RatePoint Names Venkates Swaminathan New Vice President of Business Development

NEEDHAM, Mass., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- RatePoint (http://www.RatePoint.com), a leading provider of customer reviews, testimonials and online reputation management services, has appointed Venkates Swaminathan as vice president of business development.

In this new position, Swami will be responsible for strategic business alliances to support RatePoint's market growth and business expansion strategy.

"RatePoint has created the category of customer review services for small and medium businesses, and now Swami will help to carry us forward as we continue our high growth phase," said RatePoint Co-Founder and CEO Neal Creighton. "He brings a solid background in business engagement and leveraging key strategic relationships."

Previously, Swami served as vice president of business development and general manager for the partner business unit at Plaxo Inc., now a unit of Comcast Corp. At Plaxo, he was involved in raising $10 million in venture capital and led the team to a multi-million dollar partner revenue stream. Additionally, he led the development of and negotiations for deals with major channels like Comcast and Skype, among others, and helped manage the sale of the company to Comcast in July 2008.

Prior to Plaxo, Swami founded NightFire, which raised more than $50 million in venture capital until the company was purchased by NeuStar. Swami then served as senior vice president of NeuStar and chief strategist for the company's service management solutions.

Swami earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, New Delhi, India, and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  He will be based out of the company's Bay Area office.

About RatePoint Inc.

RatePoint Inc., the leading provider of customer reviews, testimonials and online reputation management services, helps businesses protect and build their online reputation, allowing businesses to harness the power of credible customer feedback and leverage it into a sales, marketing and customer service asset.

RatePoint's easy-to-use, Web-based communication services include customer feedback tools to collect business reviews and product reviews as well as email marketing, survey and dispute resolution capabilities to provide small- and medium-sized businesses with the ability to collect, manage and promote customer feedback directly from their website. For more information, contact us at: 888-777-1636 or visit: www.ratepoint.com.

SOURCE RatePoint