Merrill Freund
General Manager, West Coast office and Executive Vice President

Merrill has almost 20 years of experience in high-tech public relations and has represented clients in industries ranging from data center hardware to open source software to cloud applications and services. In addition to formulating strategy, messaging and managing day-to-day activities on his clients’ accounts, he works with his peers to stimulate high-profile placements in leading media outlets, including BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and CNBC, as well as in the top computer trade publications.

For the last seven years, he has led the SGI team (NASDAQ:SGI) , helping to evolve the company from a small private company called Rackable Systems to IPO, to acquisition of Silicon Graphics and rebranding as SGI, to leadership in the technical computing market. He also leads the Terracotta account, an alternative database technology that was recently acquired by Software AG, Atmel (NASDAQ:ATML) a leading microcontroller and touch technology company and Amyris (NASDAQ:AMRS) a pioneer in sustainable fuels and chemicals. In addition, he has helped a number of clients reach their corporate objective of acquisition, including Gluecode (acquired by IBM), Virtutech (Intel) and Logicblaze (Iona).

Previously, Freund was with Marinex Communications, a New York-based PR firm specializing in healthcare and high-tech clients. Freund holds a B.A. in political science from Union College and an M.S. in telecommunications from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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