Gazelle Adds 3 Industry Leaders to its Executive Team

BOSTON, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Fresh off the heels of the announcement of a $12 million Series C round of investment, Boston-based Gazelle (www.gazelle.com), the nation's largest reCommerce service, announced today that it had hired three industry leaders, Chris Sullivan, Ben Katz and Joseph Morrow as CFO, CTO and Executive Vice President respectively.  Chris, Ben and Joe join Gazelle with storied track records of driving growth and profitability and building singular customer experiences.

Chris Sullivan joins Gazelle as Chief Financial Officer with more than two decades of experience working with publicly traded and private technology companies including start-ups to large multinationals. Chris' strategic thinking, extensive M&A experience and inherent leadership skills as CFO have driven consistent high growth, profitability and improved cash flow at small, mid-sized and large companies including Pegasystems, Event Zero and DEC. Chris has also held senior finance roles at Compaq, Fisher Scientific and HR Access, a Fidelity owned, but independently operated company. During his career Chris also served as COO, overseeing functions including Human Resources, Legal, Sales Operations, Information Technology and facilities. Chris is a native Bostonian and received both his B.S. and MBA from Babson College.

Benjamin Katz joins Gazelle as Chief Technology Officer. A respected leader in technology, Ben was most recently CIO of RueLaLa, the leading "private sale" e-Commerce site where he introduced and developed the now ubiquitous model and experience of an online private sale. Benjamin is known for building high growth brands and explaining new internet retail concepts through technology. Prior to RueLaLa Ben was Vice President of Innovation at Allurent, where he was responsible for leading User-Experience projects from inception through post-deployment support. Ben is also responsible for building some of the most popular e-commerce retail sites including anthropologie.com and while serving as Director of Technology at ATG, Ben managed large-scale e-commerce sites including jcrew.com and sun.com. Ben resides in Cambridge where he can bike to the Gazelle offices in only 20 minutes.

Joe Morrow will spearhead Gazelle's operations and eCommerce strategy as EVP of Operations, bringing a new level of innovation and efficiency to the team. He has gained extensive experience in the field, serving as the President and COO of both ReCellular and Enlighten, a Managing Director at Morningstar Consulting Group and Partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Joe also held consulting roles with McKinsey & Co. as well as A.T. Kearney. Joe is a BGS graduate from University of Michigan and also holds a JD/MBA from the University of Chicago.

"It is a privilege to join Gazelle and what's particularly exciting is the opportunity to be part of something gamechanging: helping to invent and establish the notion of reCommerce," said Chris Sullivan. "I look forward to the challenge of taking this singular business opportunity and ensuring that our growth is scaled and profitable."

"I am excited to join a company with such immense growth potential and a great business model," said Benjamin Katz. "My goal is to help Gazelle continue providing a seamless user experience and to make reCommerce available to a critical mass of consumers. We want to educate all consumers and enable them to adopt this new mode of consumption."

"Gazelle's reCommercing services are changing the way consumers use and recycle their electronics," said Joe Morrow. "Being a part of this company means being a pioneer in an innovative eCommerce industry that is not only enhancing environmental sustainability, but is also revolutionizing consumer behavior."

ABOUT GAZELLE

Gazelle (www.gazelle.com), a service of Second Rotation, Inc., is committed to providing an easy, fast, and safe way for consumers to get cash for selling unwanted electronics or to recycle them responsibly. To date, more than 80,000 consumers have used the service as a way to clean out closets, get cash and help out a good cause. In addition, Gazelle empowers consumers to avoid time consuming and risky online experiences associated with peer-to-peer selling. Consumers can rest assured that all personal information is thoroughly removed from their item while benefiting from conveniences like free shipping and packaging. Based in Boston, Gazelle is backed by premier venture capital firms Physic Ventures, Venrock Associates and RockPort Capital Partners.

SOURCE Gazelle