IMHO, PLRX has a more experienced management team than Drugstore.com. Check out this line-up as of 7/15/99...
<<Bill Razzouk
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Bill Razzouk, CEO, brings to PlanetRx more than 23 years of domestic and international leadership experience in customer service, sales, marketing, and teambuilding.
Bill is best known for his 13-year career at Federal Express. He began as vice president of sales for the Electronic Products Division and ultimately rose to the position of executive vice president of worldwide customer operations. In this chief operating officer position, Bill had full profit-and-loss responsibility for the $11 billion, 100,000-employee company. His mandate included planning and executing all operations, sales, marketing, and customer service functions. Bill led the company's re-imaging campaign, which included changing the name and logo of Federal Express to "FedEx" and implementing the re-imaging throughout the FedEx system.
Prior to joining FedEx in 1982, Bill was vice president and general manager for ROLM Corporation in Dallas, Texas. From 1978 to 1982, he held the position of vice president of sales and customer service at Micom Information Systems/Philips Electronics, a start-up that he helped build into an $85 million company in three years. Bill started his career at Xerox, where he worked for seven years.
Today, Bill sits on the board of directors for Fritz Companies, Inc. and Waste Connections, Inc. He has served on the boards of three other public companies -- Cordis Corporation, Sanifill Inc., and La Quinta Inns, Inc. prior to their mergers with Johnson & Johnson, USA Waste Inc., and Meditrust, Inc., respectively.
Immediately prior to joining PlanetRx as CEO, Bill was president and COO of Storage USA, a real estate investment trust, where he was responsible for all of their operations. He also acted as a consultant to Advanta Corporation, and had a brief stint as president and COO of America Online.
Bill holds a BA in journalism and marketing from the University of Georgia.
Steve Valenzuela
Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Steve Valenzuela, vice president of finance and CFO, has responsibility for all financial operations at PlanetRx, leveraging more than 20 years of experience gained at leading high-tech companies.
Most recently, Steve was the vice president of finance and CFO for LinkExchange, an Internet company providing online solutions to website owners. LinkExchange was acquired by Microsoft in November 1998 and is now part of Microsoft's MSN Internet portal. Steve led the acquisition process and negotiated the transaction on behalf of LinkExchange and its shareholders.
From 1993 to 1998, Steve was the vice president of finance for Coherent Laser Group, a large, autonomous division of Coherent, Inc. At Coherent, he facilitated numerous acquisitions, the start-up of a semiconductor operation and fiber optic joint venture, and the establishment of a large subsidiary in Tokyo. Prior to Coherent, Steve served in increasingly responsible financial and accounting positions at several leading technology companies, including Tandem Computers, Intel Corporation, Convergent Technologies, and Atari.
Steve earned an MBA from Santa Clara University in 1985 and holds a BS degree in accounting from San Jose State University.
James Chong
Chief Technology Officer
As CTO, James Chong leads a team of web architects, engineers, and programmers who are developing an e-commerce solution to ensure that PlanetRx gains and maintains a competitive edge. He envisions PlanetRx as becoming the market leader in the online self-help healthcare industry through the creative use of state-of-the-art technologies.
James arrives at PlanetRx with 20 years of experience in information technology with a specialization in creating highly scaleable, secure, and reliable transaction systems. He is recognized as a world-class expert in online transaction processing and has been instrumental in advancing the use of Java in enterprise transaction processing. He speaks frequently at industry conferences on these topics.
James spent 11 years with Charles Schwab & Co., where he was chief architect of e-commerce transaction infrastructure development. The Schwab web-based retail-trading system is the largest secure e-commerce site on the Internet today. As vice president of architecture and planning, James was responsible for creating an infrastructure capable of handling more than 4 million transactions an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Prior to his appointment as vice president of architecture and planning, he served as vice president of transaction architecture, leading a team whose efforts helped Schwab grow at over 20% compounded annually for the past 11 years.
Before joining Schwab, James worked at Pacific Bell, Nissan Motors, Security Pacific Bank, and Informatics in various technical capacities in the field of information systems.
James studied electrical engineering at the University of Southern California.
John McAlpin
Vice President of Distribution Services
John McAlpin is responsible for managing the PlanetRx distribution center in Memphis, Tenn., as well as the company's customer service operations. He brings to PlanetRx more than 16 years of experience overseeing the distribution, operations, production, and facilities management of Fortune 500 companies.
John's career includes seven years as a manager for Federal Express, from 1989 to 1996. As managing director of FedEx's Logistics Services Division, he led the design and implementation of dedicated logistics solutions for customers such as Intel, IBM, and Apple. His management of the FedEx Catalogue Services Division resulted in the addition of six major catalogue accounts including L.L. Bean and Williams-Sonoma.
Prior to joining PlanetRx, John worked for Skywire, Inc., a Memphis-based data communications company that lists Coca-Cola and FedEx as clients. As vice president of technical operations, he was responsible for procurement, manufacturing, inventory, customer support, and field operations. He also played a key role in corporate strategy, product development, and sales. Before Skywire, John was a vice president at First Union Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he managed distribution for the ServiceCenter Division.
He began his career as a design engineer at Layne and Bowler, then worked as a manufacturing engineer for Schering-Plough.
He has a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Memphis.
Stephanie Schear
Co-Founder, Vice President of Business Development and Sales
Stephanie Schear is co-founder and vice president of business development and sales at PlanetRx. Her experience orchestrating business deals among some of Silicon Valley's most exciting companies makes her a natural for building the PlanetRx network of partnerships and alliances.
