Consumer >> CEO Interviews >> April 26, 1999
GARY JOHNSON is President and CEO of Z-force, Inc. Mr. Johnson's
20-year career brings Z-force significant expertise scaling
rapidly growing organizations, creating innovative business
strategies and successfully raising more than $100 million in
capital. His experience includes executive, general management,
marketing and engineering management positions in the networking
and PC markets. Before founding Z-force, Mr. Johnson was
President and CEO of S3 Incorporated, a NASDAQ-listed global
leader in multimedia accelerators for the PC market. Prior to his
CEO position, Mr. Johnson was General Manager with responsibility
for the bulk of the company's revenue-generating products. During
his tenure, S3's revenue grew over 400% to over $400 million, and
the company was named by Inc. magazine the seventh fastest
growing company in America. Prior to S3, Mr. Johnson founded two
startup business units in the networking and telecommunications
space ' the last as General Manager of the wireless networking
(IEEE 802.11) group at National Semiconductor Corporation.
Previously, he held engineering management positions at British
Telecom Research Labs in the United Kingdom, where he began his
career. Mr. Johnson has served on a number of Advisory Boards and
Boards of Directors, including Avian Communications, Nanuk
Networks, TuneTo.com, and Silicon Valley Networking Lab. He holds
a Bachelor's degree with honors (equivalent) in Electronic
Engineering, DeMonfort University, England, with First Class
Honors, and is a Chartered Engineer. Profile
TWST: Can you give us a quick overview and a little bit of the historyof MemberWorks, just to set the stage?
Mr. Johnson: Yes. MemberWorks was founded in 1989, so it's a little
bit over 9