Autoweb Promotes Jeffrey A. Schwartz to CEO
6 November 2000
Autoweb Promotes Jeffrey A. Schwartz to CEO
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Nov. 6, 2000--Autoweb.com, Inc. , the leading automotive internet service, today announced the appointment of Jeffrey A. Schwartz, Ph.D. as interim CEO, replacing Sam Hedgpeth, who resigned effective today.
Schwartz was vice president of strategic development at Autoweb with responsibility for business and corporate development, sales and licensing activities, and OEM strategy.
"Jeffrey's hands-on executive experience and fiscal expertise will allow us to leverage our aggregated customer and vehicle data, interactive technologies and significant financial resources to drive the evolution of our business into profitable data, technology and fulfillment organizations," said Dean DeBiase, chairman of Autoweb.
"Jeffrey developed our initial relationships with the key portals, OEM's, major dealer groups, affiliates and financial partners. In his tenure here, he has played a major role in establishing some of Autoweb's significant strategic relationships, and his leadership has contributed to this year's continued diversification and growth of our revenue base."
"We have a strong, experienced senior executive team at Autoweb and I look forward to working with them in managing our operations, reducing costs and leveraging our capabilities and relationships to create the next generation of Autoweb," said Schwartz.
"The board of directors fully supports Autoweb's management team and believes in their ability to rapidly evolve the business and drive Autoweb toward profitability. Autoweb is correctly positioning themselves to integrate their accumulated knowledge of automotive consumer buying behavior patterns with AIC's content and technology to create the next level of customer relationship management and fulfillment solutions for the automotive industry," said Mark Ross, Autoweb board member and original investor.
"The company's integrated marketing and fulfillment relationships with Infiniti, Saturn, Isuzu and AutoNation are indicative of Autoweb's future potential in the business-to-business marketplace."
Currently, all major automobile manufacturers, including BMW, Daimler Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda and Toyota, use Autoweb's Automotive Information Centers data to power their sites. The major consumer portals also use Autoweb's content and technology to power their auto channels and services, including AOL, Lycos, MSN Carpoint and GO.
Prior to joining Autoweb in October of 1999, Schwartz served as vice president of corporate affairs at The Walt Disney Company, where he was responsible for worldwide corporate business development, including negotiating the parent company's long-term strategic marketing, promotional, and advertising partnerships and building multi-divisional relationships among the business units. Schwartz is a Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute and has a bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Southern California.
About Autoweb
Autoweb is the leading consumer automotive Internet service, guiding users through every stage of vehicle ownership. Through its direct and referral commerce channels, Autoweb offers consumers a variety of ways to purchase new and used vehicles in conjunction with vehicle manufacturers, local Member Dealers and other commerce partners. The Company's Web site also provides consumers with a wide range of automotive-related products to support the complete lifecycle of the vehicle, including finance, insurance and maintenance. Autoweb features comprehensive, unbiased research from its Automotive Information Center (AIC) division, the leading provider of automotive content, data and intelligent tools used to power Internet services, portals and manufacturer Web sites. The Company's content and buying models are available on three out of the top four portals through its infrastructure partner program. For more information, please visit http://www.autoweb.com and http://www.autosite.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
Certain statements in this news release, including statements that include words such as "expects," "believes" or other future-oriented statements, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from anticipated results. In particular, factors that could cause Autoweb not to reach profitability in 2001 include, but are not limited to: our ability to attract consumers through existing and recently announced portal relationships; the combined viability of current and new car buying process on our site; consumer acceptance of online car buying and our ability to continue to reduce expenses without comparable or greater revenue reductions. Other risks and uncertainties include changes in competitive behavior or market forces, uncertainties regarding response from the vehicle manufacturers, changes in the legal or regulatory environment, changes or lack of changes in consumer preferences over time, technological challenges and an inability to forecast future traffic and transactions. Further information on risk factors that could affect results is detailed in Autoweb's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Registration Statement on Form S-1 (No. 333-71177) and its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2000, filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission.