Ed Kotnik
Director of VDP
One sunny San Diego day in 1995, while surfing, Ed was approached by a Digital Color Sales Specialist for Xerox. After sharing a few waves and words, Ed explained that he had graduated with a double major in Computer Science and Religious Studies. Ed also mentioned that he was back in school earning a Digital Design and Publication certificate.
Impressed by Ed’s balance of critical thinking and graphic ability, the Xerox Rep soon had a job for Ed at Xerox as a Color & Network Analyst. During his 5 years with Xerox, Ed provided a unique combination of technical aptitude and personal communication skills.
Eventually, one of Ed’s customers, Anderson Print and Mail, decided to hire him where he became the Variable Print Specialist helping to morph Anderson Print and Mail into Anderson Direct Marketing. His time at Anderson provided Ed the opportunity to architect, manage, and build templates for DMValet, a Web2Print system, for procurement of 100% variable Direct Mail built on top of XMPie APIs.
Ed’s unique experience as vendor-turned-customer was the impetus behind his next move - to XMPie - where he again stepped into the Vendor space. As a salesforce.com user at XMPie, Ed was a conduit between customers and sales executives. Ed’s pragmatic approach helped to right-size many XMPie Personal Effect configurations. One such installation was at PrintSF, where Ed helped Mark Cira and his crew to justify and utilize XMPie’s solution.
And the more Ed studied the potential of VDP woven into CRM, the more he saw the transformation it would bring to how businesses publish and communicate. In Summer 2008, Ed joined Print Sf as Director of Variable Data Publishing.