John Hastings – Director, Chief Executive Officer, President & Chief Operating Officer
Joining the Company in February 2008, John Hastings leverages 23 years of progressive general management, marketing, consulting and sales experiences gained from work in over 30 countries with world class organizations: Nestle/Stouffer's, Kraft/General Foods, Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp., NCR/Teredata, Unisys Corp. and VNU/ACNielsen. While at VNU/ACNielsen, a $4.5 Billion global research, media and publication’s company headquartered in New York, John spent eight years building and managing various organizations where he last served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of VNU MI Global Business Intelligence.
With a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cal State University, Fullerton, CA, and a Masters of Business Administration degree from Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, John is also classically trained in brand management, field sales & marketing and management & information consulting disciplines and has managed $100+ million business units and organizations as large as 250 associates. Importantly, John also brings a family background of law enforcement experiences, wherein several relatives have worked as Peace Officers in the U.S., (as jailers, sheriffs, L.A. & S.F. police academy faculty, and chiefs of police).
Chad Olsen – Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Olsen was promoted to CFO on January 20, 2010. Previously, Mr. Olsen was SecureAlert’s corporate controller since September 2001. From 1992 to 1997, Mr. Olsen worked in the banking and investment industry where he assisted clients with tax, investment and banking services. From 1997 to 2001, Chad worked with a certified public accounting firm performing tax, auditing, and business advisory services. Additionally, Mr. Olsen owned and operated his own accounting practice through which he provided tax, accounting, and consulting services. Mr. Olsen received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Brigham Young University.
Bill Beardsley – Chief Technology Officer
Mr. Beardsley, or Bill as he likes to be called, has over 25 years of advanced technology engineering in areas of telephony, GPS, autopilots and flight control, energy management, and most recently eCommerce and financial systems. Before joining SecureAlert, Bill was Vice President of Brokerage Technology for E*Trade Financial and Senior Director of Network Operations and IT for Cafepress.com. At E*Trade, the technology he chaperoned scaled to accommodate a 20-fold increase in trading volumes in 3 short years and automated nearly all manual brokerage automation functions. At CafePress, Bill was responsible for the web site, global networking, security, and IT functions, including technology compliance for PCI and SOX. Bill also owned his own technical consulting business, where he developed advanced network applications for distributed computing. In his “free” time, Bill provides technical and business development advice to firms such as, Cotendo, StrongAuth, Gomez, and stealth mode startups. Bill has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Robert Schick – Vice President/Managing Director, Global Sales and Marketing
Mr. Schick was an early employee at data warehousing pioneer Teradata where he oversaw that organization's financial services industry consulting group. In that role, he developed the global go-to-market strategy, establishing a presence in over 30 countries and bringing on multiple flagship clients. Subsequently, he joined Unisys to manage the sales and marketing activities of its data warehousing division and later serving as the managing principal of its global decision support practice. At Unisys, Mr. Schick led efforts to establish a corporate presence across 40 countries of operation. He has held executive roles at several other global technology companies, including Mobinetix (acquired by Symbol Technologies), and has consulted extensively with top Silicon Valley companies.
Bernadette Suckel – Vice President/Managing Director, Offender Management Solutions
Previous to joining SecureAlert, Ms. Suckel served as Vice President of Business Intelligence at the Nielsen Company. In this capacity she oversaw the implementation of complex business intelligence implementations, acting as the Strategic Engagement Manager on high profile projects. She provided strategic project management, coordinating the efforts of a multitude of resources from not only within Nielsen, but from external partners as well. While at Nielsen, Bernadette also served in strategic marketing and sales capacities, bringing new analytic offerings to market. Key among these offerings was Consumer Direct, a joint service with internet giant Yahoo!.
Before joining Nielsen, Bernadette was Managing Director of Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Distribution Industry, at internet Software start-up, Cogit.com. She headed the industry vertical for Cogit.com, leading the definition of products and sales efforts. This vertical accounted for nearly 50% of Cogit.com’s revenues. Key clients included Nabisco, Kmart and Polk. Bernadette has a Bachelor of Science degree from California State University at Fresno.