Nicolaas Vlok
President and Chief Executive Officer

Nicolaas Vlok's entrepreneurial career began at age 14 when he started selling computer hardware. At the age of 21, while studying engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, he started TST, a computer hardware and network integration company. TST thrived off Mr. Vlok's unique mix of business acumen and technical skills. His passion and knowledge for IT were the building blocks of his visionary thinking. In the next three years, before going public, the company had zero gearing, was cash flow positive and returned a profit every year.

Mr. Vlok rebranded the business IDION and in August 1998 listed IDION Technology Holdings on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Financial Mail rated IDION as the best IT listing of 1998. At age 25, Vlok was the youngest CEO of a listed company in South Africa.

As IDION continued to grow, Mr. Vlok's focus shifted to solutions and services. He set his sight on turning the company into an international software developer that could meet the growing needs for high availability through world-class software and services. Through four strategic acquisitions, Mr. Vlok started building IDION into a proprietary software solutions business. This marked an important leap into the international arena that lead to IDION's acquisition of U.S.-based Vision Solutions, Inc. Since the acquisition, he has led Vision Solutions to become a force in the industry providing information availability management solutions to customers around the world.