Most recently, Stephanie managed e-commerce and healthcare investments for Intel's Corporate Business Development Group (unofficially known as the Intel VC Group). At Intel from 1997 to 1998, Stephanie was one of the company's top producers and strategically guided Intel to invest in companies like eToys, Reel.com, iVillage, Ariba, ChannelPoint, BabyCenter, LifeMasters, Homestead, and Quokka. Stephanie sat on five boards while at Intel, focusing on helping to grow e-commerce companies such as eToys. She also helped set the strategic agenda for Intel's Healthcare Group by working with HMOs, established healthcare software companies, and Internet healthcare start-ups.
While at Intel, Stephanie was working on a business plan for an online pharmacy with her high school friend, Dr. Shawn Becker. They decided to partner with Mike Bruner and his team, bringing together the product and business expertise necessary to build PlanetRx into a sustainable business.
From 1995 to 1997, Stephanie was vice president of business development at Firefly, an Internet start-up that was acquired by Microsoft. From 1991 to 1994, she was a technology investment banker at Alex Brown & Sons. Early in her career, Stephanie was accepted into the Presidential Management Intern Program and worked on U.S.-Japan trade negotiations.
Stephanie earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1996. While pursuing her MBA, Stephanie worked in corporate development at America Online and started the Cyberposium at Harvard Business School. In 1989 she earned an MA and a BA in economics with high honors from Brandeis University.
Matthew Naythons, M.D.
Vice President of Editorial and Publisher
Dr. Matthew Naythons' position as vice president of editorial and publisher for PlanetRx is the latest step in a curriculum vitae that spans the roles of journalist, physician, publishing entrepreneur, and Internet medical pioneer.
After graduating from medical school, Matthew juggled a career as an emergency room physician with world travel as an award-winning photojournalist for Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic, covering such stories as the fall of Saigon, the Jonestown massacre, and the Central American civil wars. In response to the horrors he witnessed while covering the Cambodian refugee exodus, Matthew founded and directed International Medical Teams, a relief organization that brought medical care to refugees on the Thai-Cambodian border from 1979 to 1982.
Hoping to spend less time living out of a suitcase, Matthew co-founded the RxMedia Group in Sausalito, California, in 1989. The following year he produced the book The Power to Heal (Prentice Hall Press), an extraordinary look at health, healing, and medicine around the world.
In 1992 Matthew founded Epicenter Communications in Sausalito, producing photojournalism books and multimedia projects. Epicenter titles include the best-selling book Clinton: Portrait of Victory, published with an award-winning companion CD-ROM; The Face of Mercy, with an introduction by William Styron; and Sarajevo: Portrait of a Siege.
Under his direction, Epicenter pioneered a series of user-friendly consumer guides to the world of new media including The Multimedia Home Companion series (Warner Books) and The Internet Health, Fitness and Medicine Yellow Pages (Osborne-McGraw Hill).
In 1995 he formed NetMed and NetHealth as Internet divisions of Epicenter Communications. Critically acclaimed NetHealth websites include www.diabetes.com, www.depression.com, and www.obesity.com.
Jay O'Connor
Vice President of Marketing and Production
Jay O'Connor comes to PlanetRx from Intuit, where he served in a variety of key management roles from 1992 to 1998.
In 1997-98, he was director of product marketing for Quicken.com, the popular financial website and the centerpiece of Intuit's online efforts. In this role, Jay managed the product definition, content, marketing, business development, and P&L for Quicken.com. Under his leadership, the site grew from a distant competitor to the No.1 most-used finance site on the web. In addition, in late 1996, Jay played a central role architecting Intuit's Internet strategy, serving as director of corporate strategy.
Jay began his career at Intuit as a manager of QuickBooks, the top-selling small-business finance and accounting software. With QuickBooks since its debut in 1992, Jay was the group product manager from 1994 to 1996, overseeing the marketing, product definition, and P&L of the QuickBooks line. During his tenure, the team grew QuickBooks' market share from zero to 72%, and tripled the size of the category.
Before joining Intuit, Jay worked as a project manager and marketing manager for Kettler & Scott, a large real estate development firm in suburban Washington, DC, and as a financial analyst for the investment banking firm First Boston Corporation.
Jay earned an MBA from Harvard's Graduate School of Business Administration in 1992 and holds a BA from Stanford University.
Allan Goldman
Vice President of Merchandising
With 20 years' experience in the field, Allan Goldman has earned a reputation as a visionary merchandiser and marketer for high-volume retail drugstore chains.
Most recently he was senior vice president of marketing/merchandising for The Cosmetic Center, a discount "beauty superstore" with 275 locations nationwide. In addition to managing the store's purchasing, advertising, and vendor relations, he developed the Cosmetic Center's retail website and implemented a targeted frequent-shopper program.
From 1988 to 1995, Allan served as vice president of merchandising for Rite Aid Corporation, a 4,000-store retail drug and household goods chain. Among his accomplishments at Rite Aid: developing new merchandising categories and expanding the store's product during a time of keen competition from new market entrants.
Prior to Rite Aid, Allan spent eight years with Shopper's Drug Mart/Peoples Drug, a chain store with 800 locations in 14 states. He was instrumental in directing the start-up operations of the company and, as director of marketing, oversaw the store's marketing, advertising, and merchandising efforts.
He holds a BS in health science from James Madison University.>> |
