Lee Marshall Levitt

Lee has more than 20 years of experience in the computer industry, focusing on strategic marketing, demand generation, business development and partner/channel management issues. He has held management  positions for a variety of companies, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, and brings this expertise to bear on client engagements.

Lee has brought several important Internet products, services, and industry standards to the market. In 1995, at Process Software, he rolled out the first web server software for Windows NT, and his team developed the concept of using web server technology behind corporate firewalls — what we now call an “intranet.”

While at Process Software, he also put together a number of deals with complementary product providers and designed, championed and launched the company’s indirect channel initiative. He established the company’s two-tier distribution strategy, and established and coordinated a working relationship with Merisel. 

Moving on to Software.com, he ran business development for this leading Internet mail server vendor. There he established and managed partnerships with third party technology providers and negotiated and delivered technology licensing arrangements with Oracle, RSA Data Security, and Verity. He also established and managed business partnerships with Compaq, Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle Corporation,  and Silicon Graphics, the last leading to a $3 million contract with an important large joint end user.

He then moved on to News Internet Services, the Internet Technology division of News Corporation. As head of marketing, he was responsible for all marketing, public relations and positioning activities and successfully researched, developed, introduced and maintained the positioning of the company as a professional services firm, moving it up market from a hosting and software development shop. He drove the creation of a customer-focused engagement process to ensure customer satisfaction and successful engagements.

In early 1999 Lee cofounded and launched OutOfOffice Technology, a venture-funded business-to-business services aggregator providing services to business travelers and mobile workers. As head of business development, he worked with Compaq Computer Corporation, Evoke, GTE Internetworking, MobileLogic Networks and others to develop and rebrand a suite of technology services for mobile workers.

Lee assisted an early stage company, TrailBreaker, in identifying and executing on a new business model. As head of strategy for the VC-funded startup, Lee also worked with prospective customers to evaluate the company's service offerings.

Lee built a new business unit for an email marketing ASP. Working closely with Microsoft, he built a channel program for Microsoft resellers, recruited the leading Microsoft CRM resellers and worked with them to bring the company's marketing automation application to their Microsoft CRM customers.

For Phase Forward, a publicly-traded clinical trials software company, Lee completely revamped the company's lead generation/lead management processes. He licensed and managed a database of 35,000 prospects for the  company and moved the sales organization from Microsoft Excel to SalesForce.com. As a result, revenues increased 20% within 9 months, income from operations has more than doubled, and a number of significant new customers have been signed.

Industry Standards Work

Lee has been involved in the development and promotion of several important industry standards:

• At Process Software, Lee was responsible for the partnership between Process and Microsoft to jointly drive the adoption of ISAPI, the primary protocol used today for applications to share information with Microsoft and compatible web servers.
• At Software.com, he worked closely with Microsoft and Netscape (among others) to develop and promote the VPIM and VCALC standards.
• At News Internet Services, he worked closely with Vignette and 12 other technology providers and end user organizations (including CNET, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Sun Microsystems, and Ziff-Davis) to develop and promote the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) specification, a protocol for XML. News Internet chaired the authoring committee and submitted the specification to the W3C.

Industry Analyst 

Prior to joining Process Software he launched and managed a channels marketing consulting practice at IDC, providing research and advice to more than 40 of the top computer industry hardware, software and services vendors. Over a period of 7 years, he built the practice into a multi-million dollar program, considered by the industry to be the leading channels consulting practice. 

As part of this consulting practice, in 1991, he built and rolled out a comprehensive industry model, the first for IDC and the market research industry. His findings – that while hardware and software revenue growth was slowing, services growth continued to rise – were published in the Wall Street Journal.

Prior to joining IDC, Lee spent 5 years in the field with Texas Instruments, recruiting and providing ongoing account management for large accounts, ISVs, resellers, distributors and OEMs. His product portfolio included TI’s AI workstations and PC-based expert system software, and their proprietary and Unix-based minicomputers. Wins included large AI development deals with Lotus Corporation, Foxboro Corporation, and Sanders, while several multimillion dollar OEM deals included Digital, Data General, Wang Laboratories and others.

Professional Affiliations and Speaking Engagements

Lee is or has been active in a variety of trade organizations, including the Internet Society, the Electronic Messaging Association, the Massachusetts Software Council, the Association for Corporate Travel Executives, the National Business Travel Association, the Drug Industry Association, and the Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE).

Lee has presented at a variety of trade shows and industry events, including: 

• Commercial Use of the Internet at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Internet Society
• Intranets: Internet Technologies Deployed Behind the Firewall for Corporate Productivity at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the Internet Society
• Building Online Communities for High-Profile Internet Sites at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Internet Society

He has also presented at a number of SBANE events and board meetings, at the Boston Computer Society, fall 1996, Internet Commerce Expo 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, Massachusetts Software Council fall 1996, Microsoft Multimedia Conference spring 1996, ComputerLand's National Sales Conference fall 1995, Comdex fall 1994, Hewlett-Packard's Champion Conference, Spring 1991.

Publications

Lee has been published numerous times in ComputerWorld, Computer Reseller News, Reseller Management and many other industry trade publications. From 1990 to 1993 he wrote a weekly column for Computer Reseller News on channel management issues. Additionally, he launched and edited IDC’s monthly Channel Navigator newsletter on channel management issues.

Education

Lee has a B.A. in Economics from Colgate University.

Personal Interests

Lee's lifetime sport is bicycle riding - racing, touring, and mountain biking. Over the past eight years through the Pan Mass Challenge he has raised more than $35,000 in donations for cancer research.

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