True to its word back in November 2017, DHI Group, the parent company to well-known tech job board Dice, has a new CEO, replacing outgoing CEO Michael Durney. Announced on April 10, Art Zeile now holds the title of chief executive officer.
“I’m honored to assume this important role at DHI at a time when the rapidly changing market is hungry for an innovative approach to next-generation recruitment solutions and tech professionals are eager for state-of-the-art career management tools,” said Zeile. “DHI’s strong foundation and focused strategy well positions the Company for a bright future and I look forward to leading, and contributing, to its future success.”
The change in leadership comes after a gradual decline in both growth and stock price. Durney, who will stay on in an advisory capacity through the end of April, had been a senior executive at DHI for over 17 years. He served as CFO when he first joined the Company in 2000 and then as CEO since 2013. A numbers guy at heart, he wasn’t able to keep pace with the innovation occurring at nimbler startups like Entelo and GitHub, where Dice had been a market leader for over a decade.
Though not from the employment space, Zeile, who holds degrees from Harvard and the U.S. Air Force Academy, joins DHI with a core competency on cloud computing, managed data centers and videconferencing services. Prior to joining DHI, he was the co-founder and CEO of HOSTING, a company that provides cloud solutions to enterprise customers. He also has success raising money and has served on multiple boards. On paper, the guy’s pretty impressive.
“When we began the search for a new CEO, we had a long list of requirements needed to fill this critical role,” said John Barter, chairman of the board. “Art satisfies all of these requirements and more. Our process was thorough and after meeting with many qualified candidates, it was Art’s extensive background with scaling technology companies from infancy to maturity, leadership through numerous acquisitions and divestitures, and experience driving revenue at a number of companies that confirmed he’s the best person to guide DHI into the next phase of its journey, and ultimately return the business to growth.”
Over the past few months, DHI has been busy shedding its portfolio of job sites it no longer deems core to its future, including RigLogix, Biospace, and Health eCareers. Dice, eFinancialCareers, and ClearanceJobs will likely remain the organization’s focus going forward, and where Zeile will spend most of his energy. He’s certainly got his work cut out for him, as the company’s last quarterly report saw a revenue decrease of 6.5 percent.