After San Diego’s Active Network (NYSE: [[ticker:ACTV]]) disclosed last month that longtime chairman and CEO Dave Alberga would be assuming a new role as “executive chairman,” Alberga says, “The first question from Wall Street was, ‘Are you backing away from the business?’”
Alberga says his answer is “No.” The changes are intended to strengthen the Internet company’s sales operations and to improve the Active Network’s use of social networking tools as part of its evolving online strategy.
When I met with him recently, Alberga told me has no desire to leave the business, which provides Web-based services and media for groups that organize sports leagues, marathons, swim meets, corporate conferences, and other events. The company, which has almost 3,800 employees, reported $121.6 million in revenue for the quarter that ended in June, a 23 percent increase over the second quarter of 2011, when the company posted $99 million in sales.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Alberga pulled back on the throttle at least a little. He has been the Active Network’s CEO since 1999 and its chairman since 2001.
“The success of this business in the coming handful of years depends on two things,” he says. “One is our ability to execute—to continue to build out the technology and products that our customers need and to solidify our market and technology base. The other is to ramp up our sales efforts. We’ve kind of undersold our products.”
As Alberga explains it, the executive reorganization formalizes the way he and president Matt Landa already were running the business, except that as executive chairman he can offload some
