U.Va. alumni leading the Internet revolution will fill panels at e-summit conference

Check out this list of University of Virginia grads who are big-time Internet players: Timothy Koogle, CEO of Yahoo! (or is that Wahoo?); Š Halsey Minor, CEO of CNET; ... Bertram Ellis, CEO of iXL; Michael McQuary, COO of MindSpring; and Allison Abraham, COO of iVillage. Unbelievable, huh? And that's just a partial list. So what's in the water down in Charlottesville?
-- Fortune magazine, April 1999

Allison H. Abraham • COO, iVillage, Inc., Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, 1988

Allison H. Abraham has been chief operating officer of iVillage since June 1998. She is responsible for developing and implementing the strategic direction of the company, an innovative online network providing solutions to problems and issues facing women. Prior to joining iVillage, she was president and chief operating officer of OnCart, an online grocery service.

Abraham joined OnCart in September 1996 on a consulting basis as acting vice president of sales and marketing, and was promoted to president, chief operating officer, and member of the board of directors in February 1997. At OnCart she set the strategic direction for the company and served as the primary spokesperson to the media, investors and key customer groups.

She spent the previous five years at Ameritech where she was vice president of marketing for the security monitoring business. Over 18 months tenure in that division, the business grew from $40 million to $250 million in revenues through a combination of acquisitions and internal programs.

U. Bertram Ellis Jr. • Chair and CEO, iXL Enterprises, Inc., College of Arts & Sciences, 1975, and Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, 1979

U. Bertram (Bert) Ellis Jr. is the chair and chief executive officer of iXL Enterprises, the parent company of iXL, Inc., and Consumer Financial Network. He founded iXL Enterprises, a global company that helps businesses embrace and take advantage of new technology, in April 1996.

From 1993 to 1996 he served as president and CEO of Ellis Communications, an Atlanta-based company which owned and operated 13 television stations, two radio stations, and Raycom, a sports production/marketing firm which purchased Ellis Communications in 1996.

From 1986 to 1992, Ellis founded and served as president/CEO/COO of Act III Broadcasting, a broadcast group comprising eight Fox-affiliate television stations which was purchased in 1995 by Sullivan Broadcasting. In 1997, Ellis was named Ernst & Young's Southeast Area Master Entrepreneur of the Year.

Ellis is a trustee on the Darden Business School Foundation Board.

Lawton Wehle Fitt • Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, 1979

The first 10 years of Lawton W. Fitt's career were spent in the corporate finance department of Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s New York and London offices. She worked with a wide range of clients on financings, mergers and other transactions. In 1989, she joined the Equity Capital Markets group where she became responsible for the execution of initial public offerings (IPOs) and other equity financings, concentrating on high technology companies. In all, Fitt has been responsible for an estimated 250 transactions in the past decade.

She became involved in financing Internet companies in 1995 with the IPO of UUnet. Since then, Fitt has quarterbacked the IPOs of such star performers as Yahoo!, eBay, iVillage and eToys. In September 1999, she was named one of the 25 Most Influential People in Electronic Business by Business Week magazine, and in October 1999, was included in Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business.

A graduate of Brown University, Fitt received her M.B.A. from Darden in 1979 and immediately joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Darden School Foundation.

Timothy A. Koogle • CEO, Yahoo! School of Engineering and Applied Science, 1973

In 1995 a headhunter called Timothy A. Koogle to tell him about a tiny company called Yahoo!, which had just four employees. He transformed the handmade directory of web sites into one the Internet's best known names, visited by some 80 million people each month.

When he joined Yahoo! a year after it started, Koogle developed the model that every major search engine has followed: make the site free to users and support it with advertising. Yahoo! will sell about $500 million in advertising this year. He also was the first to figure out how to use the search engine as the nucleus of a much broader, more inclusive service that has come to be known as a portal.

Koogle graduated at the top of his engineering class at U.Va. in 1973.

Halsey M. Minor • Chair & CEO, CNET, Inc., College of Arts & Sciences, 1987

Halsey M. Minor founded CNET Inc. in 1992 after first working in investment banking. His goal was large: CNET is an integrated media company created to be the leading source of information and services relating to computers and technology.

As chair and CEO, he has built CNET into one of the world's leading new-media companies. He also has pioneered a media marriage between television and the Web, using television programming to make complex subject matter about technology widely accessible.

CNET's network of Web sites on technology news and computer products draws more than 8 million users a month, while its weekly television series are broadcast by several cable networks to more than 70 million households.

Snap.com, a web-directory portal that CNET publishes with NBC, has further expanded CNET's extensive offerings.

Mark B. Templeton • President and Chief Executive Officer, Citrix Systems, Inc., College of Arts & Sciences, 1978

Mark B. Templeton became president and chief executive officer of Citrix Systems, Inc., in January, after serving as the company's president for one year and vice president of worldwide marketing for the previous 2 1Ž2 years.

As president, Templeton is responsible for Citrix's global strategy, planning and operations. Under his direction, Citrix has achieved strong international growth, extending operations across Europe, Latin America, Japan and the Asia/Pacific region. Under Templeton's leadership, the company established an iBusiness unit focused on web-based application deployment, and is playing a key role in the emerging Application Service Provider market.

Citrix, which was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is the nation's 18th-largest software company and a world leader in system software for server-based computing with $248.6 million in revenues.

Before joining Citrix in 1995 as vice president of marketing, Templeton gained more than a dozen years of experience in management positions at UB Networks, Keyfile Corporation and LANSystems.

Jeffrey C. Walker • Managing Partner, Chase Capital Partners, McIntire School of Commerce, 1977

Jeffrey C. Walker is currently the managing partner of Chase Capital Partners, Chase's $7.5 billion global private equity fund, and a senior managing director and member of the executive committee and the policy council of The Chase Manhattan Bank. Before co-founding Chase Capital Partners in 1984, Walker worked in the investment banking and finance divisions of Chemical Bank and the audit and consulting divisions of Arthur Young & Co. He is a certified public accountant and a certified management accountant.

He currently serves on the advisory boards of Latin American Enterprise Fund, Weston Presidio Capital and TSG Partners, and is on the investment committee of the Chase Asia Investment Partners, Chase Private Equity Partners Select and Chase Indocean Funds.

He serves on the McIntire School of Commerce board of trustees.

Jeffrey D. Nuechterlein • Managing Director, National Gypsum Company, College of Arts & Sciences, 1979, School of Law, 1986

Jeffrey D. Nuechterlein manages public and private equity investments at National Gypsum Company (NGC), a manufacturer and supplier of products and services used worldwide in building and construction. He also is an active venture capital investor in early stage Internet companies. Before joining NGC, he was outside legal counsel to several U.S. semiconductor companies, counsel to the U.S. Senate's Technology & Law Subcommittee and senior counsel to the U.S. Trade Representative.

Nuechterlein, who lectures frequently at Oxford University and at U.S. business schools, has been an adjunct professor at George Mason University, teaching International Trade Relations & Legal Regulation of International Transactions to graduate students.

In addition to his two U.Va. degrees, Nuechterlein received an M.A. and D.Phil. from Oxford.