Acumen Digital Appoints Innovative Tech Veterans to Senior Positions at Solution Centers

DENVER - Nov. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- DENVER—Nov. 17, 2014—Innovation-focused software company Acumen Digital has appointed seasoned tech leaders Jerad Harbaugh and Davyd Smith to key senior posts.

Founded by well-known Colorado-based business and technology leader Michael Marcotte, Acumen Digital ensures the fast delivery and execution of innovative, forward-thinking and effective, revenue-generating tech projects by Fortune 500 companies, offering applications for current and next-generation platforms.  Incorporating Marcotte’s long-held values of commitment to community and involvement, Acumen Digital’s solution centers and innovation labs are located in Denver and Boulder in partnership with Galvanize (http://www.galvanize.it/#welcome) and gSchool (http://www.galvanize.it/school/#main).

“Watching Acumen grow under Mike’s leadership and within in the Galvanize community is a great example of how community leaders can collaborate to fuel new business creation and jobs,” said Jim Deters, CEO of Galvanize. “Acumen has become a strategic hiring partner of our gSchool students, providing the necessary talent to fuel their growth and providing amazing opportunities and outcomes for our students.”

Smith is a nationally recognized expert in large-corporation billing systems, complex customer-facing Web and mobile applications and big-data analytics.

Harbaugh is among the most recognized connected device experts, from iOS to Android to Xbox platforms to highly complex customer-facing systems. He is one of the country’s most recognized leaders in mobile, connected device and user interface (UI) design.  Their teams will work with Acumen Digital’s innovation partners on an array of initiatives.

“Jerad and Davyd have established reputations as senior innovators in mobility, security, billing, and user experience and have built unmatched platform designs for content delivery systems,” Marcotte said. “I’m thrilled to welcome them to the Acumen Digital team and look forward to expanding the scope and reach of our work together.”

Three core beliefs drive Acumen Digital’s business:

•   Without innovation, big corporations wither.

•   Solution centers succeed fast and identify challenges quickly, because they are intellectually competent, creative and work in small, nimble teams.

•   Such centers deliver more innovation for less cost and more quickly than large corporate departments.

“Innovation is one of the single greatest barriers to establishing corporate success, because it requires a change in thinking,” Marcotte said. “Under Jerad and Davyd, our teams will work to ensure that our innovation labs can maximize revenue opportunity without being sidelined by the day-to-day challenges and responsibilities for major companies.”

Most recently, Harbaugh served in a senior leadership role for user-experience and digital platforms at Starz, where he supervised development of more than two dozen TV Everywhere platforms for Starz Play, Encore Play, Movieplex Play and Vongo. He also worked for Cdigix, and was a co-founder of BigRemark and founder of JHARBS Consulting.

“I’m grateful to have worked at Starz, a company with a great culture, one that nurtures technical and managerial development and promotes collaboration,” Harbaugh said.

Smith previously served as information technology executive for EchoStar for five years. He was responsible for technology governance and business integration in customer-facing systems, leaving the publicly traded satellite provider to join Acumen Digital.

Smith’s many accomplishments at EchoStar—where he was a direct report to the chief digital officer—included launching IT and operation systems in Taiwan for DISH HD-Asia premium-HD video, negotiating multimillion-dollar contracts with Fortune 100 companies and managing numerous customer-facing next-generation mobile and Web-based systems.

“It was wonderful to work with an amazing technology company, founded by one of the leading technology innovators of our era, Charlie Ergen,” Smith said.

About Acumen Digital

Acumen Digital is a leading-edge software technology and applications development company.  It builds in innovation at its off-site solution centers and innovation labs to help large corporations get ahead of the competition.  The work philosophy of never-ending mentorship has created a dynamic, renewable workforce for non-stop innovative delivery.

For more information, visit www.acumendigital.com.