Content area
Full Text
Judith Hamilton is an experienced businesswoman who's not afraid to speak her mind and take action to transform startups into valuable enterprises.
In the past five years, she has led three startups founded by others and sold two of them: research firm Dataquest to Stamford, Conn.based Gartner Group Inc. for $75 million in cash and stock, and FirstFloor Software to San Jose-based Calico Commerce Inc. for an undisclosed sum.
"All CEOs have certain leadership qualities about them, but Judy seems to have more magnetism than a lot of CEOs I've seen," says Bill Barnum, a partner at Santa Monica venture capital firm Brentwood Associates. "It's a combination of charisma and toughness."
Brentwood is an investor in Classroom Connect, the third startup Ms. Hamilton has been involved with. The six-year-old Foster City company develops products to help K-12 teachers integrate the Internet into their lesson plans. According to the company, roughly 520 Bay Area schools use Classroom Connect products.
One such product is Quest, which allows students nationwide to participate in live chats via the Internet with research teams Classroom Connect sends out on four-week excursions. In March, for example, a team checked out some Anasazi ruins in New Mexico.
Ms. Hamilton has set high goals for the company. "I would like to make [Classroom Connect] a public company that is very important in the K-12 education sector," she says. "And I define 'very important' as one of those companies teachers and educators look to as a one that helps improve the quality of education."
No one's doubting her ability to achieve her IPO goal. Since she took the reins of Classroom Connect in January 1999, companies including Englewood, Colo.-based cable TV giant MediaOne Group Inc. and Santa Clarabased Intel Corp....