Omniture - Josh James
Company: Omniture, Orem, Utah
Company Description: Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture's customers include eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Oracle, General Motors and HP.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Executive
Nomination Title: Josh James, CEO
1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Being an entrepreneur requires determination, perseverance, conviction and
risk. At age 24, Josh James began one of Utah’s earliest Internet software
success stories with a small Web design company that featured a statistics
counter for small businesses. Along with his college friend and co-founder,
John Pestana, James started the company on $30,000 in credit card debt and
$20,000 in student loans. The company was eventually able to turn a profit. The
first profitable year, he and Pestana sat down and calculated how much they had
personally made that year after all of their bills were paid: 25 cents an
hour.
Today, at 33, James has broadened the company’s focus to incorporate online
business optimization. The company’s award-winning suite of online business
optimization services allows companies to capture, store and analyze
information generated by their Web site. This information is then used to
enhance marketing and sales initiatives, measure trends and measure consumer
behavior in real-time—thus having a positive effect on a company’s bottom
line. James continues to push the envelop in his efforts to raise the bar for
the industry, exemplifying thought leadership and displaying gumption with the
release of several major product offerings such as: Open Transaction Framework,
Omniture ActionSource, Omniture Genesis and most recently Omniture Discover
2.0.
In recent months, James has expanded the company globally with the acquisitions of Instadia in Denmark and Touch Clarity in the UK. The Touch Clarity acquisition provides Omniture’s customers with one of the leading online
behavior targeting technologies in the industry.
Under Josh’s leadership, Omniture has attracted more than 2,000 online
customers including AOL, eBay, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft,
Novell, Oracle, Sears, Sun, Toyota and Wal-Mart to name a few. Baseline
Magazine recently recognized Omniture as the fastest organically growing
software company in the world. The company has had greater than 100 percent
revenue growth every year for the last three years.
2006 was a breakout year for Omniture. Today, Omniture is the fastest growing
publicly traded software company on the NASDAQ. In June of 2006, Josh took the
company public at $6.50 per share. Today, it has traded in the $18 per share
range and continues to push 52-week highs.
Total revenue for the 2006 fiscal year was $79.7 million, an increase of 86
percent over 2005. For the 2007 fiscal year, the company has provided guidance
of up to 65 percent revenue growth over 2006 with expected revenues of up to
$132 million. Since January 2006, the company has experienced a 44 percent
growth in employees to 467 employees today.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Supporting materials
News
Josh James: Building a Business that Counts
http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/dec2006/ca20061218_363829.htm
Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Hot Stocks
http://www.thestreet.com/pf/funds/madmoneywrap/10328552.html
2 entrepreneurs who survived were both smart, lucky
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660194118,00.html
Josh James, Chief Executive Officer of Omniture, Inc., Rings The NASDAQ Stock
Market Closing Bell
http://www.nasdaq.com/reference/200702/market_close_021507.stm
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:
James is a board member of the BYU Kevin Rollins eBusiness Center, a founder of the Marriott School Center for Entrepreneurship at BYU, and on BYU’s Athletic Advisory Committee. In addition, he has served as one of the committee chairmen for the Governor's Utah Silicon Valley Alliance, an advisory board member for Provo City College and is currently serving his fourth consecutive year as board member of the Utah Technology Council (UTC). He is also involved in the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.