Sales Marketing

Michael E. Romanies

Phone: 512-***-**** **** Cutting Horse Lane

abmpi6@r.postjobfree.com Austin, TX 78727

Marketing, Sales and Operations Executive

Hands-on Executive with more than 25 years experience profitably driving marketing, branding, sales, operations,

and fundraising for public and private companies ranging from start-ups and turn-around situations to divisions of

multi-billion dollar multi-national entities. Proven success in:

IPO filings (LOIS, NSIL) P&L Management

Officer positions in Public Companies (NINE, LOIS) Merger, Acquisitions & Divestures

Divisional Executive (Reed-Elsevier, World Color) Domestic & Int’l Sales & Marketing Management

Fund Raising (VC, PIPE, Public Offerings, > $75MM) Direct, Channel and three tier Sales & Distribution

Investor, Analyst & Public Relations IP Licensing & Strategic Partnerships

Brand Creation & Revitalization High & Low Volume Call Center Operations

Board Member E-Communications Advantage

June 2007 – July 2009 Austin, TX (Call Center)

Board Member Flapdaddy.com

June 2006 – Present Austin, TX (Social Media)

Board Member Lancetta, Inc.

Sept. 2004 – Present Austin, TX(Engineering Services)

V.P. Austin Inventors and Entrepreneurs Assoc. AIEA

Jan. 2005 – Present Austin, TX (Association)

Principal FUEL Marketing and Sales

May 2001 – Present Consultancy

FUEL is a management consultancy providing marketing, sales, licensing, and management services for information service

and technology providers. Examples of a few clients and projects include;

• Business Subscription Services ($100MM division of $2B public company): Implemented outsourced call center, re-

organized internal and external lead generation and qualification processes and technologies, and provided strategic

and tactical road map for increased volume and decreased cost. Provided strategic insight to Search Engine

Marketing group and provided contract services for Search Engine Optimization (SEO/SEM).

• Public Records Services ($30MM - $50MM private company): Implemented outsourced call center, provided

strategic and tactical marketing counsel, reviewed internal processes and procedures and provided organizational

roadmap. Provided strategic marketing counsel on new divisions and product launches, product definitions and

marketing programs, public relations, sales management, sales training, and SEO/SEM counsel.

• Subscription Business Services ($3MM private company): Implemented outsourced call center, provided sales and

marketing counsel, advised founders on operational issues.

• Partnering with LegalVoice and Edge Legal Marketing to provide Marketing, Public Relations, Sales Management

and Strategic Planning counsel to Legal Services companies providing Electronic Discovery (eDiscovery), Legal

Services, Legal Information, and software products targeting the legal and accounting markets. Developed sales

processes, plans, and procedures for lead generation, qualification, and sales closure for numerous companies.

• Consumer Electronics Products ($6MM+ private company): Increased revenue from $1.3MM to over $6.1M in less

than 18 months. Expanded international distribution, negotiated license rights for consumer icon for use in new

products, marketing and negotiated OEM licenses, implemented accounting system, contracted ISO 9002

manufacturing and logistics company reducing costs, and reduced obsolete inventory through new products and sales

channels. Closed key retailers including; QVC, BigLots!, J.C. Penney’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, TJX, Costco, SAM’s

Club, BJ’s, Target, Office Max, Office Depot, Best Buy, Woot!, Duane Reade and others. Personally closed the Top 5

most profitable accounts. Lead Public Relations efforts leading to critical coverage in the NY Times, the NY Post,

USA Today TV, Web TV, national and international radio, and hundreds of trade magazines, newspapers, webs sites

and Blogs.

• Consumer Cleaning Products (Start-up): Lead the branding, re-packaging and product expansion efforts of the start-

up securing orders with QVC, The Shopping Channel (Canada), regional c-store chains, leading vertical market

catalogs, and pending evaluations at major retailers, franchise re-sellers, the leading private automotive rental

corporation. Secured national and regional media coverage with multiple features on FORBES.COM Entrepreneur’s

Break-Out section, national and regional radio and newspapers.

• Consumer social networking and communications start-up : See PeerMe Below

• Legislative information services: See GalleryWatch below.

