageCreek can also help companies avoid
“blind alleys” and move more rapidly in the right direction in areas like
product development, sales management, financial strategy and legal
compliance. All in all, the SCP
offering is adaptable to the needs and issues of a wide variety of mainstream
challenges that confront growth-oriented companies.

Companies can
engage Sage Creek Partners through a combination of a retainer plus equity,
based on the needs and criteria of each firm. Generally, a company can hire
Sage Creek Partners for no more than the cost of a single top-notch executive.

Sage Creek
Partners becomes a collective strategy resource for a company’s entire
executive team. Since its inception in mid- 2008, the group has already
developed a track record with a variety of technology companies including Venafi, LiveLoop Technologies, Savail Consulting, ACS
(Affiliated Computer Services), Move
Networks and AxisPointe

In a recent
example, Venafi, a company that provides “systems management for encryption,”
engaged Sage Creek Partners to assist with its go-to-market plan, product
roadmap and expansion strategy. The company appointed SCP Partner Greg
Butterfield to its board of directors and the SCP team began to work with
Venafi’s executive staff. Since
that time, Venafi has seen a significant uptick in their sales success,
attributable in part to the assistance SageCreek Partners provided.

Venafi plans
to release an updated version of its primary product in Q2 2009. The SageCreek
Partners team has helped Venafi evaluate several opportunities presented as it
launches its latest release.

SCP is also
assisting Venafi with its corporate vision. Trell Rohovit, CEO of Venafi, says,
“SageCreek Partners is helping us expand our vision of how the product can
meet customer needs. We’ve had detailed discussions on how to leverage our new
product offering with an SDK. We’ve also had great feedback on how these
features enable new revenue in new market segments.”

SCP has
participated in detail in the creation of Venafi’s 2009 company plan.

“Not
only is Greg Butterfield a board member but he’s also a CEO who’s been down
this path before, and he and SCP can provide feedback and coaching outside of
the context of a board meeting,” Rovovit said. “Greg knows what it takes to set
a financial goal and then put the pieces in place to meet that goal.”

Venafi is
looking to increase its 2009 revenue that comes from outside of North America.
Through work with SageCreek’s European Vice President, Volker Wiora, Venafi has
been able to develop a German presence at very low cost. Marketing materials
have been translated, introductions have been made to potential new accounts,
and a mechanism to provide support for customers in that region of the world
has been set up. This level of geographic expansion would not be possible on
the internal only budget.

For more
information about Sage Creek Partners, please visit www.sagecreekpartners.com

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PR Contacts:

Cheryl Snapp Conner or Cory
Maloy

Snapp Conner PR

801 994-9625

cheryl@snappconner.com or
cory@snappconner.com