Vyke has appointed Kim Berknov as chief executive, effective from April 1.
The announcement came as the VoIP service provider forecast it will meet market expectations for 2009.
However, Vyke, which had expected to have a positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) figure by the end of 2008, said it now expected a loss of GBP 3.5 million for 2008, before exceptional costs of GBP 1.75 million.
It expects a 46 per cent rise in gross billings to GBP 39 million for 2008.
Despite this, Tommy Jensen, executive chairman of Vyke, said prospects for 2009 were encouraging with the company benefitting from acquisitions and a new product.
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| Tommy Jensen, executive chairman Vyke |
"Trading in the current year has started strongly with the full effect of the cost synergies related to the acquisition of Callserve and Iios being realised during the first half of 2009," he said.
The company expects to release its multi-channel Vyke Air platform, a new mobile service, next month.
Earlier this month Vyke announced it had formed a partnership with mobile social networking company Nimbuzz.
The move is intended to build upon the strengths of both Vyke and Nimbuzz by combining the former’s paid mVoIP service with the latter’s mobile peer to peer mobile social messaging and VoIP services.
Vyke, which provides VoIP mobile services, expects gross billings for 2009 to be no less than GBP 70 million pounds (USD $97.49 million), with an EBITDA of at least GBP 3 million pounds.
The company said this will include an expected continued growth rate of around 3,000 paid users per day.
Berknov is currently managing director of Structured Investment Products plc and Evergreen Capital Partners Limited and holds a number of non-executive board positions in private companies.
He has previously held positions as executive vice president of Aldata Solution Oyj and managing director of Digital Mountain AG, TransConnect Corporate Finance GmbH and GE Capital IT Solutions.
Before joining those companies, Berknov was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and previously held international sales and marketing positions at both AT&T and NCR Corporation.
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