Digitizer Group Blog

Robert P Locascio
CEO/Chairman of the Board/Director at
LivePerson, Incorporated
New York, New York
SERVICES / BUSINESS SERVICES
Officer since November 1995
Director since November 1995

39 years old
Robert P. LoCascio, 39, has been our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our Board of Directors since our inception in November 1995. In addition, Mr. LoCascio was our President from November 1995 until January 2001. Mr. LoCascio founded our Company as Sybarite Interactive Inc., which developed a community-based web software platform known as TOWN. Before founding Sybarite Interactive, through November 1995, Mr. LoCascio was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sybarite Media Inc. (known as IKON), a developer of interactive public kiosks that integrated interactive video features with advertising and commerce capabilities. Mr. LoCascio was named a New York City 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. Mr. LoCascio received a B.B.A. from Loyola College.

History

40 Under 40 > 2004 >

The first thing Robert LoCascio did when he moved to New York in 1995 was to incorporate a company. Never mind that he didn’t have an idea, let alone a product. “You need a company,” he says. “Before you get an idea, you get a business card.” The unconventional approach paid off. Mr. LoCascio now heads Nasdaq-listed LivePerson, whose roster of clients includes Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Last year, after years of losses, it became one of the few Internet companies to turn a profit. The product Mr. LoCascio eventually came up with enables a company’s customers to chat over the Internet with a customer representative, a cheaper alternative to telephone customer support. LivePerson expects $12 million in revenues and $2 million in net profit for 2003. Before founding LivePerson, Mr. LoCascio already had one successful venture behind him, a business he’d set up soon after graduating from Loyola College in Baltimore. The company sold interactive kiosks that universities could use to give students information on campus activities. The gamble was a success, and New York University and the University of Maryland installed the kiosks in their student unions. But when the Internet exploded onto the scene in the mid-’90s, Mr. LoCascio realized students wouldn’t bother leaving their dorm rooms to get information. He wound down his business and moved from Baltimore to New York. Despite Mr. LoCascio’s knack for starting companies, he’s putting his entrepreneurial days behind him. “I know I can go from three guys in a room and build something, but can I build a $100 million or $500 million company? That’s the real challenge,” he says.

-Anita Jain