categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
turnaround expert
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 11)
SM: Let’s say in 5 years you are cleaned up and you have achieved a level of credibility and stability and market power to do interesting things. How do you see yourself leveraging that brand. What are the top three things you would do? JK: I think the main thing we want to do first
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 10)
SM: Do you work with foundations? JK: We do. We do not have what I call a structured program with any one foundation. What we have done in the past, in fact annually we do something with one or more foundations. SM: Given the strength is in the reading area, and Bill Gates is spending
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 9)
SM: In the next 10 years, do you see LeapFrog morphing into more of an online company as opposed to a toy company? JK: I think we will be more of a content company, and by that virtue, I think we will be more online. SM: At some level these chips may not be necessary.
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 8)
SM: Does this include the kids chatting with each other? JK: At launch we will not do that, and we are targeting that age range where today it is delicate. We have another product that is an expansion of our gaming line, where we are getting old enough kids that we will be able to
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 7)
SM: Even the kids are very connected these days. JK: I was fond of saying that for whatever reasons the memo of the Internet did not make it to the company in 1999. They had that failed effort and the management team was disenchanted. We had to get our products connected so that notion of
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 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.
