Mark Goldston is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of United Online, Inc., the number-two dialup Internet service provider in the U.S. behind AOL. United Online has more than 16 million active accounts across its NetZero, Juno and BlueLight Internet services, its Classmates Online social networking business and its premium email and web hosting services.

Goldston joined NetZero as chairman and chief executive officer in March 1999 when the company had 60 employees and a $20 million valuation. He took the company public in September 1999 and engineered its merger with Juno Online Services in 2001 to create United Online. Today, United Online is one of the most successful Internet companies in the U.S., having generated more than $100 million in cash flow in the twelve months that ended June 30, 2004.

Prior to joining NetZero, Mark Goldston spent more than 22 years in the field of consumer marketing and created and introduced more than 60 products during that period, with combined sales in the billions of dollars. He was senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Revlon during the early 1980s, and in 1986, he became the youngest president of a Fortune 500 consumer products company when he was named president of Faberge at age 31.

He then became the chief marketing officer of Reebok and was responsible for creating and introducing one of the most successful athletic footwear products of all time: The Reebok Pump. Goldston then went to Odyssey Partners, LP, a leveraged buyout firm, where his group spearheaded the turnaround of six separate private companies.

He served as president of LA Gear from 1991-1994, supervising a turnaround that ended with the firm reporting its first profit in more than 3 years. He invented the lighted sneaker phenomenon and today is the named inventor on 13 separate patents, including 6 for lighted shoes, 2 for inflatable "Pump" shoes, energy return systems and a variety of other technologies. From 1994 to 1999, he ran The Goldston Group, a Los Angeles based strategic advisory firm that helped reposition companies in which he would take an equity stake.

Goldston earned his bachelor's degree from Ohio State and his master's degree from Northwestern.

Back