Valassis CIO Wins Crain's Detroit Business Inaugural CIO Award

LIVONIA, Mich., Aug. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Valassis (NYSE: VCI), one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, announced today that Steve Carrington, Valassis Chief Information Officer, has been honored in Crain's Detroit Business Chief Information Officer (CIO) award program, recognizing the top technology executives in metro Detroit. Carrington was chosen for driving revenue and efficiencies.

"I am honored to be a part of Crain's inaugural CIO recognition program," said Carrington. "This award recognizes the hard work of the entire Valassis organization in achieving great results. Our Information Technology (IT) associates are the real heroes who make these great things happen. I am privileged to lead a great team of people and be a part of a great organization." 

Under Carrington's leadership, Valassis has been the recipient of three innovation awards over the last two years, including InformationWeek's top 500 Innovators award in 2010 and 2011. In addition, Valassis was recently recognized by Alteryx, an IT and services company, as its most innovative customer in the use of their technology. Valassis has created more capabilities in-house and achieved more results, while simultaneously reducing its IT spend by 46% over the last four years.

Carrington has designed a highly effective organizational structure, created a high performing technology team, and utilized third-party providers more effectively than in the past. His team reduced cycle time from six weeks to less than five days for one of the company's most complex and transaction-intensive processes, which directly impacted revenue. The team has completed over 20 major projects in 2011 with a remarkable 94% success rate, compared to an estimated industry average of 35% success rate. Success was measured on meeting deadlines, adhering to budget and delivering the ROI identified at the beginning of each project.

"Steve recognizes the critical role technology plays in driving our business," said Rob Mason, Valassis President and Chief Executive Officer. "He's a collaborative leader who focuses on ideas, speed and building strong relationships based on trust and shared results."

This recognition meets a significant career objective Carrington had to achieve the CIO role for a major company, which brought him to Valassis almost five years ago. Carrington has 25 years of industry experience and has led the transformation of IT organizations into process-oriented, award-winning centers of excellence. Carrington has led the IT integration of major acquisitions for two large corporations as well as the global ERP implementations on four continents. Having worked in all parts of the world, Carrington has an appreciation and sensitivity to different cultures and values the great ideas that a diverse organization brings.

Carrington graduated with a business degree from Western Kentucky University and a Master's in Business Administration degree with a focus in international business from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His career before joining Valassis in 2008 included several senior IT leadership roles at Chemtura and Ingersoll Rand.

Carrington will speak at Crain's inaugural CIO "Transformations in Process: Innovation and the CIO" panel at the CIO awards event on Thursday, Sept. 27 at The Filmore in Detroit. For more information on the award, please visit www.crainsdetroit.com/cio.

About Valassis
Valassis is one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, offering unparalleled reach and scale to more than 15,000 advertisers. Its RedPlum® media portfolio delivers value on a weekly basis to over 100 million shoppers across a multi-media platform – in-home, in-store and in-motion. Through its digital offerings, including redplum.com and save.com, consumers can find compelling national and local deals. Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan with approximately 7,000 associates in 28 states and eight countries, Valassis is widely recognized for its associate and corporate citizenship programs, including its America's Looking for Its Missing Children® program. Valassis companies include Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., Valassis Canada, Promotion Watch, Valassis Relationship Marketing Systems, LLC, NCH Marketing Services, Inc. and Brand.net. For more information, visit http://www.valassis.com, http://www.redplum.com and http://www.save.com. To learn about advertising opportunities with RedPlum, please call 1-800-437-0479.

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This document contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following: price competition from our existing competitors; new competitors in any of our businesses; a shift in client preferences for different promotional materials, strategies or coupon delivery methods, including, without limitation, as a result of declines in newspaper circulation and/or increased competition from new media formats including digital; an unforeseen increase in paper or postal costs; changes which affect the businesses of our clients and lead to reduced sales promotion spending, including, without limitation, a decrease of marketing budgets which are generally discretionary in nature and easier to reduce in the short-term than other expenses; our substantial indebtedness, and ability to refinance such indebtedness, if necessary, and our ability to incur additional indebtedness, may affect our financial health; the financial condition, including bankruptcies, of our clients, suppliers, senior secured credit facility lenders or other counterparties; certain covenants in our debt documents could adversely restrict our financial and operating flexibility; fluctuations in the amount, timing, pages, weight and kinds of advertising pieces from period to period, due to a change in our clients' promotional needs, inventories and other factors, including, without limitation, high levels of coupon redemption rates; our failure to attract and retain qualified personnel may affect our business and results of operations; a rise in interest rates could increase our borrowing costs; possible governmental regulation or litigation affecting aspects of our business; clients experiencing financial difficulties, or otherwise being unable to meet their obligations as they become due, could affect our results of operations and financial condition; uncertainty in the application and interpretation of applicable state sales tax laws may expose us to additional sales tax liability; and general economic conditions, whether nationally, internationally, or in the market areas in which we conduct our business, including the adverse impact of the ongoing economic downturn on the marketing expenditures and activities of our clients and prospective clients as well as our vendors, with whom we rely on to provide us with quality materials at the right prices and in a timely manner. These and other risks and uncertainties related to our business are described in greater detail in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including our reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and the foregoing information should be read in conjunction with these filings.  We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Valassis

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