Intermedia, a leading cloud communications and collaboration provider to SMBs and the partners that serve them, announced that Gerhard Bette, Senior Partner Emeritus at global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has been appointed to Intermedia’s Board.
For more than 28 years, Bette worked with leading global institutions. His particular focus was on building and advising senior teams within technology-based companies, covering the telecom, IT and healthcare industries. Bette was a co-founder of McKinsey’s global telecommunication, media, and technology practice and led the telecommunication group for its North American region.
“We are very fortunate to have Gerhard join our Board,” said Michael Gold, CEO of Intermedia. “His breadth of telecom expertise, and work with fast-growing, private equity-funded organizations, will be extremely valuable to Intermedia as we continue to deliver and invest in the UCaaS products that businesses need to be more collaborative and productive.”
Since his retirement from McKinsey’s Chicago office at the end of 2010, Bette has been an active advisor to several private equity and alternative investment firms on due diligence, portfolio company management, and business building topics. He is a member of Madison Dearborn Partners’ Telecom Media and Technology Roundtable. Bette has served and continues to serve on the boards of several private equity portfolio companies for Madison Dearborn Partners (Intermedia’s lead investor) and other private equity firms.
For more than a decade, Bette has also been an Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Management and Organization at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University where he has taught classes on professional service firms, problem solving and business building.
Bette holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Duisburg, Germany. He also studied Mathematics at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris with post-graduate scholarships from the French and German governments.
“Intermedia has made a significant impact on the Unified Communication as a Service space in a relatively short period of time,” said Bette. “I’m pleased to be joining their Board as Intermedia further transforms the business communication and collaboration experience, with an emphasis on greater productivity, reliability, security, and ease-of-use.”
This appointment increases the size of the†Board†to six members. Other Board members include Michael Gold, CEO; Zaid Alsikafi, James Perry Jr. and Brendan Barrett of Madison Dearborn Partners; and Phil Koen, special advisor to Intermedia and the company’s former CEO and Chairman.
