Rolling Up Mystery Shopping: Market Force CEO Karl Maier (Part 2)

Sramana: What year did you move back to the States?

Karl Maier: I came back in 1996. I graduated from college in 1989. I had a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend whom I worked with at the Bank of Boston. Today, she is my wife! She stayed in Boston and went to business school at Harvard. After she graduated, she got a job in Colorado. I decided to move to Colorado as well.

I moved back on the 12th of July, and we had planned to be married in August. I met a venture capital firm in Denver called Centennial Ventures. They offered me a job in one of their portfolio companies within two weeks of my getting back to the States. I have now worked for four of their portfolio companies.

Sramana: What kind of company was the first portfolio company you worked for?

Karl Maier: It was a wireless company that was buying up two-way radio spectra in Peru, El Salvador, Chile, and Ecuador. They were building two-way radio networks. I was brought in as a finance guy to help them raise capital and make acquisitions. The company was a bit of a mess, and I kept making the point that we could do things differently. We went through three CEOs from 1996 to 1999. Eventually, one of the board members decided that I should put my money where my mouth was, so I took over as president and eventually CEO. That company was turned around, and we sold to Nextel International in 2001.

Sramana: Was that a successful deal for you financially?

Karl Maier: It was a successful deal for shareholders and for me as well. It was my first real turnaround with venture guys. It was a good outcome for everybody.

Sramana: What did you choose to do next?

Karl Maier: Centennial Ventures looked at me as a turnaround guy. They had a hairy situation on their hands with a public company, VIA Networks. It was an international Internet service provider that was doing about $80 million in revenue annually. The company had made 26 acquisitions in 15 countries over a period of 18 months. It had gone public and raised $340 million in capital.

In 2001, things got very tough and the company was burning through $100 million in cash annually to achieve $80 million in revenue. I went there in January 2002, and my job was to stop the bleeding and get the company stabilized. We cut $70 million of cash burn in eight months. We stabilized that business by selling off Brazilian, Argentinean, and Mexican businesses.

Sramana: How long were you there?

Karl Maier: I was there until 2003. Centennial Ventures again asked me to parachute into a challenging situation. They were investors in an IT service company out of Houston called Vector ESP. The capital structure was messed up. I went in as the executive chairman of the board and turned that company around. The company was sold in 2004.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Rolling Up Mystery Shopping: Market Force CEO Karl Maier
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