|
Who's in and who's out
|
 |
July 20, 1998: 12:33 p.m. ET
Novera has a new CEO; Kleiner Perkins nabs a Microsoft executive
|
SAN FRANCISCO (The Red Herring) - Sybase CEO Mitchell Kertzmann, explaining why the database maker still hadn't hired a new marketing chief, ruefully told a crowd of reporters on an earnings conference call Wednesday that "senior marketing executives are the hardest people in the industry to find, because they're getting so many CEO opportunities."
"I guess I'm a data point," says Dave Power, the new chief executive officer at Java startup Novera. "(But) there are all kinds of CEO opportunities, of high and low quality. This one is just a very good fit."
Formerly senior vice president of marketing at Security Dynamics, Power is taking over from company founder Herb Rush, who's staying on to direct the company's technology strategy. (Luckily for Power, the company already has a VP of marketing: Dave Butler joined the Burlington, Massachusetts-based company from Netscape in February.)
"I reached a certain level of accomplishment at Security Dynamics, and was thinking about the next thing I wanted to do within the company," says Power. "But along came Novera." Administrative chief Martha Grove, who had worked with Power at Nets.Inc, called him up last summer and told him the company was looking for a CEO. He talked with Rush about working with the company, but the time wasn't right last year to leave Security Dynamics, says Power.
The company's backers are thrilled. "We had our eye on him for some time," says Ted Dintersmith, a general partner at Charles River Ventures and a Novera board member. "It took us about 27 minutes to get it all sorted out. It was an easy decision all around."
With Power's marketing experience, Novera's challenge seems straightforward: "I'm going to focus on positioning us in a crowded industry. There are a lot of players, and it's not clear who's doing what." After Sun's purchase of NetDynamics, the Java applications server market is heating up; Novera's new CEO will have to jockey for position.
Blank Slate
Michael Kinsley, after notoriously tangling with Si Newhouse, is staying at Slate, but his thousand indecisions and revisions may have proved the final straw for a Microsoft executive charged with overseeing the hopelessly unprofitable subscription-only Web site. Peter Neupert has reportedly left to serve as CEO-in-residence at an unnamed Kleiner Perkins-backed startup. He's following in the footsteps of Russ Siegelman, the former head of the Microsoft Network, who became a KPCB partner in 1996.
3Com welcomes ex-Digital exec
3Com named Bruce Claflin its president and chief operating officer, a new position created for the former senior vice president of sales and marketing at Digital Equipment. Reporting to 3Com CEO Eric Benhamou, Claflin will no doubt massage the networking equipment maker's messaging while Benhamou ponders how to compete with the likes of Cisco, Lucent, and Nortel -- and how to keep talented executives like Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, who recently bolted 3Com's Palm Computing subsidiary to start their own handheld hardware company.
No word on whether Claflin will put down roots in Santa Clara; when he resigned from Digital in April, with the company's merger with Compaq looming, he claimed that a reluctance to relocate his family to Houston prevented him from accepting a job with the hardware maker.
Salon's executive suite gets new 'do
Salon Magazine, the Apple- and Adobe-backed online publication, has shaken up its executive ranks. Founder Andrew Ross, formerly managing editor, has crossed the Chinese wall to become vice president of business development and strategy. David Weir, former content chief at Wired Digital, ousted earlier this year as that network continued to bleed money, was named managing editor and VP of content. Chad Dickerson, the new VP of technology, is a veteran of CNN and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Liza Parker, who managed New York sales, is now VP of advertising.
Talent pool
The Disney-Starwave-Infoseek trifecta didn't leave room for Disney Online President Richard Wolpert, who has left to pursue "other interests" ... Yet another Network Associates executive has bailed out of the network security giant: Richard Kreysar left to become Web hit-counter Accrue's CEO ... Frank Joyce, formerly of publisher Reed Elsevier PLC, has joined TheGlobe.com as chief financial officer ... Spyglass has given former Tribune Company Chairman Charles Brumback a board seat ... Quarterdeck's board booted CEO Curt Hessler; board member King Lee, will serve as interim president at the moribund software maker ... Peter Dunning has left German software maker SAP's North American subsidiary to join Oracle as a senior sales VP, tackling the applications market ... Mockingbird Networks has named Rick Pierson director of business development ... Tom Blaisdell, a former Intuit exec, is Encanto Networks' new VP of marketing. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
