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Month: July 2018

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Innovation Fuels InfoSec Institute’s Record Performance for First-Half 2018

InfoSec Institute, the leading provider of IT security education and workforce security awareness training solutions, today announced record revenue growth, development achievements and staff expansion through the first half of 2018. Both of the company’s business lines, SecurityIQ security awareness training and InfoSec Flex professional IT and security education, demonstrated remarkable gains.

Security Awareness Innovations Spur Impressive SecurityIQ Growth

SecurityIQ’s 1H2018 revenue grew 81% compared to same period last year. Catapulting this growth were several innovations unveiled since the start of the year to help clients combat cyber attacks’ growing sophistication:

Learner Assessments – pre-built and customizable quizzes test learner comprehension, uncover training needs and validate learner participation
BEC Defense Suite – training toolkit educates staff to recognize business email compromise attacks and allows administrators to detect sensitive information shared in failed simulations
Hundreds of New Education Assets – expanded Security Awareness Content Library keeps employees cyber-sharp with new training resources for privacy BEC, GDPR, PHI and HIPAA compliance, security champions and much more
PhishyDomains™ – built-in domain registration enables immediate creation of phishing simulations to train learners how to identify typosquatting
CDN Support – a SecurityIQ exclusive, integrated support accelerates page load times and cuts bandwidth consumption for the best online experience, especially for global learning teams
Launch of InfoSec Flex Pro Spikes Online Course Enrollments

InfoSec Institute’s flagship training courses for IT and security professionals saw similar first-half success. In the past twelve months, the company trained and credentialed nearly 8,500 students, a 24% year-over-year increase.

Instrumental to training revenue growth was the release of InfoSec Flex Pro, the Institute’s next generation of its award-winning, online training format. Since Flex Pro’s June launch, live online course enrollments grew an unprecedented 32%. Powered by InfoSec Flex Center, an immersive assessment and live-streaming platform, Flex Pro courses are designed for today’s busy professionals with courseware personalized to how, when and where they learn best.

Staffing Doubles to Meet Growth

To accommodate its accelerated growth, InfoSec Institute added staff across all departments – doubling its headcount over last year and opening a second Madison, Wisconsin sales office.

“Social engineering, phishing and ransomware no longer discriminate – putting organizations of all sizes and industries at risk. Our team’s singular focus is providing the best education solutions to keep all organizations and their employees safe from more frequent and malicious attacks,” said Jack Koziol, InfoSec Institute’s CEO and founder. “I’m very proud of every InfoSec team member’s passionate contributions toward this goal. I look forward to our growing company achieving exceptional milestones in 2H2018 as well.”

InfoSec Institute Scores Industry Recognitions and Awards

Named a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training based on 80 verified client ratings and averaging 4.7 out of 5 stars
Recognized as the Security Training & Education Program Gold Winner in Info Security Products Guide’s 2018 Global Excellence Awards
Named to Trainingindustry.com’s “Top 20 IT Training Companies” and “Online Learning Library Companies Watch List”
About InfoSec Institute

InfoSec Institute fortifies organizations of all sizes against security threats with award-winning information security education. Recognizing cybersecurity is everyone’s job, the company provides skills development and certification training for IT and security professionals while building the entire workforce’s security aptitude through awareness training and phishing simulations. Recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training, InfoSec Institute is also a Training Industry “Top 20 IT Training Company” and the Security Training & Education Program Gold Winner in Info Security Products Guide’s Global Excellence Awards.

About Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice

Peer Insights is an online platform of ratings and reviews of IT software and services that are written and read by IT professionals and technology decision-makers. The goal is to help IT leaders make more insightful purchase decisions and help technology providers improve their products by receiving objective, unbiased feedback from their customers. Gartner Peer Insights includes more than 70,000 verified reviews in more than 200 markets. For more information, please visit www.gartner.com/reviews/home. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice distinctions are determined by the subjective opinions of individual end-user customers based on their own experiences, the number of published reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, and overall ratings for a given vendor in the market, as further described here, and are not intended in any way to represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Contact

Kristin Zurovitch

Director Corporate Communications, InfoSec Institute

608.960.7337

kristin.zurovitch@infosecinstitute.com

Photo by Richard Hurd

Savant Continues to be Recognized as a Top Investment and Accounting Leader

CONTACT: Catherine Povalitis, Chartwell Agency, cpovalitis@chartwell-agency.com, 779-537-1282

Savant Continues to be Recognized as a Top Investment and Accounting Leader

Industry trade publications release national rankings of top RIA and CPA firms in 2018

MADISON, Wis. (July 24, 2018) – Savant Capital Management, a nationally-recognized fee-only wealth management firm headquartered in Rockford, IL, with locations in Madison and Park Falls, WI; Chicago, Freeport, Geneva, Hoffman Estates, Naperville, Peoria, Sterling, and Wilmette, IL; and McLean, VA, has been recognized by Financial Advisor, Financial Times, and InvestmentNews as a leading Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm and by Accounting Today as one of the nation’s leading CPA firms by assets under management (AUM).

