John Sanchez
Letter from the Chairman
Dear Friends of Zunch:
The summer of ’05 will be one to remember at Zunch. In the last few months, we’ve seen a lot of expansion that is right on schedule with our plans to make Zunch the largest, most diversified interactive services company on the planet.
In July we finalized the acquisition of Salem Global, a New York City web development and search engine optimization firm headed by Raphi Salem. Raphi will now manage new business development for the Zunch New York office. A marathoner and non-stop networking machine, we’re very pleased to welcome Raphi, as well as Benjamin Paquet, a very able web developer who has worked with Raphi for some time.
Joining Raphi in the New York office will be Kevin Ryan, Zunch’s new Chief Strategy Officer. Kevin is a well-known speaker and authority on interactive marketing. He is the former Vice President of Interactive Services at Wahlstrom Interactive, where he managed the online strategies of clients such as Avis, Choice Hotels, Hilton Hotels Corp., Isuzu, Lexus, Kawasaki, Kia, Mitsubishi and Toyota. His rise in interactive marketing is widely known in the industry and in particular to readers of iMedia Connection, where his “ Search This!” column is a favorite.
Of particular interest to me is that Zunch is about to make a move into the very large and virtually untapped Chinese market. We’ve just launched the Chinese version of our website at www.zunch.cn. A very special thanks is due to Terrence Ou, our APAC Business Director and Search Engine Optimization Specialist, for his dedication in seeing this project through. For those of you who don’t know Terrence, he has been with us since June 2004 and is the author of the first book on Search Engine Optimization in the Chinese language.
The new website contains the new Zunch Chinese Content Management System, refined for the Chinese market by Joe Mocerino and Terrence. This tool will be very beneficial to our new clients in China and is a revolution for webmasters and marketers. This tool has a Chinese-friendly, user-friendly interface that will allow our new customers in China to adjust and optimize Web content and navigation quickly and easily.
And then in November Zunch will be at AD:TECH Shanghai, the first interactive marketing conference ever held in China. Terrence and Kevin will speak at this conference. Also attending the show will be Giovanni Gallucci, President & COO of Zunch and me.
We are focusing all of this attention on China as part of our plan to open a Zunch office in Shanghai in early 2006. The Chinese market is huge, and any company serious about making money on the Internet needs to look into this booming nation of over 100 million Internet users. Our purpose in China is two-fold: to help Chinese businesses make a mark on the Internet and to help International companies make inroads into China.
Zunch has also reached an agreement with Massimo Burgio, another well-known and respected name in the field of search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Massimo will be managing our New Business Development Unit on the West Coast. Yes, very soon we will announce the opening of Zunch San Francisco.
We also launched a new tool that will enable our Pay-Per-Click clients to keep track of their PPC campaigns and monitor click fraud, a growing menace in the search field. We call it Click Fraud Detective and the website is here: www.clickfrauddetective.com
As you might guess, things have been a little crazy at the Dallas office, with Gio and others running around, burning the candle at both ends. I’d like to thank a few people for their dedication and commitment.
Carrie Tinsley and Matthew Shehorn, co-directors of the SEO division, have been working very hard and are due some assistance very soon. Yasmeen Rahman, Technical Account Manager, has been very instrumental in organizing our efforts and assuring that our client relations are timely, accurate and efficient. Anthony Zapata has grown into his role as Director of Business Development very comfortably and is overseeing the sales team that has been consistently bringing aboard quality clients and exciting projects.
Thanks to Zunch India and especially Mohammed Shabir, who continue to absorb all of the SEO work with typical aplomb. It is because of this very able and dedicated team that our clients rank highly on the search engine results page.
Gina Hamm, Creative Director and Stefan Weise, SEO Specialist and Designer, continue to crank out high quality, client-pleasing designs and concepts under enormous pressure. Your sacrifice is definitely not unnoticed.
The development team deserves a special round of applause, as they are constantly under the gun and never fail to deliver. Special thanks to Sona Solanki, Wyatt Roberts, Scott Wilson, Benjamin Paquet, Tyson Kirksey, Dan Slater, Joe Mocerino, Scott Denton, Chris Gomez and Jeff Martin.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank Miranda Thibodeaux, who keeps the Dallas office running smoothly and sees to it that this rapid growth doesn’t affect our office operations negatively. No matter how much we throw at Miranda, be it constant travel plans or a trip to Starbuck’s, she smiles and doesn’t let it get to her. Thanks, Miranda.
Zunch said goodbye recently to a couple of people we’ve grown close to. So long to Alan Buehler, Zunch’s Chief Financial Officer and also a fond farewell to Sona Solanki, Project Coordinator and Developer. We all wish Alan and Sona every success in their future endeavors.
And this month we welcomed Jesse Romero, Zunch’s new Comptroller, to the team. Also aboard in Dallas are Becky Lindstrom, Business Development Specialist, and Jeff Martin, SEO Account Specialist/Developer.
That’s about it for now. Thanks to you, our clients and friends, who have made Zunch what it is today. If there is anything we can do for you, please do not hesitate to call or drop in on us.
Sincerely,
John Sanchez
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