Diligent Announces Appointment of Executive Vice Chairman

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Sept. 15, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diligent Board Member Services, Inc. ("Diligent" or the "Company") DIL, creator of the world's most widely used board portal, today announced that Mr. Greg B. Petersen has been appointed by the Board of Directors to serve as Executive Vice Chairman of the Company. Mr. Petersen has served as a director since April 2013 and has been a member of the Company's Compensation Committee and Nominations Committee and Chairman of the Audit and Finance Committee. During this time, Mr. Petersen's comprehensive expertise and experience in the Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") and Software industry have been a valuable contribution to the Diligent Board of Directors. To further utilise his skill-set and strengthen the company's management depth, his appointment of Executive Vice Chairman was a logical step during this period of growth. Mr. Petersen will start in his new position on Monday September 15, 2014 (US ET), and subsequently will no longer be regarded by the board as an independent director for the purposes of the NZSX Listing Rules.

Mr. Petersen has served on the Board of PROS Holdings, Inc. PRO since 2007 and is currently the compensation committee chairman for PROS. He has served on the Board of Piksel, Inc. since 2012 and is currently the audit committee and compensation committee chairman for Piksel. Previously Mr. Petersen was the executive vice president and chief financial officer for several technology companies, including: Activant Solutions, Inc. a provider of business management solutions to retail and wholesale distribution businesses from 2001-2007; Lombardi Software, Inc. a business process management software provider, which was sold to IBM, from 2008 to 2010; and CBG Holdings from 2011-2012. Mr. Petersen also served in finance and treasury roles with Trilogy Software (a provider of enterprise software and business services), in strategy and development roles with RailTex (a short-line and regional rail service provider), and in finance and strategy roles at American Airlines. Mr. Petersen holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Boston College and a Master of Business Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Mr. Petersen has business and leadership experience in software companies, merger and acquisition experience, and significant finance, accounting and risk management knowledge.

As demonstrated above, Mr. Petersen has extensive experience as an executive of publicly-traded companies, and building and executing on strategic plans for fast growing software businesses. Mr. Petersen's initial focus will be on Diligent's long-term strategic plan and to build out best-in-class processes and infrastructure throughout the company to support its long-term growth.

Mr. David Liptak, Chairman of the Board, said: "Greg's depth of experience and expertise in the SaaS and Software industry has been a valued addition to the Diligent Board over the last 17 months. In his new role, we look forward to further benefiting from his expertise as the company continues to grow."

Mr. Petersen commented: "Diligent has a tremendous product, and has grown rapidly to have over 82,000 users in over 40 countries using the Diligent Boardbooks. I am looking forward to working more closely with the Diligent employees, customers and investors as we focus on our strategic growth initiatives to further grow the global user base."

About

Diligent Board Member Services, Inc. DIL, is the creator of the world's most widely used board portal. More than 2,500 organizations and 82,000 directors, executives and administrators in over 40 countries rely on the Diligent secure app to accelerate and simplify how board materials are produced, delivered, reviewed and voted on. For more information, please visit www.boardbooks.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements made in this press release that state Diligent's or management's intentions, beliefs, expectations, or predictions for the future are forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned that these statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results. All forward looking-statements are only as of the date of this press release and Diligent undertakes no obligation to update or revise them. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause Diligent's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. For example, if we do not successfully develop or introduce new product offerings, or enhancements to our existing Diligent Boardbooks offerings, or keep pace with technological changes that impact the use of our product offerings, or suffer security breaches or service interruptions, we may lose existing customers or fail to attract new customers and our financial performance and revenue growth may suffer. Factors which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements include, without limitation, economic, competitive, regulatory and technological factors affecting Diligent Board Member Services, Inc.'s operations, markets, products, services and other factors set forth in the Company's Risk Factors included in its Annual Report on Form 10-K/A filed with the SEC on May 20, 2014.