Kevin Klustner has stepped down as chief executive of Verdiem, the Seattle software company backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and others.
Klustner’s bio has been removed from the Verdiem Web site, with board member John Laing now listed as chief executive. Laing previously worked at Inxight, Symantec, Apple and Xerox.
Klustner, the former chief operating officer at WRQ, joined Verdiem in March 2006.
Verdiem has raised a total of $27 million, including a $12 million venture round that closed last Spring.
More than 200 customers are using the company’s Surveyor product to power down personal computers when they are not in use. Representatives for Verdiem could not be reached this morning.
UPDATE: Verdiem issued this statement today on Klustner’s departure, with Vice President of Marketing Allison Cornia saying he left to pursue other opportunities.
“While we regret that Kevin Klustner chose to depart Verdiem to pursue other opportunities, we wish him every success and appreciate his establishing Verdiem as a thought leader in enterprise network energy management. Thanks in part to his efforts, SURVEYOR sales have more than doubled, and broad awareness of PC energy waste has increased with the recent launch of Edison.”
Laing is currently serving as interim CEO as the company looks for a replacement. Mike Andrews, who served as vice president of sales, also recently left the company, though Cornia said it was unrelated to Klustner’s departure.
– John Cook, johnharoldcook@gmail.com
2 responses so far ↓
1 Denis Du Bois // Oct 6, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Verdiem’s product is a tough sell. The proposition seems solid — save enough energy to pay for the relatively inexpensive product. But the EPA offers a similar product, free. And there are so many other ways to save that relatively small amount of energy, and they don’t inolve IT touching every PC.
Workers don’t want power management to intrude on their day, IT doesn’t want complaints to intrude on theirs, and management doesn’t want either group to be distracted. Besides, the people who make the buying decisions carry their laptops home at night.
Will this catch on before thin clients/mobility/telecommuting/24-7 shiftwork make it irrelevant?
2 Blanch Atem // Jan 7, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Last year the venture herd was chasing “green” as if it was the next Google. Super high expectations for this market! Next thing you know, the price of energy starts falling faster than a supermodel’s neckline.
It is not an uncommon story for solid v1 execs to walk the plank if the revenue ramp doesn’t go vertical. About 6 to 18 months later, the same thing happens to the v2 execs.
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