TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Viata visionary
bids arrivederciViata Software Inc. has launched the proverbial "national search" for a new president and CEO following the resignation of J.W. Ellsworth.
"Our objective is to ensure that we find the right person for the job. We don't have a timeline per se," said Laura Davis, Viata's director of marketing.
The company serves the travel industry with software for real-time management of inventory, reservations and processes.
"We're actually looking for a tech person," she said. "We serve the travel industry but we are a tech company."
Viata Chairman Michael Coy will serve as interim chief executive and Ellsworth will keep his seat on Viata's advisory board.
When he joined the company two years ago, the term "turnaround guy" had not reached its current level of vogue but he had been expected to "get Viata up and running successfully," Coy said in a statement.
"When I joined, the company was pretty much upside down," Ellsworth said.
It didn't get right-side-up overnight.
The two-year rollercoaster which followed was "more than I anticipated," he said. "We had some pretty bleak months."
The future got brighter for Viata when it attracted investors such as John Dean, chairman and chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank, who is also a member of its board.
There have been other fund-raising successes along the way.
"The technology is no longer in R and D," Ellsworth said. "It's proven. It's being used by current clients in day-to-day operations here and on the mainland. Our most critical client is Outrigger Hotels."
The company is generating revenue, so Ellsworth will take his gunslinging skills elsewhere, and to two places in particular.
He owns the Ramada Inn Union Square hotel in San Francisco, which offers kamaaina rates, "fried rice and Spam musubi," Ellsworth said.
He will devote attention to the LET Academy, a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1995 and led by Executive Director Lauren Apiki Ellsworth, his wife. The academy involves school-age children in activities such as creating Web sites for community and Hawaiian organizations and the state Department of Health, he said.
He'll also look for other opportunities.
"The ideal position for me would be DOE superintendent with absolute autonomy," he laughed. "Failing that I'll keep my eyes and ears open."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com