Jim Manzi

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Jim Manzi (born, 1951) is the former Chairman, President and CEO of Lotus Development Corporation and is currently a private investor in various technology start-up ventures.

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[edit] Early career

Manzi received his B.A. in Classics from Colgate University in 1973, and later received his M.A. in International Relations from Fletcher School. His wife Glenda(a former three time Emmy award winning public television documentary producer) was a reporter at Westchester-Rockland, N.Y., Newspapers, which is how he met her.[1] Later, Manzi worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked extensively with Fortune 500 clients as well as offshore clients in Latin America, Europe and Asia.[2]

[edit] Lotus

In 1982 Manzi went to Lotus Development Corporation as a consultant for McKinsey and Company and became an employee three months later. In 1984, he became President and two years later became Chairman and CEO succeeding founder Mitchell Kapor who had been concentrating exclusively on products like Jazz and Agenda for two years.

Manzi's most notable contribution at Lotus was steering the company from desktop applications (i.e. Lotus 1-2-3) towards collaborative software, also known as groupware or workgroup computing software (i.e. Lotus Notes). In the spring of 1995 IBM launched a hostile bid for Lotus with a $60-per-share tender offer, when Lotus' stock was only trading at $32. Manzi looked for potential white knights, and forced IBM to increase its bid to $64.50 per share, for a $3.5 billion buyout of Lotus.[3] On October 11, 1995 Manzi announced his resignation from the Lotus Development division of IBM.

[edit] Career after Lotus

Since 1995, with his investment company, Stonegate Capital, Manzi has been involved in the creation and development of a number of technology start-up ventures.[4]

In January, 1996, Manzi took over as CEO of Industry.Net, a company attempting to develop an electronic marketplace for buyers and sellers of industrial parts. He had been brought in by the company's founder, Donald Jones. The company changed its name to Nets, Inc., and in June 1996, they merged with AT&T's New Media Services, an online information provider, hoping to lure AT&T's clients into using their company's services. However, by May 9, 1997 he announced to employees that Net, Inc. had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[5]. On May 25, 2000, Manzi was appointed to the board of directors of Interwise. He went on to become chairman of Interwise, a web- and voice conferencing company. In 2000, Manzi was also appointed to the board of directors of Thermo Electron Corporation, and became chairman of the board at Thermo in December 2003, succeeding Richard Syron. He is involved in several other companies including Freshdirect in NYC where he is a board member and early investor.

Manzi made a headlines in 1999 as a high-profile fundraiser for Presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

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[edit] References

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