Financial Advisor magazine has ranked Savant #48 in its 2018 list of top RIA firms – climbing five spots from 2017. The list includes more than 700 RIAs from across the nation and is based on a survey of the firms’ discretionary AUM. This is the tenth consecutive year Savant has made the list. To view the complete list, click here.

Additionally, Savant has been named to the Financial Times’ “FT 300: Top Registered Investment Advisers” list for 2018. The firm is one of 21 Illinois RIA firms to be recognized. The results of the list were based on AUM, asset growth rate, the firm’s longevity, compliance record, industry certifications, and online accessibility. This is the fifth year that Savant has been recognized. Click here to view the complete list.

The firm also was named by financial trade publication InvestmentNews as one of its 2018 nationwide ranking of leading RIA firms. Savant ranked #47 on the comprehensive list of more than 2,100 firms. The list is based on total AUM and is the eleventh time Savant has been recognized. To view the full list, click here.

Accounting Today magazine has ranked Savant for the sixth time in its “Top Wealth Magnet” list. Advancing one spot from 2017, Savant was named #4 out of 150 leading CPA financial planning firms in the United States. Savant is part of the “Billion Dollar Club” category based on AUM. Today, the firm manages nearly $6 billion in assets for its clients. Click here for the complete list.

“We are honored by the ongoing recognition we have received from the industry’s leading trade media, and are proud to be listed alongside the nation’s leading RIA and accounting firms,” said Brent Brodeski, CEO of Savant. “Our success is a direct reflection of Team Savant’s dedication to helping build ideal futures for our clients and the communities we serve.”

For more information about Savant Capital Management, visit savantcapital.com.

About Savant Capital Management

Savant Capital Management is a leading independent, nationally-recognized, fee-only firm serving clients for 30 years with nearly $6 billion in assets under management. As a trusted advisor, Savant Capital Management offers investment management, financial planning, retirement plan and family office services to financially established individuals and institutions. Savant also offers corporate accounting, tax preparation, payroll and consulting through its affiliate, Savant Tax & Consulting.

Savant is regularly recognized among the top wealth managers in the United States. Savant was the recipient of the 2015 Best-in-Business IMPACT Award™, part of Schwab’s IMPACT Awards® program to recognize excellence in the business of independent financial advice. Savant has consistently received other industry recognitions including recently being featured on the Forbes’ top 200 financial advisors list, the Barron’s top 20 independent advisory firms list, being named the #9 rated RIA firm by Financial

Planning magazine, and included in additional top advisors lists by Financial Advisor magazine and InvestmentNews.

Savant Capital Management is a Registered Investment Advisor. Savant’s marketing material should not be construed by any existing or prospective client as a guarantee that they will experience a certain level of results if they engage Savant’s services and may include lists or rankings published by magazines and

other sources which are generally based exclusively on information prepared and submitted by the recognized advisor. Click here for more information about Savant or to view our Important Disclosures.

Savant Capital Management and its employees are independent of and are not employees or agents of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (“Schwab”). Schwab does not prepare, verify or endorse information distributed by Savant Capital Management. The Best-in-Business IMPACT Award™ is not an endorsement, testimonial endorsement, recommendation or referral to Savant Capital Management with respect to its investment advisory and other services.

Photo by Richard Hurd

Chamber Announces Finalists for Pressure Chamber

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (July 24, 2018)

Contact: Erik Greenfield, Communications Manager, 608-443-1952 (office), 608-669-7884 (cell)

MADISON – Today the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce announced the five finalists competing in this year’s Pressure Chamber startup program, which returns Aug. 16 to kick off Forward Festival, an eight-day celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation in Madison. The popular initiative includes participation and support from active regional investment firms, as well as the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

Pressure Chamber is a “Shark Tank”-style contest in which emerging companies will pitch in front of a panel of regional investors, business executives and a live audience. The winning company is decided based on a combination of judges’ scoring and audience votes.

The 2018 Pressure Chamber finalists are:

  • AmebaGone – Harnesses the power of the soil microbiome to develop safe, sustainable solutions to treat plant disease.
  • Breathe For Change – Co-creates the global education system of the future in which all students and teachers unleash the potential of their mind, body and spirit, with trainings that certify educators as experts in wellness and social-emotional learning and a platform that empowers teachers to transform their lives, relationships and communities.
  • DataChat – Democratizes data analytics by allowing users to glean insights from data by simply holding a conversation with a chatbot in plain English and enabling business users to “drive” through data using a (patented) conversational approach, discovering patterns they couldn’t have before and in a timely fashion.
  • GymDandy – Helps parks, schools and sport complexes sell, schedule and manage their athletic space online, making booking a gym, field, diamond, rink or court as easy as booking a hotel room.
  • LÜM – A social music discovery application that focuses exclusively on the growth of emerging artists and gamifies music streaming for the next generation of fans and musicians.

