Monday, February 28, 2011

Where taps Craig Forman as executive chairman

By Rodney H. Brown

Just weeks after tapping former EveryScape Inc. founder Mok Oh as its new chief innovation officer, Boston-based Where Inc. has named board member Craig Forman as executive chairman, replacing CEO and President Walter Doyle in the chairman’s seat. Forman is a veteran of senior executive roles at Yahoo!, Earthlink, Dow Jones and Time Warner, and has been on the Where board for two years.

Forman most recently served as president of the $1 billion consumer access and audience business at Atlanta-based Internet services provider EarthLink Inc. Before that, he was the head of Yahoo!’s media and information units, including Yahoo! News, Finance, Sports and other products. Prior to Yahoo!, Forman was in charge of internet and media divisions at Time Warner’s CNN and TIME divisions, and Dow Jones’s Wall Street Journal and business-information groups. A former journalist, Forman began his career as a foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, according to Where officials.

Where CEO Doyle was named a Mass High Tech All-Star in October 2010.  Where started out in 2004 as uLocate Communications Inc. It changed its name to Where Inc. in March of last year to match the name of its mobile search and recommendation product. The company also ported the Where offering to the web in conjunction with the name change.

According to Where Chief Marketing Officer Dan Gilmartin, Forman was asked to take a hands-on role to help Where handle its rapid expansion. “The company has been growing — meteoric growth,” he said. “I think we are over 90 employees. Craig has been an instrumental part of the team albeit as an independent board member, for the last couple of years. This is an opportunity to bring Craig into the mix.”