FUEL Clients with Long term Virtual Engagements:

Vice President, Marketing & Business Dev. PeerMe, Inc.

June 2005 – April 2006 Austin, TX, Mtn. View, CA

Consultant May 2005 – June 2005 (see FUEL Markeeting)

PeerMe, was a Peer-to-Peer Voice and Instant Messaging Start-up, focusing on “voice enabling the Internet” through the

development of programming interfaces and enabling integration technologies proving internet web sites and databases

with voice and text services. Video and chat services were also added.

• Key executive in the raising of $3.5MM in private placement from foreign sources.

• Managed direct and matrix staff members in the U.S., India, Korea, Africa, Portugal, China and other

countries closing partnerships with internet portals, publishers, and social and business networks worldwide.

• Identified, specified, and solicited target accounts for technology partnerships and licensing, managed

domestic and international PR efforts, Business Development and Marketing. Developed partner program for

integration of PeerMe’s voice, video and text technology into business and social media networks, media web

sites and classified web sites.

• Attained web presence, media and internet exposure growing "google" results from 15 to 200,000, Alexa

rankings from "not ranked" to under 38,000, and distribution on over 250+ domestic and international web sites

in under 3 months of Beta release.

Sr. Director, Marketing (see FUEL Marketing) GalleryWatch.com

Aug. 2002 – February 2005 (Acquired by Roll Call) Austin, TX

Consultant: June 2002 – August 2002

GalleryWatch.com, a turn-around/start-up, focus’s on the collection of legislative information and the tools to

manage the information, notifications and workflow of the legislative process targeted to the Corporate, Government,

Non-Profit, Lobbyist and Educational markets.

• Responsible for the Marketing, Telemarketing, PR, and lead generation

functions. Lead quality and quantity increases resulted in year over year contract bookings

increases of 70% and revenue recognition increase approaching 30% while decreasing staff

headcount 80% and discretionary expenditures more than 60% year on year.

• Implemented an external call center, direct mail programs and web

marketing efforts supporting inside and outside sales groups increasing lead generation and

quality and increasing sales pipeline more than 1,000%.

Vice President, Marketing & Content eLaw.com

Corporate Officer Austin, TX

Jan. 2001 – May 2001 (closed May 2001 due to financing and Bankruptcy of Comdisco an investor)

eLaw.com, a start-up, was a business-to-business (B2B) web based products and services supplier,

providing lawyers and corporate legal departments with legal research and Virtual Private Library

(VPL) solutions via the Web. eLaw complimented Lexis-Nexis, West Law and other legal research and

information services providers.

• Responsible for working with the CEO in identifying, researching and

pitching to Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers, and Business Partners to

secure second round funding. Received a commitment from Austin Ventures

for a second round contribution of $4M.

• Responsible for preparation, presentation and management of company’s

efforts during due diligence by Ernst & Young, LLP resulting in successful

qualification as a Business Partner and Publisher of Ernst & Young’s

premium content. Responsible for partnership efforts with Lexis-Nexis and

Westlaw.

• Responsible for Content Acquisition identification and negotiations with

leading U.S. and International Law firms including: Hale & Dorr, Nixon

Peabody, White & Case and many others, increasing content library products

in development from one to five.

• Responsible for Marketing (direct and indirect), PR, marcom, IR, web site maintenance and

development, business development, content acquisition and acquisition identification and

review. Secured more than 1,000,000 press impressions with more than 500,000 impressions

in Legal vertical publications within three months of hire.

Vice President, Marketing Loislaw.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOIS)

Corporate Officer Acquired by Wolters Kluwer 12/00)

July 1999 – Dec. 2000 Van Buren, AR

Loislaw.com, Inc., now the third largest provider of primary legal reference materials is a

business-to-business (B2B) web based subscription service that provides lawyers, judges, law

students, corporate legal departments and consumers with legal research and related materials.

Loislaw.com competes with Lexis-Nexis and WestLaw.

