InformationWeek

May 21, 1999

EC Coaches Ready To Play

You can't play in the online marketing game without a coach, and that's why E-Commerce VPs are such hotshots these days. Countrywide Home Loans, Warner Bros. Studio Stores, and Follett Higher Education Group all have named new E-Commerce executives this month to beef up their online efforts and lead their teams on to E-victory.

Countrywide, the nation's largest independent residential mortgage lender with nearly $2 billion in sales, named David Espenschied senior VP of Internet marketing. At Warner Bros., a Time Warner company, David Clark was appointed VP of E-commerce, overseeing brand names such as Looney Tunes, Batman, Superman, and the Wizard of Oz. Follett tapped Tim Dorgan as senior VP of E-commerce, a position from which he'll head the company's growing Internet textbook business.

While the industries are very different, the E-Commerce posts at each company are similar: They are new positions created to bolster Web operations, and the executives don't come from the ranks of traditional IT positions. Espenschied was previously President at Discover Brokerage Inc., a leader in the online brokerage industry, while Clark has an extensive retail background. Dorgan was president of Peapod Interactive and executive VP of product management and marketing for the online grocer.

The insurance sector, which was slow to adopt Web technologies initially, is picking up the pace. Countrywide wants to integrate all of its sites including Countrywide.com.

At Warner Brothers, Clark will be responsible for the technical and production aspects of the Studio Store Web site as well as the development of merchandise strategies and expanded marketing partnerships for wbstore.com. Dorgan will lead efforts to make efollett.com, an online college bookstore launched in January, a top destination for the student set.

-- Paula Klein