Beale Appointed to SIIA Board

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Simon Beale, ProQuest Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company's North American Government, Public Library and Schools unit, has been named to the Board of Directors of the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries.  He joins the board this month and will bring more than 20 years of North American and global business experience.

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"I'm fully committed to the important role SIIA plays as a forum for companies operating in the information space," said Mr. Beale. "I'm excited to bring my knowledge and experience to bear in what continues to be an exciting era in our industry. ProQuest is active in all areas that are relevant to the SIIA and I aim to add my understanding of the various disparate areas of the industry to assist in guiding the SIIA's path as a partner and advocate for companies facing continuing risk and opportunity."

Mr. Beale has been an active member of SIIA since 2010, serving two terms on the association's Content Board and playing a pivotal role as co-chair for SIIA's popular Information Industry Summit.  At ProQuest, his leadership and industry knowledge have been instrumental in bringing the company's increasingly diversified portfolio of products and services to the global marketplace. He joined the company in 2002 as Vice President of International Sales and Marketing. Two years later, he was given the additional responsibility of driving international business development initiatives. He became SVP Global Sales in 2006 and in 2007 oversaw the merger of the ProQuest Information & Learning and CSA sales organizations, creating the ProQuest Global Sales group. In 2012, Mr. Beale was appointed to lead a ProQuest business unit, with responsibility for managing business activities in three of ProQuest's primary market segments.

"We're confident that Simon will bring his usual high level of energy and enthusiasm to the board," said Kurt Sanford, ProQuest CEO. "We're happy to share his tremendous skills because building a stronger SIIA means building stronger industry for all of us."  

About the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA)

The Software & Information Industry Association is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to the leading companies that are setting the pace for the digital age.

About ProQuest (www.proquest.com)

ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information.  Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world's knowledge – from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms.  Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the management and delivery of complete, trustworthy information.

ProQuest's massive information pool is made accessible in research environments that accelerate productivity, empowering users to discover, create, and share knowledge.

An energetic, fast-growing organization, ProQuest includes the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Dialog®, ebrary®, and Serials Solutions® businesses and notable research tools such as the RefWorks® and Pivot™ services, as well as its Summon® web-scale discovery service.  The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.

SOURCE ProQuest