CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 17, 2006 -- Endeca, a next-generation search and information access company, today announced that it has named Endeca founder, Steve Papa, as chief executive officer and Dan Demmer as president & chief operating officer. Steve Papa will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Directors. Steven Walske, who has been serving on Endeca's Board of Directors since 2000, will now serve as the chairman of the company's Board of Directors. In a related release, Endeca has named two independent board members: Michael Porter, the world's foremost authority on competitive strategy and Edwin Gillis, who has been the CFO of three of the 20 leading publicly traded software companies in the world.
"There is consensus among technology analysts that the information access market is undergoing a dramatic transformation into a multi-billion dollar market that is far larger than previously forecast," said Steven Walske, chairman of Endeca. "Endeca's technology has been instrumental in driving this transformation, and the company's outstanding execution gives the board confidence that Endeca is poised to lead this market."
"Steve Papa's role in creating and building Endeca uniquely provides him with the strategic insight and vision that will guide Endeca through the unprecedented opportunity we see," continued Walske. "Over the past year, Steve and Dan have delivered outstanding results across all aspects of our business, while aligning Endeca around this transformation. Their unique entrepreneurial leadership skills will assure Endeca's continued role delivering innovative solutions that enable organizations around the world to solve information access problems that were previously impossible to solve with existing search and business intelligence technologies."
"Endeca's potential to build the leading information access software company has never been greater," said Steve Papa. "Steve Walske's guidance as Chairman of Endeca will be instrumental to our continued success. Steve Walske is one of fewer than ten individuals in the world to lead a software company from start-up to over $1 billion in revenue, and Endeca's shareholders and customers are fortunate to have his unique experience to help guide the continued growth of the company."
Endeca's record first quarter saw a dramatic 85 percent increase in revenue as the company continued to create and deliver innovative information access solutions in the retail, manufacturing & distribution, government, media & publishing, financial services and hospitality markets. Other major highlights included:
Steve Papa founded Endeca in 1999 after recognizing the potential to use innovative technology to solve a long-standing class of business problems that stem from information overload. Prior to Endeca, Steve worked for Inktomi, the pioneer in large-scale parallel Web search and Teradata, the world leader in large-scale structured data warehouses. In March 2006, Steve was named as a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for New England, based on his role in leading Endeca through its rapid growth. He has also been honored as one of the Boston Business Journal's Top 40 Businesspeople Under 40, and leader of one of the "Top 10 Most Influential Businesses" by the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX).
Steve holds a B.S. in Operations Research and Economics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Dan Demmer joined Endeca's executive team as CFO in 2005 and played a key role in helping the company achieve record year-over-year revenue growth and profitability. He has 20 years of leadership experience in corporate finance and management. Prior to Endeca, Dan served as CFO of IONA Technologies, a high growth, profitable public software company specializing in application integration solutions. Demmer previously held a variety of leadership positions at Digital Equipment Corporation.
Dan holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Maryland.
About Endeca
Endeca is a next-generation search and information access company. Combining patented intellectual property, breakthrough science and a deep focus on user experience, the Endeca Information Access Platform helps people find, analyze and understand information in ways never before possible. Leading global organizations like ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Boeing, Costco, Cox Newspapers, The (US) Defense Intelligence Agency, The Home Depot, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, Lehman Brothers, The Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations.
Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Endeca is a private company with operations in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information: www.endeca.com or info@endeca.com.