U.K. company expands into North America, headquarters in Dayton region

(DAYTON, Ohio) — A leading British database management and analytics firm announced today its expansion into North America through the formation of a wholly owned American company, Qbase LLC, to be headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with offices also in Washington, D.C.

Bill Pardue, chief executive officer and founder of the new venture, said Qbase has launched operations in Ohio already and will employ a dozen people by year's end. "Qbase Data Services, our British affiliate, for many years supported American clients in European operations but couldn't accommodate requests for stateside services - until now."

Both the U.S. and U.K. Qbase firms offer products and services in three key areas: data management to normalize and distribute data; data analysis such as predictive modeling and scoring; and online tools for decision support.

Qbase Data Services Ltd., based in Warrington, England, near Manchester,
is privately held by founders Anita and Ian Johnstone. Their company currently manages data projects that involve delivery of information to every country in the world, except the United States.

The firm's 150-plus clients include publishers Newsweek and McGraw Hill Inc., leading business-training firm SkillPath, Macmillan Cancer Relief of Great Britain, retail giant Staples, European media firms BSkyB and EMAP and the Royal National Lifeboats charity.

Ian Johnstone said the timing is perfect for an expansion to meet U.S. market demands. "We have undergone significant growth after adding new infrastructure, expanding online customer connections and broadening other key services," Johnstone said. "The background and skills of Bill and his team -- in the database business, information technology generally and newspaper publishing -- made them the perfect fit to bring our solutions to the States."

Pardue formerly was president & chief executive officer of the U.S. Corporate & Federal Markets division of LexisNexis, the global information provider based in Miamisburg, Ohio, and was president of Gartner Intelligence, a division of IT market-research firm Gartner Inc. He also was an executive with The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun newspapers. While at LexisNexis, Pardue was active in Dayton civic leadership, especially economic development and the arts.

Pardue said Qbase in the U.S. plans initially to focus on serving non-profit and higher education markets, then move into media. "These sectors are under-served technologically," he said. "They generally are swamped with information that must be organized and utilized to help rather than overwhelm them. Qbase delivers the strategies, know-how and systems to harness their data for better decision-making."

Qbase anticipates creating more than 100 jobs in IT, sales, marketing and administration in Ohio within the next three years. It will move next month into
7,200 square feet of office space in The Acropolis in Beavercreek, Ohio, an office campus near Fairfield Commons.

"We will build on Dayton's great history of innovation and amazing entrepreneurial spirit," Pardue said. "There's tremendous depth of talent here to launch new enterprises." He said that members of the Qbase leadership team and their
families own the company.

Qbase chose the Dayton Region to base its company after visiting several potential sites outside Ohio. Beverly Parker, also a Qbase founder and its chief marketing officer, said elected officials and the Dayton Development Coalition were instrumental in the decision.

"Congressman David Hobson and Senator Mike DeWine met with us on short notice in Washington," she said. "Their passion about making Ohio a great place for entrepreneurs and their commitment to the Dayton Region made all the difference."

Qbase also consulted with Coalition leaders. "Frankly, we were set on basing our operations in suburban Washington before that visit," said Parker, who lives just outside D.C., in Annapolis, Md. "The Coalition demonstrated clearly why the Dayton Region made more sense for us -- from the quality of its workforce to community and business support. They just did a great job selling this region."