Innovative Interfaces, Inc. has appointed Kim Massana as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately (August 27, 2012). Jerry Kline continues as Chairman and Neil Block as President.
Massana comes to Innovative as the former President of Thomson Reuters Elite, which specializes in providing enterprise management solutions to law firms and related organizations. The systems that Elite offers to law firms to manage their operational activities have many similarities to the products that Innovative and its competitors develop for libraries. Thomson Reuters Elite, with a workforce of more than 900 worldwide is roughly three time the size of Innovative. Massana joined Elite in February 2008 as Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing and International and advanced to President in August 2010. Massana was Director, Sales and Marketing for Sweet & Maxwell, the UK-based legal publishing unit of Thomson Reuters from January 2003 until he jointed Elite. Prior to his progressive career in Thompson Reuters companies, Massana was UK Sales Director for Equifax PLC. Massana’s earned a Master of Business Administration from the Escuela Superior de Administratión de Empresas (ESADE) in Barcelona and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.
Neil Block, who joined Innovative in 1988 and has served as President since August 2010, will continue to hold that position. Other roles held by Block at
Innovative include VP for Worldwide Sales and VP for North American Sales.
Massana joins Innovative after its roll-out of the new Sierra platform. Now Innovative’s flagship product, Sierra has been very well received, especially by its existing customers using Millennium. In 2011, Innovative signed a record number of contracts for Sierra. Key challenges for Innovative include some erosion of customers to open source alternatives. Sierra, though still a proprietary platform, offers a much more open architecture than Innovative’s previous offerings.Given the major strategic investments by private equity firms Huntsman Gay Global Capital and JMI Equity that took place in March 2012, the subsequent appointment of new executive leadership is not unexpected. This transition saw the formation of a new Board of Directors for Innovative with seats allocated to both private equity firms, as well as to Jerry Kline, who retains an ownership stake in the company and serves as the Chairman of the Board.
Massana brings relevant experience to Innovative, both in the executive management of a company that develops enterprise business applications and in the general types customers served. While the majority of Innovative’s library customers are in academic and public libraries, it has a very large contingent of law libraries using its products. It is too early to anticipate any new directions or priorities that may take place at Innovative under the leadership of Massana.