Al DiGuido, the outspoken former CEO of Epsilon Interactive, has re-entered the e-mail marketing industry—this time as chief executive of e-mail service provider Zustek Corp.
The announcement follows the acquisition of Zustek (pronounced zeus-tek) by private equity firm Investcorp Technology Partners.
In his first interview since the announcement was made earlier today, DiGuido said this is just one of a series of acquisition announcements Zustek and Investcorp will be making over the coming weeks.
“We’re going to be truly a global organization when we get done in terms of making acquisitions and building out the strategy,” said DiGuido. “The whole idea of a siloed e-mail provider as a business moving forward is limiting. I think there is a tremendous opportunity to combine e-mail marketing with other interactive services.”
He added the intention is to build Zustek out as a one-stop shop for interactive marketers.
“When you talk to big companies today, they’re saying ‘it’s great that there’s all this super technology out there, but frankly I don’t have the time to talk to 10 different people; I want to talk to one organization that has best-of-breed solutions across the spectrum,’” DiGuido said. “The organization we’re building will have heavy emphasis in the e-mail space, but it’s going to be part of an integrated solution.”
Founded in 2001, Zustek is currently relatively small but has some blue-chip clients, including Time Inc., Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, Thrifty Car Rental, Cars Direct and the Venetian Las Vegas.
DiGuido declined to comment on Zustek’s size beyond describing it as a small- to medium-sized business.
It is just over a year since DiGuido was ousted as CEO of Epsilon Interactive. The firing came on the heels of a rough period where Epsilon acquired the company DiGuido headed, Bigfoot Interactive, and then online advertising concern DoubleClick’s e-mail unit. The acquisitions reportedly resulted in culture clash between DoubleClick and Bigfoot executives, and an exodus of DoubleClick staffers.
When asked what he’d learned about combining company cultures, DiGuido said: “I’m a year older. Whenever you take a year away from what you were doing, you analyze things. I’m still passionate; I’m still aggressive; I still want to listen to a lot of different opinions when it comes to getting things done. I think the culture [at Zustek] is going to be very much customer centric. From a people standpoint, if you’ve got the right team and they believe passionately in terms of the vision and the mission, then everything goes really well.”
When asked if he plans on approaching any Epsilon employees, he said: “There’s no one over there I have my eye on.”
He added: “We’re just going to put our heads down; we’re going to work really hard; we’re going to get out in front of customers; we’re going to try and earn their business; we’re not going to presume anything. What happened in the past is the past. This is not the same company that I left.”
