Farewell, El Presidenton!

Linkshare announced today that Steve Denton will be stepping down as president. It is a sad day.  Steve took over as president for Linkshare in 2006 after Stephen Messer and Heidi Messer stepped down. The Messer’s had sold Linkshare to in a cash deal valued at $425 million.

Since then Steve Denton has been instrumental in guiding Linkshare forward. I would like to thank Steve for all that he has done for Linkshare and our industry as a whole. I know that Steve will be successful in whatever he does and look forward to hearing what’s next. You can read the full press release below for more details.

LinkShare Announces Executive Management Team Changes

    NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire/ -- LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action
marketing network, announced the resignation of Stephen R. Denton as
President of the company and two promotions in its executive management
team.

    Kelli Beougher, Vice President of Lead Generation Services, was
promoted to Senior Vice President and will add responsibilities for
LinkShare's push into new businesses, as well as day to day management of
its extensive publisher network. Beougher joined LinkShare in 2001, and has
held senior roles in client and network development services. Prior to
joining LinkShare, she held positions at both Priceline Webhouse and
LexiQuest. She began her career at GE Capital Management, and is a Six
Sigma Black Belt and holds a B.B.A. in Marketing from the University of
Texas at Austin.

    Arun Bordoloi, Senior Vice President of Services, who currently runs
LinkShare's Affiliate Marketing business, was given the additional
responsibility of leading LinkShare's growing Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
business. Prior to LinkShare, Bordoloi was Senior Vice President for
Draftfcb. Before that, he spent eight years at Razorfish
(AvenueA/Razorfish). Mr. Bordoloi started his career in management
consulting for Ernst & Young and Deloitte Consulting. He holds a B.S.E.E.
and an M.S.E.E. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

    While a search for Denton's replacement gets underway, his duties will
be assumed by John J-H Kim, who will become Interim President in addition
to his role as CEO of LinkShare's parent company, Rakuten USA.

    "During his tenure at LinkShare, Steve made important contributions to
the organization-helping to build a strong client services team, introduce
innovations in technology and service offerings, and expand LinkShare's
global presence," said John J-H Kim. "We thank him for his many
contributions to LinkShare and wish him well in his new endeavors."

    LinkShare was founded in 1996 and acquired in 2005 by leading Japanese
e-commerce company Rakuten. In recent years the company has expanded beyond
affiliate marketing to provide search and lead generation services as well
as support for video and mobile pay per action tracking to its customers.

About David Lewis

David Lewis is the CEO and founder of 77Blue which operates online shopping websites. Prior to that, he worked in business development at GoTo / Overture. David was a product manager and accountant in past lives. In 2006, David won Commission Junction’s Horizon Award for Innovation and was a finalist for Linkshare’s Golden Link Award. You can find David on Twitter @thedavidlewis.

Website: http://davidlew.is

Twitter: thedavidlewis