LookSmart appoints West as board chairmanWed Jun 22, 2005 04:24...

LookSmart appoints West as board chairman

Wed Jun 22, 2005 04:24 PM ET
LOS ANGELES, June 22 (Reuters) - Internet search company LookSmart (LOOK.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday said it has appointed Edward West as chair of its board, replacing Teresa Dial, who has accepted a senior executive position at Lloyds TSB in London. She will remain as a member of the board, the company said.

West, a managing director of advisory services firm Sage Partners LLC, has served as a director of LookSmart since November 2001.

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Edward F. West
Managing Director, Emerging Companies

Edward F. (Ted) West has 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, executive, and strategic advisor to management teams of emerging growth and established public companies. He has demonstrated skills in strategic leadership, marketing and product innovation, business development, and team building and organization.

Mr. West has launched, funded, built, and grown an impressive set of information, marketing services, and technology companies which became early leaders in their respective market segments. For example, he served as the CEO of RealNames International, the innovative Web addressing services company, where he negotiated the exclusive, worldwide license and distribution agreement for internet keywords with Microsoft. He founded Network 1.0 to develop, market, and serve interactive marketing campaigns for leading advertisers on the Web, which he sold to SOFTBANK. He founded Consumer Direct Access to publish CATALYST, a national consumer buying guide, and sold the company to Ameritech. Most recently, he served as CEO of Colarity, an enterprise applications company that he turned around, restructured, and financed to develop a Web-based knowledge-sharing system for use in customer support in knowledge-based enterprises.

Mr. West has served on the Boards of Directors of several emerging companies both public and private. He is currently serving on the Board of LookSmart (Nasdaq: LOOK), a leader in Web search services and technology. Previously, he served on the Board of TriSpan, a private systems integration company sold to AnswerThink (Nasdaq: ANSW), and advised the Board of Universal Commerce, a market leader in software e-commerce, in its sale to Digital River (Nasdaq: DRIV).

Prior to serving as an entrepreneur and director for emerging companies, Mr. West was the Vice President and General Manager of Pacific Bell Directory, where he executed highly successful marketing and business development plans to spur revenue growth to over one billion dollars; and he advised senior executives as a strategic business and organizational consultant to AT&T, Pacific Telesis, BellSouth, McGraw Hill, D&B, AEG-Telefunken, among other clients.

Mr. West earned his M.B.A. in general management from the Harvard Business School. He earned an A.B. with High Honors in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University. He has served in the public sector as a Congressional Intern for U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III, and currently serves in a non-profit leadership role as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Marin School in Mill Valley, California. He and his wife Anna reside in Tiburon and Alpine Meadows, California.

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