• Increased revenue from under $7M to a run rate of almost $30M (more than a 300% increase),

with subscriber base growing from 7,000 to more than 30,000 (a 500% increase) in under 18

months while more than doubling average subscription yield per customer subscription.

Repositioned existing products, extended the product line and added new products resulting in

higher revenue achievement per subscriber and achieving near 90% aggregate renewal rates.

• Achieved brand recognition as “one of the big three” with Lexis and West through extensive

branding and marketing efforts resulting in record subscription revenue and license growth

while holding marketing expenditures more than 55% under budget.

• Responsible for Marketing (direct and indirect), insides sales, telemarketing, customer

service, PR, marcom, IR, product management, fulfillment operations, web site maintenance

and development, business development and acquisition identification and review. Managed a

staff of over 180 in a start-up environment (managed more than 250 during IPO period),

recruited over 30 marketing, field marketing, sales management and web development staff

within six months. Responsible for more than 300 trade shows & seminars, 10 million

advertising impressions, 40 million press impressions and 5 million direct mail pieces per

year. Implemented a CRM system across inside sales and external contract call center

telesales/marketing personnel achieving more than 130,000 calls per month resulting in more

than 6,000 product trials per month. Implemented web based training for more than 100 field

sales and marketing staff increasing the quality of education and reducing costs dramatically.

• Identified acquisitions, mergers and partnerships and negotiated 20% equity stake and board

seat in JDUSA, lead negotiator and company representative for discussions with QuickLaw

merger, potential sale to Reed-Elsevier, content agreements with ChoicePoint, Ernst & Young,

PowerBrief, Elite Information Systems, eAttorney, Law.com/ALM, Dunn & Bradstreet, Gavel

& Gown Software and others.

• WWW.LoislawSchool.com: Achieved >95% market acceptance within six months of launch

of www.Loislawschool.com web site targeted at accredited law schools, reaching 140,000 law

school students (seeding future potential subscribers), while creating a new revenue stream

through a web-advertising model.

• Interfaced with Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers, Industry and Equity Analysts.

Presented in the company’s quarterly financial conference calls.

• Assumed lead role in source acquisition of Federal District Court products negotiating with

the Federal Administrative Office of the Court (the Federal Court’s Administrative body) and

lobbying with numerous Congressional Committees, individual Congressmen and Senators.

• Created new product offerings, through Product Managers and Marketing staff, through

repositioning of existing properties targeted to vertical sectors with increased price points,

capturing legal forms and materials to create new products yielding a 25% attach rate as a

premium add-on to standard products within the target vertical.

Vice President, Marketing & New Market Sales NETsilicon™

Corporate Officer Acquired by Digi Int’l

Sept. 1998-June 1999 Waltham, MA

NETsilicon, a spin-off of Osicom, is the developer of NET+ARM™, an integrated Ethernet/Internet hardware (ARM +

ASIC’s) and software (Network, TCPIP, http, drivers, utilities and RTOS) solution for the Embedded devices/Internet

Appliance markets (Voice over IP, Web Servers, Peripherals, Industrial Automation & Control devices, Telecom, Imaging,

Power, Building control, Medical, etc.) supplied to OEM customers.

• Member of Senior Executive team recruited for the preparation of an Initial Public Offering of NETsilicon (numerous

filings, IPO September 1999). Presented to Venture Capitalists, Industry and Equity Analysts and Investment bankers in

preparation for the Initial Public Offering.

• Hired as VP of Marketing, adding additional responsibility as VP of Sales for New Markets within 60 days of hire.

Recruited Manufacturers Representative coverage for all of North America attaining nine firms and 70+ outside sales

representatives within six months. Expanded Authorized Developers program, attaining 15 development partners,

resulting in sales coverage for small accounts. Closed five design wins with major Telecom vendors for Voice over

Ethernet/IP projects, multiple camera designs for M-JPEG, MPEG and proprietary compression formats and security

systems products. Accounts closed during my tenure including: Nortel, IBM, Lucent, Merlot, AB, and others represented

the majority of the revenue 3 years after departure.

