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Backup My Info

 

2010 Stevie Award Winner

Company: Backup My Info, New York, NY USA
Entry Submitted By: Springboard PR
Company Description: Founded in 2002, Backup My Info! (BUMI) specializes in delivering online backup solutions for small to mid-sized businesses. Based in New York City, BUMI provides an off-site data protection solution that addresses critical issues such as rapid growth of data, business continuity, and regulatory compliance.
Nomination Category: Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Entrepreneur – Service Businesses - Up to 100 Employees

Nomination Title: Jennifer Walzer, CEO and Founder

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

At the age of 25, Jennifer Walzer, started her first company, Simsoft,
developing interactive voice response systems for small businesses. One year
later, she ended up selling her proprietary software to another firm because she
realized that if you don’t jump out of bed every day excited to do whatever it
is you do, you’re in the wrong business. Although she knew she wanted to start
another company, she was determined to wait for the right opportunity to come along.

In 2002, that opportunity arrived. Her dad called to say that one of his
clients had a major system crash and had lost almost all of its data. It took
Jennifer about 15 minutes to realize what an opportunity this was. Hard drives
were getting bigger and storage was getting cheaper, meaning that businesses
generally had a lot more data concentrated in one place than they used to.
Internet connections were getting faster and more secure, and in a post-9/11
world, businesses had started thinking seriously about the need for disaster
preparedness.

Jennifer started Backup My Info! (BUMI) – a New York City-based company that
specializes in delivering online backup and recovery solutions for small to
mid-sized businesses. The company is utilized by professional service
organizations, such as banking, financial, insurance, accounting, hedge funds
and law firms to address critical issues associated with rapid growth of data,
business continuity, and regulatory compliance. Every BUMI client is cared for
by a team of senior-level engineers dedicated to providing proactive and
personalized support. BUMI currently serves an impressive roster of more than
500 clients including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Optima Fund Management,
Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange, Japan Society, CitiStorage, Elton
John Aids Foundation, M5 Networks, ProTravel and Solow Realty.

Since 2002, Jennifer has successfully maintained a profitable, debt-free,
7-figure revenue business without the help of any investors or venture capital
contributions. She has also maintained the respect and admiration of her
clients, her employees, and the business community as a whole.

As a trusted figure in the data protection industry, Jennifer has been asked to
speak at numerous conferences about disaster recovery, data security and other
topics and has been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal,
Money Magazine, The Daily News and Crain’s New York Business. In August of
2009, she joined the New York Times’ online feature, You’re the Boss, as a
regular contributor, blogging weekly about her experiences as a CEO.

In addition, Jennifer has taken her success and experience and used it as an
opportunity to give back to the community, often providing advice and guidance
to young entrepreneurs. She has also judged the GSEA competition for college
entrepreneurs and spoke to business students at Baruch College and Columbia
University about building a business. Her enthusiasm and honest approach to
doing business make Jennifer a great inspiration and role model for these students.

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 nomination. 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]:

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/author/jennifer-walzer/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123498006564714189.html?mod=
article-outset-box#articleTabs%3Darticle

http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/youngentrepreneurs/
columnistroberttuchman/article203656.html

http://www.actonhero.org/celebrating-heroes/stories-of-heroes/index.
php?hero=jennifer-walzer

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

Jennifer Walzer, CEO and Founder of Backup My Info!, Inc.,
(www.backupmyinfo.com) has an extensive background in technology and business
strategy consulting. Prior to founding Backup My Info!, Jennifer spent her
career helping organizations of all sizes (from start ups to Fortune 1000
companies) with their back office systems and online web presence. Jennifer
also successfully launched and sold a software development company focused on
developing Interactive Voice Response Systems for Multi-Employer Benefit Funds.
She currently writes a weekly blog for the New York Times called “A CEO’s
Journey” and has been invited to speak on various topics such as Disaster
Recovery and Data Security at major conferences across the country. Jennifer
has been featured in numerous national publications such as The Wall Street
Journal, New York Times, Daily News, Money Magazine (July 2008 feature article
on Jennifer and Backup My Info!), New York Enterprise Report and Crain’s
Magazine to name a few. She graduated with honors from The University of
Arizona with a B.S. in Management Information Systems.