“Greater Madison is Ground Level for the Next Big Thing, and the innovative startups who will compete at this year’s Pressure Chamber prove it,” said Chamber President Zach Brandon. “Following the recent acquisition of inaugural champion Fishidy and other past Pressure Chamber winners having closed successful funding roads, we look forward to experiencing even more of what makes this the region’s apex live pitch contest.”

The winning company receives the coveted “golden suitcase,” a trip to San Francisco this October as part of the Chamber’s exclusive Madison-area startup delegation for meetings with top Silicon Valley investment firms. Past Pressure Chamber winners have credited the initiative for helping their company close successful funding rounds. Additionally, Pressure Chamber has been recognized by both the International Economic Development Council and Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest Summit as an entrepreneurship and economic development best practice. Participating companies have included EatStreet, Propeller Health, Redox, Datica, Fetch Rewards, HealthMyne, Cardigan, AkitaBox, Moxe, DotCom Therapy, Fishidy, bluDiagnostics, POLCO and more.

Pressure Chamber returns this year as part of neXXpo, a showcase of some of Greater Madison’s most exciting companies that includes attendee voting for the third annual Most Innovative Company (MIC) award. To register for these events, visit http://greatermadisonchamber.com/programs-events/nexxpo/

Pressure Chamber is presented by Michael Best & Friedrich, with support from the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, American Family Ventures, Baird Capital, 4490 Ventures, HealthX Ventures, Lindsay Stone & Briggs and Rock River Capital Partners.

Pressure Chamber finalists are available for interviews upon request.

For more information about Forward Fest, please visit http://www.forwardfest.org/

About the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce:
The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce is the voice of business with nearly 1,300 organizations – ranging from one-person shops to corporations with more than 10,000 employees – working to bring the Greater Madison area to its full potential. The Greater Madison region is a leader in innovation. From cutting-edge technologies to distinctive retail shops to inventive services and products, our members vary greatly but are united by the region’s entrepreneurial spirit. More information can be found at greatermadisonchamber.com.

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Photo by Richard Hurd

Packers, WPS Health Solutions present ‘Operation Fan Mail’ for 2018

Operation Fan Mail, the program that recognizes military families and veterans at each Packers home game, will mark its 12th season in 2018, and the 10th year it has been presented by WPS Health Solutions or its affiliates.

The program, which debuted in 2007, is designed to honor families with a member who is on active duty, or a member who is a veteran. The Packers and WPS Health Solutions will host a family at each 2018 home game and recognize the members on the field during pregame activities. A total of 107 families have been saluted during the past 10 seasons.

“We are proud to honor members of the military, veterans and their families through Operation Fan Mail this year for the 12th season,” said Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy. “We salute these brave men and women, along with their loved ones, for their courage, dedication and sacrifice. We are looking forward to recognizing them and thanking them for their service at Lambeau Field this season.”

“WPS Health Solutions is proud to partner with the Packers for the 10th consecutive year as they mark their 100th season of football in Green Bay,” said Scott Kowalski, WPS Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development. “Through Operation Fan Mail, the Packers and WPS express appreciation to the men and women of the U.S. military for their commitment to defending freedom and their countless sacrifices for our nation. We look forward to another season of exciting Packers football while we support our armed forces.”

The Packers and WPS Health Solutions are asking interested families, or friends of eligible families, to submit an essay, 500 words or less, on why a particular family should be saluted.

Essays can be sent to Operation Fan Mail, P.O. Box 10628, Green Bay, WI, 54307-0628 or online at http://nfl.packers.com/gameday/gameday_promotions/operation_fan_mail/.

Families intended for recognition are those that have a member serving on active duty, or a member who is a veteran. The family member can be a spouse, mother, father, son, daughter or sibling.

In addition to being recognized on-field prior to the game, selected families will receive four tickets to the game and a $150 Packers Pro Shop gift card courtesy of WPS Health Solutions.

About WPS Health Solutions

WPS Health Solutions is a nationally regarded government contractor and a leading Wisconsin not-for-profit health insurer. The WPS Health Insurance division offers affordable health plans and benefits administration. The WPS Government Health Administrators division administers Part A and B Medicare benefits for millions of seniors in multiple states, and the WPS Military and Veterans Health division serves millions more members who are active in the U.S. military, veterans and their families. In 2018, the international Ethisphere® Institute named WPS one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies® for the ninth straight year. For more information, please visit wpshealthsolutions.com.

WPS contact: Tom Enwright, thomas.enwright@wpsic.com, 608-977-7165

Photo by Richard Hurd

UW-Madison Entrepreneurs Create the Next Generation Streaming App to Focus on Emerging Artists

On August 17th, social music discovery and streaming platform, Live Undiscovered Music, will release their application on iOS to shine a light on emerging artists around the nation.

Currently, more than 99 percent of audio streaming is of the top 10 percent most-streamed tracks. A team of UW-Madison students and alumni developed the LÜM platform in partnership with industry experts and artists. The application uses the music community as an interactive A&R machine to see early developments in music trends. Fans and communities, not corporations, are the ones who drive music discovery.

LÜM Press Release