Vice President, Marketing Number Nine Visual Technology (NASDAQ: NINE)

Corporate Officer Acquired by S-3

Oct. 1996 - Sept. 1998 Lexington, MA

Number Nine was a $100M+ pioneer in the development of integrated 3D/2D and Video Graphics Accelerator ASIC’s,

graphics controller cards and utility software in PCI, AGP and MAC formats targeting high-end graphic applications and

consumer markets.

• Represented the company at shareholder meetings, conference calls, with the press, investors and analysts. Reviewed

acquisition opportunities and participated in fundraising activities and divesture discussions.

• Member of the executive team closing a $9MM convertible debit investment from Silicon Graphics.

• Hired as a member of the turn-around team, increased distribution presence by launching a reseller program

(PowerBroker™) recruiting and qualifying over 5,000 VAR’s within the first six months achieving a 300% increase in US

distribution sales (through Ingram, Tech Data and Merisel) and a 200% increase in International sales (Japan and

Europe). New OEM accounts included NEC, SGI, HP, and Fujitsu Japan.

• Repositioned, repackaged and targeted specific vertical offering to vertical markets selling more than $25M in excess

inventory through the re-established distribution channels domestically and internationally within six months of hire.

• Developed company’s first sales training and support materials for the computer direct marketer’s inside sales staffs

and channel partners to increase upgrade sales of Number Nine’s products through VARs, Dealers, BTO and catalogs

while reducing dependence and exposure in the retail chains. Integrated automated customer support functions via

Desktop fax, WEB and e-mail cutting costs and improving customer service.

President

World Color New Media (a division of World Color Press, Inc.) World Color Press (NYSE:WRC)

Dec. 1995 - Sept. 1996 Acquired by Quebecor

New York, NY

World Color Press (WRC) was the third largest domestic printer with more than $1.4 Billion in revenue providing printing,

pre-press and direct mail services growing primarily through aggressive acquisitions.

• Identified potential acquisitions and performed due initial diligence with Broadview Associates in the electronic

services markets including; Multimedia developers, Internet services, Data mining and Archival markets.

• Multimedia spokesperson responsible for the development of the “New Media” service offering covering the digital

services (non Pre-Press) during World Color’s preparation for an IPO (previously owned by KKR). Managed operational

group located in FL focusing on web and multimedia design.

VP and General Manager Reed Technology and Information Services, Inc

Commercial Products Division (Sept. 1994 - Dec. 1995) a division of Reed-Elsevier (NYSE: RUK)

Jan. 1987 - Dec. 1995 Germantown, MD

The Commercial Products Division of RTIS specialized in the development, licensing, manufacturer and distribution of

Multimedia, Educational and Reference Electronic Publishing products, Networked and PC software utilities, high

performance hardware solutions (Graphics Controllers, Image Compression/Scaling Cards, Memory Cards, SCSI and CD-

ROM Controllers), and enterprise systems requiring large databases and database development and publishing. Reed-Elsevier

is a multi-billion dollar international publishing, trade show management and technology information provider.

• Identified potential acquirers, negotiated and sold the Commercial Products Division within six months of decision to

divest the division. Merged the remaining commercial products operations of Online Computer Systems, Inc. and the

International Computaprint (ICC) companies into the Products Division of RTIS.

• Turned-around, managed, refocused and grew a money losing division into a very profitable division, focusing on

CD-ROM utility software, software publishing, and software and hardware distribution, managing operations in two

states and four facilities from 1987 - 1995. Responsible for the P & L of the largest division of the corporate group.

Reversed an operating loss and posted profits at 300% above plan within one year of accepting P&L. Achieved divisional

revenue increase of over 430% and EBIT of more than 20% of revenue consistently for five years while discontinuing

unprofitable business areas.

• Contributor to Executive Technology Committee (Reed-Elsevier Board) on Internet, Electronic Publishing and

Software Technology. Member of Acquisition team reporting to the Chief Executive Officer of RTIS. Named as one of

the youngest Vice Presidents within a REED company at age 26.

• Publisher of the joint venture under the REED Interactive™ Imprint, a joint venture between RTIS and Reed

International Books (UK), with multi-million dollar initial OEM license contracts at launch. Licensed content from

European companies and domestic publishers of software and printed materials.

