Last month we reported that Silicon Valley based Ooyala, a service that manages video streaming for websites, was looking for a new CEO to take the business to the next level. Today they’ll be announcing that new CEO – former Agile Software CEO Jay Fulcher is now the CEO of Ooyala, and his first day on the job was today.
Founding CEO Bismarck Lepe will remain on board as President of Product Strategy.
From my post last month:
And now they’re considering the hire of a new CEO, we’ve confirmed. Bismarck Lepe, the current CEO, says he’s actually been looking for his replacement for the last year. This isn’t being driven by the venture investor, Sierra Ventures, he says. And in fact the founding team retains stock and board of directors voting control, making their consent a requirement of any CEO change. Lepe just feels as though he isn’t necessarily the guy to take the company to the next level, whatever that may be. So he’s retained a search firm to find someone better than him to run Ooyala.
The company is certainly doing well. We first covered them in late 2008 and they already had big name customers like National Geographic, TV Guide, AOL, and Warner Brothers. Today, Lepe says, they stream 250,000 – 350,000 hours of video a day through partners. One Michael Jackson video last week racked up 70 million views in just 36 hours.
Agile Sofware was acquired by Oracle in 2007 for $495 million. Ooyala has taken just $10 million in funding to date.
Here’s a video with the whole exec team, including Fulcher:
http://modules.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=VzcnZxOgvZULKmzq2qdGt-M8gzDMFG8R&version=2
Update: The press release:
Mountain View, CA– Ooyala, the leading provider of end-to-end video platform applications and services, today announced the appointment of Jay Fulcher as President & Chief Executive Officer. Former CEO and Co-Founder Bismarck Lepe, who led the company since its inception in early 2007, has been appointed President of Product Strategy, reporting to Fulcher.
Most recently, Fulcher served as President & CEO of publicly held Agile Software, where he helped establish Agile as a market leader as it became the fastest growing product lifecycle management (PLM) company in the industry. Fulcher led the sale of Agile to Oracle in late 2007. Prior to Agile, Fulcher spent five years at PeopleSoft, where he led the transformation of PeopleSoft’s $1+ billion global services organization after being President of its $400 million Products Division. Prior to PeopleSoft, Fulcher held senior executive positions at Red Pepper Software and SAP.
“Jay brings the necessary experience, track record and passion to lead our company. We are extremely pleased to have attracted a CEO of Jay’s caliber to Ooyala,” said Bismarck Lepe, co-founder of Ooyala. “He will have an immediate impact on our aggressive plans for growth.”
“I am really excited to be joining Ooyala during this period of hyper-growth,” said Jay Fulcher. “Online video is an increasingly fast growing and strategic market, as traditional and new media channels finally converge. Ooyala is well positioned to not only be the industry’s best video platform, but to provide the most personalized video experience to consumers and the most lucrative monetization platform to content owners. Ooyala’s innovative products and customer-centric philosophy will enable the company to become the leader in this market.” Fulcher was attracted to Ooyala because of its focus on developing game-changing technology and the impact IP-based video will have on the future. “IP-based video is now a powerful reality and with that comes opportunities to better target advertising and deliver the content consumers want on their terms,” said Fulcher.
Ooyala already has over 500 global media and enterprise customers including Warner Brothers, Electronic Arts and Sybase. “Ooyala has been able to grow faster than any other Online Video Platform company because of its focus on technology, customer success and personalization,” added Fulcher. “I am excited by the prospect of taking that early success and leveraging it to build a large, innovative and profitable business.”
Fulcher will join Ooyala and become a member of the Board of Directors, immediately.
Embeddable Video: Introduction & FAQ with Ooyala Founders and New CEO: http://www.ooyala.com/blog
About Ooyala Inc.
Ooyala is a video technology company that provides a comprehensive software platform enabling the delivery, management, and monetization of high quality online video content. Its innovative analytics engine and monetization server allows for video content owners to maximize the value of their content. Ooyala’s partner portfolio includes over 500 enterprise and media companies including Warner Brothers, Wenner Media, Fremantle, Armani, Sybase and Electronic Arts.
For more information please visit www.ooyala.com.