Phil Soran Board's Director, Help/Systems

Help/Systems, LLC, an independent provider of automated operations, security, and business intelligence software for IBM Power Systems' servers running IBM i, announced the addition of Chris Heim and Phil Soran to its board of directors.

Heim and Soran are Twin Cities technology luminaries, both having presided over high-volume firms before accepting board positions on June 26, 2012.

Chris Heim was most recently the President of Amcom Software, one of the leading providers of mission-critical communication solutions for hospitals, governments and hospitality customers. Amcom serves the federal government, as well as top casinos and resort hotels. Accelerated by acquisitions, Amcom realized growth of over 500% during the last five years, and was sold to USA Mobility in March of 2011.

Prior to Amcom, Heim was CEO and President of HighJump Software. Under his leadership, the business grew from $8M in sales in 1997 to a run rate of $80M in sales in 2006, becoming the fastest growing company in its market space. In 2002, HighJump received the Tekne Award from the Minnesota High Technology Association as the Top Emerging Software Company. In 2003, Heim was honored as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2004, Heim was involved in the sale of HighJump Software to 3M.

Phil Soran was most recently the founder, president and CEO of Compellent Technologies, which started in his basement in 2002 and went public on the NYSE in 2007. It became one of the fastest growing storage companies in the world before acquisition by Dell for $960 million dollars in February of 2011. Phil recently retired as the president of Dell/Compellent.

Compellent has received industry awards, patents, and accolades under Phil's leadership. As pioneers in automated tiered storage and storage virtualization, he and the co-founders were recognized as Storage Superstars in 2010 by CRN, and as Midwest Region Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst & Young. Previously, Phil served as CEO and president of XIOtech Corp., a network storage vendor he co-founded in 1995, and spent eleven years at IBM. XIOtech was purchased by Seagate in January of 2000 for $360M.