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leapfrog
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 6)
SM: What is the strategy you arrived at? And what is the process you used to get there? JK: It is pretty simple looking back. The process started simply by getting the various constituencies lined up. There was a board constituency, a senior management constituency, and you had key movers and shakers; people who, once
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 5)
SM: How did LeapFrog miss the Internet? JK: This is an interesting question, one that I used to ask a lot. The company was, in 2001, very active with a product called MindStation which was a dial up hub where customers would subscribe and get learning applets from LeapFrog. It was a flop because it
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 4)
SM: While you were doing Orbitz, did you already join the board of LeapFrog? JK: No, I joined the board in April of 2005. SM: How did they find you? JK: Leapfrog had been in the process of restructuring its board of directors, moving from insider directors to independent directors. They were looking for somebody
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 3)
SM: Was Saber under American Airlines or on its own? JK: Saber, by that time, was a public company. It was not controlled by American Airlines anymore. The Chief Financial officer at United had the idea that the airline industry needed to form its own competitor to Travelocity and Saber, otherwise the industry would be
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 2)
SM: The Airlines had huge optimization problems. JK: They really did. In fact, there was a huge optimization problem on every front; how to set capital, prices, routes, seats, everything. I joined American Airlines in 1980, and over the course of 17 years at American Airlines I got sucked from one role to the next.
Leapfrog’s Turnaround Strategy May Yield Success in ’08
LeapFrog Enterprises (LF) was last left off in this blog with the March 2007 analysis of a possible turnaround strategy. Unfortunately, if you compare the stock charts then and now, they are eerily similar. To understand what is going on over at its Emeryville headquarters, I sat down with CEO Jeff Katz (great guy) last
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 1)
SM: Jeff, let’s start with your background. Where do you come from, where did you go to school, and how did you get into technology? I know that you went to MIT, and I have to say that it is a pretty good school! JK: Of course! We always referred to Harvard as the best
Leapfrog’s Turnaround Strategy
Leapfrog (LF) seems to be in desperate need of a turnaround. Given how good a brand it has, this is a sad state of affairs. The company has had a recent CEO change, and I am happy to see that the new recruit comes from the Online world. My own thesis on Leapfrog is that
