E-Commerce Newsmaker: Justin Jaschke, Chief Executive Officer, Verio Inc.

Verio, Inc. is one of the world’s largest Web-hosting company and a leading provider of e-business solutions. With an emphasis on serving the small and mid-sized business market, Verio offers a broad range of Internet solutions such as high-speed Internet access, Web hosting, e-commerce solutions, virtual private networks and other enhanced services.

To build its leadership position, Verio has developed extensive sales and marketing channels, including its direct sales force, exclusive partnerships with America Online, NTT, and three regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), and a network of more than 5,000 resellers in 170 countries.

Profile

Verio CEO Justin Jaschke started the company in 1996 from a spare room in his home. In three years, he has taken Verio from an Internet access provider start-up to a Web-hosting giant that offers a complete range of e-commerce and other e-business services.

Under Justin’s leadership, Verio has completed more than 50 acquisitions of regional ISPs and Web hosting companies, as well as several key strategic alliances and a highly successful public offering. Today, Verio, Inc. is a fast-growing $3.5 billion (US$) company with more than 1,500 employees worldwide.

News And Views

“To predict how the Net economy will evolve, you have to center on the Web site – the digital front and back door for any company’s relationship with the world of e-business,” Justin explains. “It is the great equalizer, leveling the playing field for companies of all sizes competing in an increasingly global marketplace. Now, it is the Web site that sells products, communicates with customers, vendors and employees, and streamlines the back office and provisioning systems of e-businesses.”

Recognizing the importance of the Web site, Justin transformed a respectable Internet access provider into the world’s largest Web hosting company. From there, he added a full range of Internet services to serve the needs of the burgeoning small and medium-size business market. “From the beginning, we knew we had to make Web-hosting and e-commerce services easy for businesses, leaving them to focus on their core competencies instead of worrying whether or not their Web server had gone down.”

It is this concept of ease and simplicity that drove the development of VerioStore. A completely integrated e-commerce solution, VerioStore wraps all the components that an e-business needs into one package. Companies can almost instantly create complete, ready-to-work retail commerce sites that enable them to sell products and services to customers over the Internet. Offering such comprehensive services, Verio has enabled thousands of companies to harness the awesome power of the Internet to substantially grow the value of their e-businesses.

Moving into the new millennium, Justin plans to expand Verio’s services internationally and further venture into new enhanced e-business services, including the fast-growing applications service provider (ASP) market. Leveraging its world-leading Web-hosting platform, Verio will deliver mission-critical business applications – such as ERP, CRM and other enterprise software solutions – over the Internet to businesses on a subscription basis. Verio intends to draw from its years of hosting experience, as well as its regional data centers and Tier One national network, to take a leadership position in this burgeoning market.

Prior to forming Verio, Justin served as chief operating officer for leading wireless company Nextel Communications, which merged with his previous startup, OneComm Communications. He served as president and CEO of Bay Area Cellular Telephone Company and was vice president of corporate development for PacTel Cellular from November 1987 to May 1990.

Justin serves on the Board of Directors of Metricom, a leading wireless data communications provider, and on the Board of Directors of Dobson Communications, a rural cellular and local exchange provider. He earned a bachelor of science degree summa cum laude in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound, and master’s degree in management from the Sloan School of management at MIT.