The longtime CEO, president, and board chairman of Dice Holdings, Scot Melland, will step down from at the end of September. He will remain a member of the board of directors.
Melland will be succeeded as CEO and president by Michael Durney, who is currently the company’s chief financial officer and EVP of its industry brands group, responsible for its energy, financial, and health niche career sites.
Peter Ezersky, a company director since August 2005 and currently chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee, will become chairman of the board. He is managing principal of the investment firm Quadrangle Group, which is a major shareholder in the company and was one of the two company owners before Dice went public in 2007.
No reason was given for the corporate shakeup. Increasingly, public companies are splitting the jobs of CEO and chairman of the board; a consequence of government and shareholder demands for greater accountability and more checks and balances in corporate governance.
Ezersky, who takes on the chairmanship Sept. 30th, lauded Melland’s leadership calling it “instrumental in building Dice Holdings into a global leader in online recruiting.” “We respect his decision to step down,” he added.
Durney, who joined Dice in 2000, was described by Ezersky as a “a natural fit” for the CEO job. “Mike possesses a wealth of experience and knowledge having worked across our brands while serving in a range of strategic roles. He successfully guided Rigzone with an open minded approach that increased revenue growth and enhanced operating discipline, while completing multiple transactions.”
Dice Holdings, the corporate owner of multiple career sites, is best known and generates the biggest share of its revenue from its flagship tech jobs board, Dice.com. During the years Melland headed the company, Dice acquiried other niche sites to both strengthen its Dice.com brand, and to diversify into other growth areas as energy and healthcare. While still only a fraction of the $133 million generated by its tech and security clearance career sites, its energy properties are growing faster than any part of the business. The company’s eFinancialCareers site, acquired before the global financial crisis, has been struggling as banking and financial firms all but stopped hiring.
Today, in addition to announcing the leadership changes, the company also said it bought the UK-based The IT Job Board.
In addition, the Company reported financial results for the second quarter, in which revenues totaled $52.0 million, an increase of 7% from $48.5 million in the second quarter of 2012 and up from Q1’s $50.4 million. Net income was $8 million, which translated to diluted earnings per share of 13 cents. That was a penny a share better than analysts were expecting.
However, shareholders traded down the stock partially on news that the current quarter would come in below what analysts wanted, partially because the earnings per share were behind last year’s same quarter 14 cents, and in part because the total revenue was just under the $52.19 million analyst consensus.