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Jonathan Bulkeley's Bold Plan to Win the Net's Book Brawl To get the stock moving, barnesandnoble.com's laid-back CEO is broadening the bookseller's cyber identity -- without copying Amazon's catch-all strategy Jonathan Bulkeley measures his life successes by the numbers. The CEO of online bookseller barnesandnoble.com Inc. has visited 53 countries, caught 96 different types of spiders during one three-week stint in the Amazon jungle, and commands a $400,000 cash salary that is rare in the stock-happy world of Net CEOs. Ask about his ability to get brick-and-mortar wages along with hefty options when cyber rivals work largely for stock, and Bulkeley, 39, points to another number: 180 current openings for Internet CEOs. "These are more mature businesses that now want more seasoned managers," he explains. Bulkeley's seasoning -- he spent six years learning the ropes at America Online -- has already started to show some positive results for barnesandnoble.com. Since he joined the company as CEO almost one year ago, the company has doubled its customer base to about 3 million people, while persuading a higher percentage of them to become repeat customers and spend more on each order. But Bulkeley's efforts have not shown up in the stock price. The company, which is 40% owned by bookseller Barnes & Noble, went public at $18 per share in May and is still hovering at that level. It posted a loss of $21.9 million on sales of $49.1 million in the third quarter. The CEO's plan for changing the company's share price trajectory is as bold as it is unproven. He wants to turn the bookseller into a Web site that offers up a whole range of its customers' information needs -- from specialty newsletters to videos of cooking shows. He talks of the company as a media business that can dish out entertainment, education, and information in various forms. "People are labeling us as an online bookstore, and we have to change that," he says.
Not different enough, it seems. On Dec. 1, a federal district judge told barnesandnoble.com to stop using its Express Lane service, which stores a user's payment info so they can do one-click shopping, pending the outcome of a patent dispute with Amazon.com. Bulkeley shrugs off the decision, saying he's disappointed with the ruling but "it's more an issue of principle than something that will affect our bottom line." He plans on quickly launching a revised payment process that is quick but doesn't run afoul of the Amazon patent claims. That's classic Bulkeley. People who have watched him in action call him the consummate diplomat. "Nothing fazes Jonathan," says Bob Smith, who worked with Bulkeley at America Online and now heads a business-to-business Internet firm called e2enet Inc. The barnesandnoble.com chief doesn't go about bad-mouthing his rivals, Smith observes, and "when things become absolutely absurd, the most he'll do is laugh." Bulkeley credits his international experience with teaching him patience and a sense of perspective. The son of an Aetna Inc. executive, he has lived in spots such as Kenya, Chile, Greece, Zimbabwe and -- the place he considers home -- Hartford, Conn. He speaks some Swahili, Greek, Spanish, and French. "Traveling has taught me to deal with a whole bunch of differences," Bulkeley says. He earned a bachelor's degree in African studies from Yale University in 1982, moving on to work for an African business magazine in Washington, D.C., before taking on sales and marketing positions at Time, Discover, and Money magazines. "VERY FOCUSED AND VERY TOUGH." Then Bulkeley became an early pioneer in the wild world of the Web. He joined America Online six years ago, launching initiatives in ad sales and e-commerce, and then spent three years getting off the ground the company's British joint venture with German publishing giant Bertelsmann, which also owns 40% of barnesandnoble.com. He says the experience made him appreciate what he calls AOL's "keen focus on finding customers, keeping them, and making them profitable." While he may be one of the first to have set up online stores and ads, he lacks the hyperbole and oversize ego of some Net entrepreneurs. "Jonathan stands out anywhere because he appears so laid-back," says Karen Thomson, managing director of AOL UK. "But in reality, he is very focused and very tough." Bulkeley says he joined barnesandnoble.com because he was impressed with Barnes & Noble CEO Leonard Riggio's commitment to building a strong Internet brand. "I could see the sparkle in his eye," he says. "Len doesn't view this as something that will cannibalize the other business." In fact, Bulkeley expects that the brick-and-mortar business, with its 1,000 stores, and his online company will both benefit from their close relationship. "The winners will be people with very strong brands," he predicts. Bulkeley also shares his parent company's focus on the bottom line. He has spent much of the past year trying to drive down customer acquisition costs while increasing the average size of orders and number of repeat visits. Among other things, he redesigned the site, added new products, improved the technology, and simplified the ordering process.
Taking on a behemoth like Amazon.com is no small task. Bulkeley's leadership is key to his company's success. Jackson maintains that Bulkeley "has a strong sense of not sweating the small stuff." As long as his team is motivated and moving fast in the right direction, he's happy not to meddle too much in their affairs. "I've got to have the vision, but I'm a fairly relaxed manager," says Bulkeley. In fact, Bulkeley's a laid-back guy in general. He has a policy of trying to sleep eight to nine hours per night. But until he gets his company's stock price moving upward, he had best not sleep too soundly. Diane Brady is Business Week's Connecticut bureau chief. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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Jonathan Bulkeley: Chief executive of barnesandnoble.com WEB POINTERS Click here to visit some of the sites mentioned in the story: barnesandnoble.com Amazon Bertelsmann Rocket Network QXL.com | ||||||||||||
