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Mr. Norton started his career as a software engineer doing development
in the insurance industry which included leading edge early microcomputer
applications and systems and security software.
He joined his first raw startup in 1983 as a systems engineer to develop
and design tools for an early sales force automation (SFA) company. He
developed very early development productivity tools that used object
oriented software techniques and delivered competitive advantage to companies
that used them.
In 1984 Mr. Norton join Business Research Corporation (the predecessor
to Thomson Financial Services) as employee #12, as Director of Software
Development. FIRST CALL was developed and launched just a few months
later and changed the way Wall Street distributed and managed it research,
earning estimates and fundamental data. At the time FIRST CALL was one
of the world's most sophisticated real-time, fault tolerant, world-wide
satellite networks. After FIRST CALL's launch Mr. Norton ran a skunk
works with several development teams for Thomson creating a new product
virtually every year. While there he did product design, development,
management and launch of five products over as many years. Each of these
products was warmly accepted by the market and quickly grew revenues.
Today several of these products are virtual monopolies or dominant in
their market.
After Thomson acquisition by the $4 billion International Thomson Organization
(Toronto exchange) Mr. Norton continued to develop other products and
also to replace products developed by other Thomson holdings including
Autex, Bond Buyer Video Munifacts and others.
In 1989 Mr. Norton left Thomson to found his first company, HomeView.
Between 1989 and 1994 he created multimedia technology to tour homes
for sale remotely, negotiated a $34MM financing from IBM and recruited
about 80% of the Boston area brokers as members. By 1994 HomeView grew
to 3 offices, $156MM in annualized revenues and over 150 employees. When
IBM shut down its venture capital activities in 1994, and the IBM funding
deal for HomeView's national expansion collapsed along with 100's of
other IBM funded companies, Mr. Norton sold the company to a group of
investors who wanted to rollout HomeView nationally as a franchise.
As a next act Mr. Norton did a turn-around of an early stage company
called A+America, a somewhat philanthropic venture founded to help K-12
schools fund technology acquisitions. Although the company's primary
business was a bricks and mortar program with national and regional retailers
like Bob's Stores, Burger King, Sears and JC Penney, Mr. Norton conceived
and launched the first on-line fundraising web site for schools which
reached quick profitability. While a competitor later spent $30 million
and achieved little market penetration, A+America launched its site with
minimal investment and achieve superior market share.
Since 2001 Mr. Norton has been consulting for companies and acting as
an interim president and CEO. His 14 years as CEO and President, founding
experience and strong technical background as a CTO allow him to consult
on a much broader level than most consultants who generally have full-time
experience in a single discipline.
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