Neustar today announced that its Board of Directors has elected Lisa Hook as President and Chief Executive Officer of Neustar. Ms. Hook currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer. The appointment is the culmination of a succession plan three years in the making.
Ms. Hook succeeds Jeffrey E. Ganek, founding CEO of the company. Mr. Ganek will remain as Chairman of the Board. The appointment is official on October 15, 2010.
“Three years ago, the Board and I set in motion an executive succession plan that culminates today,” said Mr. Ganek. “We recruited Lisa as President and COO with the belief that she would be a strong candidate to advance to the position of CEO. This she has proved to be, and we are pleased to announce that Lisa will succeed me.”
Since joining Neustar in 2008, Ms. Hook has strengthened Neustar’s market position and helped the company become an important partner to the content and media industries. “Her experience at AOL brought to us a powerful understanding of the internet, the needs of the IP (Internet Protocol) markets and the role Neustar can play,” Mr. Ganek said.
“As President and COO, Lisa has demonstrated mastery of our business by delivering strong operating results and growth, while strengthening the management team. As an insider who knows us and our markets well, Lisa is perfectly positioned to be our next CEO and leader,” said Mr. Ganek.
“This is the right moment for succession in leadership,” Mr. Ganek said. “Today, we are reaffirming our financial guidance for 2010. Prospects for future performance are bright. Now is the time to put in place the CEO who will lead us into the next phase of Neustar’s growth, and Lisa is the ideal leader. The time is right for the next generation to set the direction for Neustar.”
Ganek led the company from its inception in the late 1990s, through its IPO in 2005 and to its current position as a partner and trusted resource to highly competitive and distributed industries like telecom and media.
“It is an honor to become CEO of Neustar, and to follow a visionary leader like Jeff Ganek,” said Ms. Hook. “I welcome this chance to work with my colleagues and the Board to lead Neustar at a moment of great opportunity. I’m grateful for having had the benefit of learning from Jeff, and I look forward to building on his legacy.”
Neustar was founded to meet the technical and operational challenges of the communications industry when the U.S. government mandated that consumers be able to keep their telephone numbers when they switched providers.
Today, Neustar is the world’s leading addressing and policy management company, operating authoritative databases for virtually all telephone numbers and area codes for the United States and Canada; providing DNS solutions that play a key role in directing and managing traffic on the Internet; and managing the authoritative directories for the .us, .co, and .biz Internet domains, as well as Common Short Codes used by the wireless industry to facilitate text messaging.
Neustar was chosen by the DECE to build the digital content locker, branded UltraViolet™, by which consumers can get access to the entertainment content they own on the device of their choosing.
“Jeff Ganek has done an outstanding job as CEO,” said James G. Cullen, Lead Independent Director, on behalf of the Board. “The Board is grateful for Jeff’s vision and leadership of Neustar, and he has positioned Neustar on a clear path to continued growth and success. We look forward to working with Lisa as she assumes the leadership of Neustar.”