Richard C. Cook
Senior Advisor, Focus, LLC

Prior to joining FOCUS, Senior Advisor Richard Cook had retired from the position of Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of MAPICS, Inc. (NASDAQ/NM: MAPX). He managed the 1993 sale by IBM (NYSE: IBM) of the $60 million revenue MAPICS business to Marcam. He led the complex 1997 reverse spin-out from Marcam (NASDAQ/NM: MCAM), and conducted the public offering that created the $92 million revenue MAPICS, Inc. business. As CEO he was responsible for the development, marketing, sales and support of the MAPICS’ software and service offerings worldwide, and managed all shareholder and board relations, as well as actively participated in daily operations and employee, community and customer relations. In December of 1999, he negotiated the acquisition of a private firm – Pivotpoint and in November of 2002, he led the acquisition of Frontstep (NASDAQ/NM: FSTP). MAPICS became a $173 million revenue business by year end 2004, with over 10,000 active customer sites using the applications in 19 languages in over 70 countries around the world. In December of 2004, Mr. Cook proposed a leveraged buy out by management that led to the eventual sale of the company, in an all cash transaction, to Infor Global Solutions. Due to MAPICS success in the marketplace there were a total of 5 bidders for the company, yielding an excellent selling price for the shareholders.

Prior to his tenure with MAPICS, Mr. Cook was an executive with the IBM Corporation. His IBM career spanned 25 years, beginning as an application programmer and retiring from the position of Laboratory Director of the Atlanta Software Development Laboratory. During his career at IBM, Mr. Cook held senior management positions in Information Technology, Production Control, Quality Assurance, Plant Engineering, Purchasing, and directed the Boca Raton site operations team during the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer.

Mr. Cook earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Florida Atlantic University. He is currently a member of the Goizueta Business School Advisory Board at Emory University. He is also a member of the board of directors and chairman of the compensation committee of Qcept Technologies Inc., Mr. Cook is a member of the board of directors and the compensation committee of Indus International. He serves on the board of directors, audit committee and compensation committee of Edgenet. Additionally, he has served on numerous boards of non-profit organizations such as the United Way, Urban League, and YMCA.

Return to Bios Page