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Gemvara Inc. has put off its CEO search, opting instead to hire veteran tech startup CFO Eric Sockol to join 25-year-old founder and CEO Matt Lauzon, who will remain in the corner office at the Lexington company.
Lauzon stepped in this spring in what was then regarded as a temporary move, when then-CEO Deb Besemer stepped down as the online jewelry sales and customization company changed its strategy to focus on direct-to-consumer sales. Besemer, former CEO of Waltham software company BrassRing, lasted a year before switching to the chairman role.
Sockol spent the past 11 years as CFO at TechTarget Inc. (Nasdaq: TTGT), helping the Newton company raise $125 million in private placements and $115 million in its initial public offering. Prior to that, he was CFO at systems integrator ObTech and Internet software company OneWave.
“The way we’re looking at it is, we want to have the absolute best person in every single position at this company,” Lauzon said. “If a day comes when that person is someone other than me (at the CEO position), we’d consider that. Right now, we’re looking around the table and saying we’re beating every metric.”
Lauzon declined to talk specifics about the company’s revenue or site traffic but said the site hit a million pageviews in July. The average ticket is near $1,000, and top-line revenue is growing by double digits, month over month, he said. “It’s rare for me to sit in a meeting and not have multiple orders come in.”
The company has doubled its headcount since January, to 40, and expects to hire about 10 more by the end of the year, Lauzon said.
Gemvara was founded in 2007 as Paragon Lake LLC and has raised at least $11 million from investors including Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners.
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