HTK, a leading managed service provider of next-generation interactive voice and media solutions, with a key focus on the Telco and Public Sector markets, today announced the recent appointment of Chris Ford as Sales Director. Chris also joins the executive board of HTK.

Chris started his career in the Speech industry in 1992 and has spent the past 14 years specialising in the sales and marketing of speech technologies, applications and services. From 2002, Chris worked at ScanSoft in the position of Regional Sales Director Speech Technologies, covering the UK, Ireland and South African territories. Prior to that, Chris spent 10 years at Philips Speech Processing where he sold solutions for the telephony, embedded and PC markets. Before joining HTK, Chris co-founded XoVox where he maintains a non-executive Directorship.

Commenting on the appointment, Marlon Bowser, HTK Managing Director said:

"Chris has an outstanding track record and pedigree, much of it gained in the Speech industry with large Telco engagements and latterly in the Public Sector, both key markets for HTK. After several years of solid growth, with a number of recent large wins and with a strong market vision for the future, HTK is set to expand quite rapidly in the next two years. To help build on our past success and achieve our long-term strategy, I'm delighted to welcome Chris to the board and management team of HTK."

Chris Ford said:

"It is a credit to the existing team at HTK that the company has continued to outperform expectations quarter on quarter in a telecoms market place that is going through massive change. Agility, business acumen and an open standards approach to application deployment and infrastructure enhancements, across multiple contact channels, has kept HTK, as a hosted services vendor, ahead of the pack. Recent successes have helped define the future vision and strategy for the company and I am excited to be fully engaged with the next phase of HTK's accelerating growth plans."