In a letter to shareholders, Patrick Byrne, founder and CEO of Salt Lake City-based online retailer Overstock.com, announced a significant management shuffle of executives at both tZero and Overstock. Byrne described the changes as intending to accelerate growth at tZero, Overstock’s emerging initial coin offering platform for securities on blockchain. tZero is a majority-owned Overstock subsidiary.
Byrne will become president of Overstock Retail, and Ralph Daiuto will become president of SpeedRoute, a securities-brokering platform owned by Overstock, while maintaining his role as general counsel and chief operating officer of tZero. Saum Noursalehi will become CEO of tZERO. Joe Cammarata is moving from an executive role with the firm to focus on his tZERO board role, Byrne said. Byrne, in relinquishing his CEO title at tZero, will become executive chairman of the blockchain platform. The announcement came in advance of Overstock’s forthcoming annual shareholder meeting.
Byrne characterized the changes as a “significant injection of human capital into tZero.”
“Saum Noursalehi, formerly president of Overstock.com, will assume the role of CEO of tZERO. Out of the thousands of executives I have worked with through the years, I’ve never met anyone who can manage innovation like Saum,” said Byrne. “As a business-oriented technologist, his fingertip sense of the high costs of centralizing information and strong understanding of product teams and agile management makes him an extraordinarily effective executive. Saum’s proven track record as an innovative leader will help tZERO cement its market-leading position at the forefront of the emerging security token capital markets space.”
Byrne said he remains “no less committed to tZero” but the young company will benefit from Noursalehi’s skills.
“With this change and infusion of additional leadership into tZERO, I am confident we will have assembled the right team to take the company through its next phase.”
“I strongly believe Saum assuming an active leadership role in building tZERO, coupled with his building of a top technology team, will radically accelerate tZERO’s innovation cycle while representing a significant commitment in resources to the success of tZERO,” said Byrne.