Advanticom is excited to formally announce that a successful ownership transition was completed at the end of May. The acquisition from current owner Brian Conboy was executed by a group of Advanticom’s employees, which is what makes this story stand out when compared to the trend of local IT firms selling to private equity backed national Managed Service Providers. Keith Arnold, the new President and CEO, as well as majority shareholder, will be leading the ownership team that includes three other minority shareholders who have all been working together for the past eight years. Joining Keith as new shareholders are Jason Fink, Jonathan Geyer, and Rob Rech.
At the end of 2021, Brian had approached Keith, who had been running the day-to-day operations at Advanticom for the last few years, about the potential opportunity to acquire the firm. For Keith, it was an easy decision to embrace the opportunity for one simple reason: he understands how unique the team at Advanticom is and how much everyone at the firm believes in its mission. It has a lot to do with Advanticom’s culture of accountability.
Per Keith, “For the last five years we have been building something very special at Advanticom: the tenure and comradery that we have among our Senior Engineering team. The years spent working side by side in the trenches has formed a level of trust that will set us up for success in the years to come. The Managed Services marketplace is evolving, with an increasing focus around IT security. Today, businesses want to work with an MSP that has security focused engineers and an operational maturity that exceeds the capabilities of the traditional MSP. We anticipated this transition several years ago and have been building our capacity to a level that positions Advanticom as a leader in the marketplace. It’s an exciting opportunity to lead a company with this level of talent and vision.”
Keith Arnold, President & CEO
Some additional insight on the new shareholders joining Keith as part of the Executive Leadership Team:
Jason Fink, Advanticom’s Director of Cloud Services, has been with the company for 12 years. He serves as the organization’s Microsoft Practice Manager and Risk Assessment manager for the ISO27001 practice. Jason’s primary focus is architecting and implementing Microsoft’s cloud solutions, including Office 365 and Azure. He has managed Advanticom’s Microsoft Partnership and Cloud Solution Partner (CSP) program since 2015.
Jonathan Geyer, Advanticom’s Director of Security Services, has been with the company for 8 years and has worked in the industry for over 15 years. Jonathan’s focus has always involved networking and security services in various consulting, corporate support, management, and development roles. As Director of Security Services, Jonathan will continue to lead the incident response and managed security services teams, in addition to advise on and architect client’s networking initiatives.
Rob Rech, Advanticom’s Director of Infrastructure Services, is the organization’s longest tenured partner at 17 years with the organization. Rob serves as Advanticom’s Business Continuity Plan Owner, Problem Management Process Owner, and is a Security Incident Response team member. Rob’s areas of focus are architecting and implementing solutions in virtualization, storage, Windows server, disaster recovery, business continuity, backups, and business operation restoration following a security incident.
Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, Advanticom, Inc. is a locally owned and operated Managed Services and IT Security Consultancy firm that has been in business for 25+ years. Advanticom is an ISO 27001 certified IT service provider and our entire staff is 100% ITIL certified. Advanticom serves hundreds of Pittsburgh and Western PA based clients as an outsourced IT consulting firm. Our trust is built on the back of our operational maturity, accreditations, and our talented staff.