MailFrontier names Pavni Diwanji Chairman

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Wednesday, 30 June 2004, 19:30 IST
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MailFrontier, a company that provides anti-spam software, said it named Anne Bonaparte president and chief executive and Pavni Diwanji its first chairman. Bonaparte, who was senior vice president of marketing and business development, replaces Diwanji as CEO. As chairman, Diwanji, 36, will continue to help direct the company's strategy and promote relationships with customers and partners. Diwanji made the move to chairman to focus on the broader strategic issues facing the company and the e-mail industry. A spokesperson for the company said that Diwanji will still have a day-to-day presence at the company. Bonaparte's new responsibilities include strengthening the MailFrontier brand, establishing strategic partnerships and targeting the global market. Bonaparte said she expects the company to reach profitability by next year. Before Bonaparte, 46, joined MailFrontier, she served as vice president of international operations at VeriSign Inc. Before VeriSign, Bonaparte founded Buzzsaw Inc., a spin-off of Autodesk Inc. She held the position of senior vice president of global sales and business development from 1991 to 2001 before selling the company back to Autodesk. The company's flagship product, MailFrontier Enterprise Gateway, detects e-mail security threats in real time and stops unwanted e-mail at the perimeter of an enterprise's network. MailFrontier also sells a product for individual desktop users, MailFrontier Matador. In the first quarter, the company released its Enterprise Gateway version 3.0, which includes the ability to copy IT and security organizations on fraudulent e-mails entering the enterprise. The software also notifies users and informs IT when a new type of fraud is discovered even if the fraud has not yet effected the enterprise. The company plans to focus on global distribution partnerships, said a spokesperson. Currently MailFrontier has a couple global distribution relationships; global markets were a small percentage of the company's revenue last year. The board of directors now includes Diwanji; Bonaparte; Stewart Alsop, general partner of New Enterprise Associates; Timothy Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Sonja Hoel, managing director at Menlo Ventures; Dave Fuller, president and chief executive officer at Borland Software Corporation; and Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Computer Inc.'s Online Store. At the end of February MailFrontier raised $8 million in Series C capital from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. The round brought MailFrontier's total funding to $23 million. Diwanji and MailFrontier CTO Brian Wilson founded Palo Alto, Calif.-based MailFrontier in 2002. The company currently has about 70 employees.