This afternoon we will be announcing the appointment of Charles Siegel as the new non-executive chair of ALM's Board of Directors.  Charlie's primary assignment will be to work with me and other members of senior management on strategic and long-term planning issues.  In addition, he will act as a liaison between us and our investors.  His involvement with ALM will be a few days per month, and his focus will be on key projects rather than our day-to-day operations.

Charlie comes to this assignment having recently retired as the president of the Academic & Professional Publishing Group at Cengage Learning.  He has held senior management positions in the past at Thomson Learning and Primedia.  Charlie will bring to his ALM assignment a good deal of experience in the transformation of print-oriented traditional publishers to the world of digital information.

Charlie joins a board that also includes two partners at Apax Partners (Stephen Grabiner and Marcelo Gigliani), a partner at DLA Piper (Roger Meltzer) plus two members of ALM's senior management team (myself and our CFO, Eric Lundberg). 

A press release covering Charlie's appointment should be available later this afternoon.