I recently heard from a few different industry sources that Steve Brown, General Manager of Demand Media’s auction platform, NameJet, was no longer with the company. Late this evening, the news of Brown’s departure was confirmed to some clients in an email.
Taking over Brown’s former GM position will be Matt Overman. Prior to this promotion, Overman served in the position of Director of Domain Sales at Demand Media. According to his LinkedIn page, Overman was previously Business Development Manager at HotKeys, which was acquired by Demand Media in 2006.
I sent emails to two company officials asking for comment, and I will post those when and if I hear back (Demand Media is currently in its quiet period after filing for an IPO).
Disappointing news.
Though still a work in progress, few could argue that Steve had gradually transitioned NameJet’s intolerable hardcore arrogance into a more client-friendly culture in which disputed issues were more quickly and easily resolved. At last, the words “customer” and “care” could actually coexist in the same sentence. Perfect? No. But giant strides better than the rude, authoritarian disrespect clients had long suffered as an unwelcome cost of doing business with NameJet.
I salute Steve Brown for making NameJet a more thoughtful and human place to conduct business and hope that Matt will ride the same trendline toward improved customer relations.
SR
That are really good news!
I hope now things will change and we will see NameJet with a more active politic regarding promotion and overture.
Congrats Matt for the job
I think what made Steve so great is his LACK of promotion and aggressiveness. He is as nice of a guy as there is in this business and he was always so organized. As a 40 year old man it was also nice to talk to someone my own age rather than a 25 year old salesman. When I heard last week I wasn’t sure if an announcement had been made or not, I guess it has, too bad but Matt seems like a nice guy as well.
Best of luck to Steve B. He was a pleasure to work with and will be missed.
@ steve
He was helpful to me the one time I needed it recently.
Wish I had known Steve was leaving so I could have said goodbye. He is a standup guy and was great to work with.
Well he left on his own term, forced out or get shown the door?
Did we ever get an update on Steve Brown? I also greatly enjoyed working with him on a number of items over the years. Would like to see where he ran off to.