Fellow IDPF Members,
 
I would appreciate your support for my candidacy for a Board Member of the IDPF. I would be able to bring to the role, both my recent experience heading up Digital Products and Services at McGraw-Hill, as well as 20+ years of technology and software experience to the organization. Prior to joining McGraw-Hill, I served as CEO of RichFX, a leader in the rich media/digital publishing space, where I was responsible for all strategic and operational aspects of the business. Before that, as Vice President - Corporate/Business Development for Register.com, I was responsible for growing the business from $10 million in sales to $150 million in sales through both organic growth as well as leading several successful M&A and partnership transactions. At Register.com we had over 4 million individual business clients purchasing online subscription services from the firm. Prior to Register.com, I was the VP of Business Development for a Community Content/Collaborative publishing company About.com that we launched and then sold to Primedia. I started my career and worked for 13+ years at Bell Labs/AT&T, where I held a variety of executive and management rolls, and I hold two patents in the area of Computer Telephone Integration.
 
As a fairly new entrant into the publishing arena, I would bring a fresh insight to digital publishing and a desire to help build better processes and solutions.  I’ve had nearly one year now to familiarize myself with the XML based subscription sales database model as well as the tremendous growth in eBooks and the limiting factors in both channels.  I have participated with the IDPF in meetings at Corning, and other meetings to help advance the IDPF standards etc. While McGraw-Hill has embraced the EPUB standard with excitement, we still struggle to see full acceptance of the format across distributors as well as compliance with some of the hottest devices on the market.
 
Currently as VP Digital Product and Services at The McGraw Hill Companies I lead the Digital Products and Services team. My team is focused on 7 main areas that I fell would be helpful as a board member of the IDPF.

#1. New Digital Products and Services (Email Marketing, Digital Catalog, Digital Press Releases) for McGraw-Hill Professional
#2. eBooks and Mobility Devices (iPhone/iTouch, Treo, Blackberry, Windows CE, Sony and Kindle)
#3. Digital Subscription Publishing Services Sales, AccessMedicine, Digital Engineering Library, etc.
#4. Licensing of Content and Digital Rights for Distribution
#5. Discoverability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of our Products and Services
#6. The Companies direct ecommerce website.
#7. Head up the McGraw-Hill Education (Publishing) cross company eCommerce Team.

A few applicable lessons learned during my career.
 
Key Skill Areas:
* Business Building
·     Coping with running a business experiencing explosive growth
* Skilled at Win/Win Partnership Deals
* M&A Deals where Key Staff are Retained

Key Experience Areas:
* Business/Corporate Development
* Product Marketing and Management

Specialties:
CEO, Audit, Contracts, Product Management, New Technologies, Business Development, Corporate Development, ICANN, Internet, Telecommunications, Company Turn-Arounds, Restructuring, Bankruptcy

Sincerely,
Stephen W Smith
Vice President Digital Products and Services
McGraw-Hill Professional