Consumer >> CEO Interviews >> November 7, 2000
WILLIAM FRAINE is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Zoho
Corporation. He joined Zoho after a 20-year career at FedEx helping
Fortune 500 companies understand and fundamentally retool their supply
chain processes. In his most recent position as Senior Vice President of
Worldwide Sales, Mr. Fraine was responsible for a team of 4,000-plus
sales professionals. This team helped FedEx's customers reengineer their
supply chains, reduce costs, maximize productivity, and significantly
increase their profitability. He began his career at FedEx as a Service
Agent. After turning around several poorly performing business units, he
was asked to head up the European Sales in the mid-1990s. Within two
years, Mr. Fraine was given the lead sales role for the company's
largest geographic region ' the Americas and the Caribbean. In this
position he 'productized' his supply chain knowledge, creating training
and development programs enabling FedEx sales teams to deliver
consulting-like services for improving clients' supply chain practices.
By positioning FedEx as a strategic corporate partner, Mr. Fraine and
his team grew the region's revenue over $1 billion annually. He also
initiated FedEx's diversity program, and for these efforts was awarded
the distinguished Ambassador Award from Ambassador Andrew Young in 1997. Profile
TWST: Could we begin with an overview of Zoho?Mr. Fraine: Zoho was founded in March 1999. We're a B2B marketplace,
vertically focused on the hospitality industry. We've grown the company
to