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HUGHES NEW CEO AT IMAGESTATE
December 1, 2003
The board of directors of ImageState has appointed Leslie Hughes as Chief
Executive Officer of ImageState, Inc. and Group Chief Executive Officer
Designate of the Company.
Hughes will be based in New York and operate predominantly out of the New York
office. It is expected that she will be appointed to the Company board.
Hughes had joined Elisar Software Corporation as CEO in May of 2003, but left in
October to join ImageState. Elisar closed its doors on November 7th citing
difficulties in raising venture capital as the reason. Elisar had been named as
one of Fortune Magazine's "Cool Companies for 2002", but could not generate
enough sales to keep the business alive. Its MediaRights software was designed
to protect most file types including GIF, JPEG and HTML from unauthorized use.
The software allows clear viewing of the file, but makes it impossible to "right
click", save, copy, print or forward such files. Elisar investors hope to sell
the firm's intellectual property.
Previously Leslie was President of Corbis Corporation's Markets and Products
Group where she had responsibility for the Creative Professional Licensing
business, the Consumer and Enterprise Businesses, photography groups, sales,
marketing and business systems and integration. Before Corbis, she was Senior
Vice President, Worldwide Sales for the Image Bank, where she had responsibility
for over seventy sales and marketing offices in more than thirty six countries.
Operating control of ImageState has seemed to jump back and forth across the
Atlantic in the last couple of years leading to confusion among many of its
image suppliers and sub-agents. The financing for the company comes from London,
but operating control was moved to U.S. after the acquisition of a number of
U.S. brands. First the company's principle operating office was in Seattle, then
New York, and then pulled back to London. In August Michele Vitucci, was brought
into the London operation as acting as Chief Operating Officer under a
consultancy agreement with the assignment to restructure the company. He, will
now hand responsibilities back across the Atlantic to Hughes over the course of
the next month. One of the early challenges Hughes will face is to set up a
system that lets image suppliers and sub-agents know who they need to talk to
to get answers to their questions and where those people are located.
Hughes said, "I am thrilled to be joining ImageState at this stage of its
development at a time when the market is demanding a viable alternative to the
dominant players in the sector. There is a significant amount of market share to
be had by a company that can make a commitment to clients to meet their needs
and I believe that ImageState is well placed to take advantage of this."