James Paul Manzi

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Jim Manzi (born, 1951) is the former Chairman, President and CEO of Lotus Development Corporation. After a rocky ride at Lotus, Manzi's record has been mixed. It includes a well publicized bankruptcy as well as a run for polical office

Contents

1 Early career
2 Lotus
3 Career after Lotus
4 External links
5 References

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. He worked as a reporter for the National Review in the 1970s. His wife Glenda was a reporter at Westchester-Rockland, N.Y., Newspapers, which is how he met her.[link] 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.[link]

Lotus

In 1982 Manzi went to Lotus Development Corporation as a consultant, and became an employee one year later. In April 1986 he was named as CEO, succeeding founder Mitchell Kapor within just a few years. In July of that same year he also became Chairman of Lotus.

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). Notes did not begin to be successful until around 1994, after Microsoft Excel had already been taking away Lotus 1-2-3 market share for several years. This resulted in serious cost cutting, a long downwards spiral and layoffs at Lotus. Furthermore, Manzi initiated a 7 year long litigation process with Software company Borland, which Lotus ultimately lost in the Supreme Court. While Lotus was needlessly focused on Borland, Microsoft was gaining market share.

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.[link] On October 11, 1995 Manzi announced his resignation from the Lotus Development division of IBM. He left with stock worth $78 million and a long history of restructurings and layoffs.

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.[link]

In January, 1996, Manzi took over as CEO of Industry.Net, a company purported to be developing 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.[link]. That was a time when bankruptcies were unheard of, drwaing much attention when SIlicon Valley was booming.

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. He also made news when he built a large 12,000 square foot stone house on a 460 acre plot in the small rural town of Bridgewater, Vermont, spending a total of over $6,5 million in construction. The tax assessors assessed the home at $6 million while Manzi claimed that it was only worth $2 million resulting in a law suit. Manzi won the lawsuit.

External links

References

Darrow, Barbara. 2003 Industry Hall of Fame: Jim Manzi. CRN, December 15, 2003
Judge, Paul C. and Baker, Stephen. Were Jim Manzi's Big Ideas Too Big?. BusinessWeek, May 26, 1997
[Former Lotus Chief Manzi Heads Up Another Venture. TechWeb.com, December 09, 2003]

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