Senior Vice President (April 1993-Sept. 1994)

VP & General Manager, Products Division (Nov. 1990 - March 1993)

Director, Business Development and Operations (Aug. 1988- Nov. 1990)

Marketing Manager, Hardware and Systems Products (Jan. 1987 - Aug. 1998)

• Responsible for the strategic plan and implementation from a System Integrator business model to a Product based

company. Managed engineering teams developing computer peripherals, software utilities, and application programs

creating new business areas in Network Licensing, Customer/Help Desk Support Services for Business-to-Business

customers and value added distribution services.

• Provided Publishing and Technical Support Services to independent publishers (not then part of Reed) including

Michie, Matthew Bender, Martindale Hubbell, Standard & Poors, CCH, McGraw-Hill, Grolier Mattra Hachette and

others.

• Marketed and negotiated OEM contracts with Microsoft ® Corporation (Microsoft licensed OPTI-NET®). Marketed

and negotiated EXCLUSIVE agreements with Publishers including; Microsoft, Matthew Bender, CCH, Broderbund,

Grolier, McGraw-Hill, Helix Software, Roth Publishing, Future Vision, Compact Publishing, etc. for Networked, Online

and retail products. Marketed and negotiated Cooperative Hardware and Cooperative Software Vendor offerings with

IBM, two Radio Shack/Tandy Express Order Software (EOS) Program offerings and a General Services Administration

(GSA) contract.

• Acted as Reed’s project manager for the rollout of the American Airlines SabreVISION project (a $100 Million joint

venture), contributed to numerous enterprise systems solutions for Boeing, General Electric Medical, Northern Telecom,

and the Naval Research Laboratory. Managed distribution efforts for the Cahner’s Computer Assisted Product Selection

(CAPS) offering which was comprised of more than 750,000 semiconductor specification sheets, datasheets, reference

material and rolling 6 month procurement history delivered on 40+ CD-ROM’s via subscription.

Senior Product Marketing Engineer Sprague Solid State

June 1985 to Jan. 1987 Willow Grove, PA

Sprague Solid State was the CMOS Semiconductor manufacturing division of Sprague, a $100M+ leader in Electronic

Components, Power Semiconductors and CMOS ASICs.

• World Wide Product Line Manager for custom ASIC, foundry CMOS and military certified memory products.

Managed Sprague’s only profitable CMOS commercial product line during the 1985/86 semiconductor slump

domestically and internationally.

• Facilitated the engineering, product management and quality control department’s efforts to correct production issues

and poor quality issues on mission critical products. Efforts yielded significant increased in quality and reliability

resulting in the re-qualification of Sprague and million dollar commitments for a new and exiting products.

• Received accommodations from parent company for closure of business at new accounts including: Polaroid, BMW,

Sato, First Alert, Dicon, and others.

EDUCATION: Master of Business Administration degree (Marketing and Finance)

Wilkes University (90% completed)

Bachelor of Science degree (Electrical Engineering; Minor: Physics)

Wilkes University, May 1985

Associate of Science degree (Engineering Science)

Camden County College, May 1982

Glassboro High School

Accelerated College-Prep Program, Awarded graduation in three years (age 16)

CONTINUING Johns Hopkins University: Executive Management for Small Business (10/89 - 5/90)

EDUCATION The Executive Committee (T.E.C.): Member '93,'94; Guest '91,'92

AMA: Mergers and Acquisitions (5/94), The Law & Mgmt. of Intellectual Prop. (’93)

BLA: European Copyright, Trademark & Patent Law (9/94)

Univ. Chicago: Marketing Strategy & Planning, Sales Force Productivity Strategies ('91)

James Madison University: Principles of Contract Law & UCC

DataTech: Software Licensing Agreements, CAPE: Software Licensing Agreements

OTHER: Numerous presentations at Trade Shows (Silicon Strategies, COMDEX, etc.), Seminars, Analyst

Briefings, and Earnings Conference calls. Numerous contributed articles published on a variety of

topics on Technical and Marketing subjects.

REFERENCES: Available upon Request

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