Decision Makers
Board of Directors
Jack Byrne has been a director of the Company since 1985. Mr. Byrne formerly served as Chairman of the Company from 1985 to 2003, as CEO of the Company from February 2002 to December 2002, as Chairman of OneBeacon from June 2001 to December 2001, as CEO of the Company from January 2000 to June 2001, as President and CEO of the Company from 1990 to 1997 and as CEO of the Company from 1985 to 1990. Mr. Byrne serves as Chairman of Overstock.com Inc. See Certain Relationships and Related Transactions.
Mark's background includes positions as software engineer and applications developer for the following companies: Emware Incorporated, US Robotics, State of Utah, Ysource, PowerPix and most recently Overstock.com. Mark's past experience with problem solving has made him resourceful in managing multiple, shifting priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Dr. Patrick M. Byrne is Chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, Inc., a Utah-based internet retailer that has been publicly traded since 2002. Under Byrne's leadership the company's revenue soared from $1.8 million in 1999 to $760.2 million in 2007.
Before founding Overstock.com, Byrne served as chairman, president and CEO of Centricut, LLC, a manufacturer of industrial torch consumables, then held the same three positions at Fechheimer Brothers, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company and manufacturer of police, firefighter, and military uniforms.
In 2001, he began Worldstock.com, Overstock.com's socially responsible marketplace for handcrafted products created by artisans from developing nations and from underprivileged artisans in the United States. Overstock's margins on these items are low in order to provide a larger percentage of the sales proceeds directly to the suppliers. On average, artisans receive about 60% of the profit.
Byrne believes that, along with economic freedom, education is the foundation of a healthy society. Byrne has founded 19 schools internationally and is a champion of educational freedom in the United States. In that regard, he is very active in the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. His personal formal education includes a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in Philosophy & Asian Studies, a master's degree in philosophy from Cambridge University as a Marshall scholar, and a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University.
Byrne's free market philosophy and passion for sound economic principals often outweigh self interest. He encourages Americans to pay down their credit card debt, and has vigorously advocated for greater SEC oversight and federal enforcement efforts to curb various forms of securities manipulation practiced by large stock market participants, a position which has provoked the wrath of Wall Street.
Byrne has a black belt in tae kwon do and once pursued a career in professional boxing. He has cycled across the country four times. His last ride, in the summer of 2000, was to raise awareness and funds for cancer research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
Dan Greening is a computer scientist currently focusing on adaptive location services. He is CEO of BigTribe Corporation, an internet software company focusing on location services and personalization. BigTribe has developed a unique adaptive personalization algorithm that recommends locations (restaurants, stores, parks, etc.) you'll enjoy visiting and services (taxis, movie tickets, restaurant reservations, prescription refills, etc.) you'll use. It works with connected devices, such as web browsers and cell phones, and disconnected devices, such as PDAs. In 2002, Dr. Greening was chair of the Location Interoperability Forum's Standards Group (now part of Open Mobile Alliance), which wrote the widely-adopted Mobile Location Protocol. The Mobile Location Protocol allows middleware systems to transmit location information in a technology-neutral way. It can preserve privacy and permissions while roaming. It can represent location information in local coordinate reference systems, making it easier to use local maps and directories. These factors are key for deploying location services in mobile telephone systems. Dr. Greening was formerly Vice President of Engineering for Macromedia, directing software architecture, engineering, documentation and quality assurance for LikeMinds and Aria, marketing tools that improve revenues and quantify traffic on web sites. LikeMinds is an adaptive personalization system providing click-stream and preference-based collaborative filtering and market basket analysis in real-time, also on highly-trafficked sites. LikeMinds helps maximize the revenue potential for each visitor, and strengthens one-to-one relationships with customers, increasing retention and reactivation rates. Greening designed the parallel-processing architecture for LikeMinds, making it more scalable and accurate than competitors. LikeMinds is now bundled with IBM's WebSphere Commerce Server, where it displaced a well-entrenched competitor previously bundled with WebSphere.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Bigtribe |
CEO |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Chief Scientist |
Current |
| Macromedia, Inc. |
Vice President Engineering |
Current |
| Bigtribe |
President |
Former |
| Bigtribe |
Principal Investigator |
Former |
| University of California, Los Angeles |
Ph.D. |
Former |
| University of Michigan |
Bse |
Former |
As the Senior Vice President, Internal Reporting and Information, Dave’s duties include supervision of the company’s internal data and information, including internal reporting and cost accounting functions. Dave joined Overstock.com in 1999 as the corporate controller, was named acting CFO in August 2003, and promoted to the CFO position (Vice President of Finance) in January 2004 and was subsequently promoted to Senior Vice President, Finance.
Prior to Overstock.com, Chidester served four years as a senior auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Chidester earned a bachelor's degree in accounting, and a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Utah.
