Comings and Goings

Jan 11 1999

The irony of Usenet is that it's always been there, but only now is it becoming commercially hot. DejaNews' hire of Tom Phillips as CEO offers one indication that there is money to be made from community bulletin boards. RemarQ Communities is also upping the ante, and has just named former CKS Group CFO Carlton Baab ) as its CFO. Seems a sign the Usenet access provider thinks Wall Street's up on the subject, too, though the company declined to comment on whether it has plans to go public. RemarQ also named Rick Levenson as VP of engineering and Sue Barsamian as VP of marketing. Levenson comes from Sun 's Java Software Division; Barsamian was VP of marketing at Verity .

E-Trade, of Palo Alto, Calif., has done a very slight reshuffling at the top to give founder Bill Porter a little more freedom to focus on his latest start-up, International Securities Exchange, an electronic stock-options exchange set to launch next year. He'll become chairman emeritus and E-Trade CEO Christos Cotsakos will become chairman-elect. Kathy Levinson, who's been president and COO of E-Trade Securities, will take on the same roles at parent company E-Trade Group.

Bellevue, Wash.-based Emerald Solutions keeps expanding, opening new offices all over the U.S. Now, the information-technology consulting firm is open for business in Minneapolis, too, and has named Galon Miller as vice president to head up that operation. He used to work at York & Associates, also in Minneapolis.

Also noteworthy: Orb Digital Direct in New York has named Douglas Vunic, former CTO at Bigfoot, as VP and CTO. Potomac KnowledgeWay, the Beltway-area new-media booster, has appointed Debra Arrington as VP, communications. Arrington brings 20 years of experience from Cable & Wirless, LightNet, American Satellite and Burson Marsteller. ... Studio Archetype, San Francisco, named general managers in its San Francisco and New York offices: former 2Bridge Software marketing director Susan Schuman will head the West Coast office and Larry Weisler, former managing director of global marketing for Ubi Soft Entertainment in Paris, will take over in New York. ... David Neylon has joined directory LookSmart in San Francisco as COO. He had been COO at WorldPlay Netertainment. LookSmart also named Ned Brody VP of e-commerce. He had been a VP at Mercer Management Consulting.