Company: Infobright, Toronto, Canada
Entry Submitted By: Kickstart Consulting
Company Description: Infobright has pioneered the development of open source data warehousing solutions. As business intelligence requirements coupled with the dramatic growth of corporate data challenge IT’s resources and budget, Infobright’s technology delivers a highly scalable, self-managing analytic database that reduces ongoing administration by up to 90 percent and costs significantly less.
Nomination Category: Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Canadian Executive

Nomination Title: Miriam Tuerk, Open Source Business Visionary

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated executive during the eligibility period (up to 500 words):

Miriam Tuerk, President and CEO of Toronto-based Infobright, has had an eventful
year.  Since initiating a move to an open source software business model in
September 2008, she’s led her company, an analytic data warehouse provider,
through a period of explosive growth. Infobright has seen a 500 percent increase in
revenue and the number of customers it has signed on (going from eight in
September to more than 80 as of this quarter); has added nearly 40 partners to its
growing OEM and system integrator network; attracted Sun Microsystems as a
core investor; and reduced sales cycles from six months to just three weeks. This
is an impressive list of achievements for any 12-month cycle - a truly spectacular
one considering all this took place during one of the worst economic downturns in
recent history, and from an IT company based outside of a tech industry hub like
Silicon Valley to boot. 

Already an innovator in the data warehousing space, Infobright is now also a
pioneer as the first open source data warehouse provider in the world. While
successful, this move has not been without risk. The data warehousing space is
similar to the .com boom of the 90s - there are a lot of start-ups, a lot of
competition and many companies can’t make the cut. But with Miriam at the
helm, Infobright has followed a smart strategy by targeting users whose massive
data management requirements mesh well with the affordability and scalability
enabled by open source, by delivering the features and functionality (including
data compression, ease-of-use and query performance) that organizations need, and by
bundling its solutions with Sun Microsystems’ hugely popular open source
database, MySQL. Plus, Infobright’s free Community Edition (ICE) allows potential
customers to simply download the software (there have been more than 15,000
downloads to date) and try it out at no cost. Infobright’s Enterprise Edition (IEE)
includes added features and support, but it’s still the lowest-cost
enterprise-class data warehouse on the market - an attractive proposition considering that
traditional, proprietary offerings are often prohibitively expensive for all but
the largest organizations.  

As a female CEO of a technology company and an electrical engineer, Miriam is
no stranger to blazing trails. In an industry dominated by men, she has risen to
the top of her field by successfully driving growth for a host of organizations in
emerging markets. She was one of a handful of women in a graduating class of
more than 200 to earn her electrical engineering degree from the University of
Waterloo, and that dynamic has not changed much throughout her 25-year career.
Recently, she attended a conference for CEOs of open source companies where
she and one other colleague were the only women in the room.

As a result, Miriam has dedicated her time and talents to several organizations
that support and mentor women in technology, including Women in Science &
Technology Businesses and the Corporate State, a women’s CEO and senior
management summit.  She has also served as an executive of the Parents
Association of the Bishop Strachan School, an all-girls school focusing on STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) as one of its areas of specialty.

Miriam is also the mother of two daughters, ages 20 and 13. When not working,
she unwinds by enjoying the great outdoors in remote northern Canada and
running half marathons. 

List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:

• TDWI Analyst Wayne Eckerson’s Blog:  Infobright Does it Right
http://tdwi.1105cms01.com/Blogs/WayneEckerson/2009/06/Infobright.aspx

• Dashboard Insight:  Q&A with Miriam Tuerk
http://www.dashboardinsight.com/articles/one-on-one-with-dashboard-insight/one-on-one-with-miriam-tuerk.aspx

• Wall Street Journal:  Oracle-Sun Deal Promising for Database Start-
ups
http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/04/22/oracle-sun-deal-promising-for-database-start-ups/?mod=rss_WSJBlog

• InfoWorld:  Infobright ? We’re the MySQL of open source data
warehousing
http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/infobright-were-mysql-open-source-data-warehousing-960

• DMS2:  Infobright Update
http://www.dbms2.com/2009/04/20/infobright-update-3/

• IT Today:  The Open Source Data Warehouse Revolution
http://www.ittoday.info/Articles/Open_Source_Data_Warehouse.htm

• InformationWeek: Sun, VCs Invest $10M In MySQL Datawarehouse
Startup
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/09/sun_vcs_invest.html;jsessionid=ESCI1MFHUWCGRQE1GHRSKHWATMY32JVN

• Infobright Launches Open Source Data Warehouse Offerings:
http://www.infobright.com/Event/infobright_launches_open_source_data_warehouse_offerings/

Provide a brief biography of the nominated executive (up to 100 words):

Miriam Tuerk is president and CEO of Infobright, where she has been guiding the
company to leadership in open source data warehousing. Prior to Infobright, she
spent 11 years with BCE Emergis and its predecessors, Newstar Technologies
and Bryker Data Systems, starting as a sales executive and finishing her tenure
as president of the eBusiness division. Her efforts helped Emergis grow from $7
million to $660 million in revenues. Miriam’s 20+ years of experience also spans
the consulting and telecommunications sectors in Canadian, U.S., European and
Asian markets. She holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from University of
Waterloo.