As Vice President of Online Marketing at Overstock.com, Jacob is responsible for online marketing and customer acquisition activities. Since joining Overstock.com in 2000, Jacob has performed various roles across the organization, including business development, marketing, and merchandising, and project management. Prior to joining Overstock.com, Jacob worked for Professional Marketing International, where he consulted individuals and businesses on how to build and market web sites online. Jacob received a bachelor's degree in business management from Brigham Young University and a masters of business administration with an emphasis in information systems from the University of Utah.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Senior Vice President, Online Marketing |
Current |
| My Trader's Journal |
Senior Vice President, Supply Chain |
Current |
| Issues & Opinions |
Senior Vice President, Change Management |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President, Online Marketing |
Current |
| University of Utah |
Masters |
Former |
| University of Utah |
Business Administration With An Emphasis In Information Systems |
Former |
Jonathan E. Johnson III is the Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Legal of Overstock.com , and former General Counsel. The General Counsel now reports to Mr. Johnson. Prior to joining Overstock.com, Jonathan was with TenFold Corporation in various positions, including General Counsel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before that, Jonathan practiced law in the Los Angeles offices of the New York-based law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and the San Francisco-based law firm of Graham & James. His practice focused on mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, international transactions and general corporate work. Jonathan was a judicial clerk at the Utah Court of Appeals and the Utah Supreme Court for Justice Leonard H. Russon. Jonathan received a bachelor's degree in Japanese from Brigham Young University, studied for a year at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Japan, and received his law degree from the J. Reuben Clark, Jr. Law School at Brigham Young University.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Legal of Overstock.Com |
Former |
| My Trader's Journal |
President |
Current |
| Issues & Opinions |
President |
Current |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
President |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President |
Current |
| TenFold Corporation |
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer |
Former |
| Utah Court of Appeals |
Clerk |
Former |
| TenFold Corporation |
General Counsel |
Former |
| Utah Supreme Court |
Clerk |
Former |
Sam Peterson, Senior Vice President, Technology, is responsible for IT infrastructure, development and website design at Overstock. Sam served as the Vice President, Software Development from early 2005, and was appointed as Director, Network and Systems Engineering in 2003, where he managed several development teams. During that time, he directed the technology team that built the Overstock.com Auctions website. Prior to joining Overstock in 1999, Sam was involved in creating several start-up internet ventures, including Fitnesoft, Inc.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Senior Vice President, Technology |
Current |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Vice President, Software Development |
Former |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President, Technology |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Director |
Current |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Director |
Current |
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Issues & Opinions |
Senior Vice President, Logistics |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President |
Current |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Senior Vice President of Overstock.Com |
Current |
| United States Military Academy |
Assistant Professor |
Former |
| Stanford University |
M.A. In Philosophy |
Former |
| Stanford University |
B.S. In Applied Sciences |
Former |
| United States Military Academy |
B.S. In Applied Sciences |
Former |
Since joining Overstock.com in 2001 Stormy Simon has held various marketing and management positions including Director of B2B, and originator of the Co-op Advertising program. Stormy currently serves as the Senior Vice President, Branding and Customer Care. She also oversees all offline marketing efforts, writing and producing all television, radio and print advertising, and does their media buying also. Prior to joining Overstock.com, Stormy was a media buyer and Director of Co-op Advertising for a major video distributor.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Senior Vice President |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President, Branding and Customer Care |
Current |
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Senior Vice President, Mdsg & Operations |
Current |
Nicole Hagerman serves as Project Manager for the Montana World Trade Center. Nicole comes to MWTC from Overstock.com where she served as Director of International Sourcing. When Nicole started at Overstock.com, the company didn't have an international sourcing department; she developed the department from scratch into a formidable part of the business. She built a team of domestic and international based individuals supporting over $35 million in international purchasing. The purchasing was further supported when she established a Representative office in Shanghai, China. Nicole was also able to combine business with humanitarianism when she was appointed the Director of Worldstock.com. Worldstock's mission is to help artisans in developing countries establish sustainable businesses by selling their products at fair wages. She has worked with universities including Harvard and Westminster to set up programs and classes to support, encourage and teach social entrepreneurship. Nicole was also a part of eLocal.com for 2 years focusing on international development. She holds a bachelor's in Business from the University of Montana. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Digital IQ magazine and received the Utah Business "Forty under 40" Award for her work at Overstock.com and Worldstock.com.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Mwtc |
Project Manager |
Current |
| Global Development Services Inc. |
Account Manager |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
|
Current |
| Harvard Corporation |
|
Former |
| Mwtc |
Bachelor's In Business |
Former |
| University of Montana |
Bachelor's In Business |
Former |
Allison H. Abraham has served as a director of Overstock.com since March 2002. Ms. Abraham served as president and as a director of LifeMinders, Inc., an online direct marketing company, from May 2000 until the acquisition of LifeMinders by Cross Media Marketing Corp. in October 2001. Prior to joining LifeMinders, Ms. Abraham served as chief operating officer of iVillage Inc., an online media company, from May 1998 to May 2000. From February 1997 to April 1998, Ms. Abraham was president, chief operating officer and a director of Shoppers Express, an online grocery service, and also served as vice president of sales and marketing for several months prior to her promotion. From 1992 to 1996, Ms. Abraham held several marketing and management positions at Ameritech Corporation. She was employed at American Express Travel Related Services in New York City from 1988 to 1992, focusing on the launch of new products and loyalty programs. Ms. Abraham holds a MBA degree from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Tufts University.
| Organization |
Position |
Status |
| Aggregate Knowledge |
Director |
Current |
| Issues & Opinions |
Director |
Current |
| My Trader's Journal |
Director |
Current |
| Overstock.com, Inc. |
Director |
Current |
| Ameritech Corporation |
|
Former |
| University of Virginia |
Mba Degree |
Former |
| Darden Graduate School of Business Administration |
MBA Degree |
Former |
| Tufts University |
Bachelor of Arts In Economics |
Former |