The Return of Captain Morgan

In late 2007, Charles Morgan, the longtime company leader of Little Rock-based Acxiom Corp., abruptly ended his tenure after building the data firm into a global powerhouse.

He remained on the board of directors, but slowly during the past 4 years, he’s divested himself of a boatload of Acxiom stock. Charles Morgan is back with a variety of new entrepreneurial projects and some thoughtful guidance on his old company.

“I’ve failed retirement miserably and my wife reminds me of that often,” Morgan tells Talk Business in an exclusive interview.

NEW BUSINESS VENTURES
Morgan has invested in a number of start-up companies: Inuvo is one of them. It recently merged with Vertro to form a company generating about $60 million annually. Inuvo and Vertro, which was led by former Acxiom executive Richard Howe before the merger, helps online advertisers place ads through Yahoo and Google and derives a portion of its revenue through click-through advertising. Morgan said the partnership was about producing scale.

“The company is now going forward as Inuvo, but it is pretty much a merger of equals,” Morgan said. “We believe that two-plus-two is at least five here… I’m excited about the prospects. I think it’s going to be a very interesting little company, not huge, but an interesting little company.”

Morgan is a big investor in First Orion, which has a wireless phone service geared towards privacy called Privacy Star. It is cutting major deals with a number of wireless companies, including Dallas-based MetroPCS and has more contracts in the works.

“Our long term strategy is to partner with the [wireless] carriers and we are doing our first major carrier roll-out with MetroPCS out of Dallas, it has about 9.5 million subscribers. We have just literally within the last couple of weeks gotten that launch done.”

Morgan said MetroPCS will add a big advertising and promotion push for Privacy Star in May to more than 5,200 of its stores. Five other contracts are in the pipeline, he says, and that has Conway-based First Orion, started by former Acxiom executive Jeff Stalnaker, busting at the seams.

“We’re up to about 40 people up here and growing. We’re trying to figure out where in the heck we’re going to get space for our people. We’ve got people doubled up in offices, so we’re out of space and glad of it,” said Morgan. “By the way, I think I have the smallest office.”

Other projects occupying Morgan’s time and interests include:

• A board position on privately-held Entrust, a software security firm out of Dallas.
• A principal interest with Bridgehampton Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund that Morgan says is in the process of converting to a mutual fund. Morgan is active in trading and developing trading strategies for that business.
• He’s still chairman and principal of Querencia, an upscale golf and living community he founded in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with former Acxiom executives Rodger Kline and Jim Womble in 2004. Morgan says a new condo project is underway in the development.

THOUGHTS ON ACXIOM, WORLD BUSINESS CLIMATE
Though Morgan divested himself of much of his Acxiom stock, he’s still closely tied to the organization he led for nearly 40 years. What does he think of the direction new CEO Scott Howe and the Acxiom team are taking the Little Rock-based firm?

“I’m still very friendly with Acxiom, by the way, and with the new CEO. I’m a big fan of his. I’m a very big fan of Scott Howe. I think they’ve really got a good team over there now and I’m thrilled, very, very thrilled about what they’re doing,” Morgan said.

He suggests that the evolution of the database giant into a digital marketer is in a major transformative stage.

“They’re still finding it [their direction] and working on it every day is my impression, but they’ve really got the right leadership philosophy there and I think they’ve got an approach that’s going to be very successful for them,” said Morgan. “I think Scott is the right guy to lead the business. He’s certainly — in my view — every major move he’s made has been the right move and I’m very excited about what they’re doing and I’m so happy for Arkansas and for all my former Acxiom associates to see somebody, what I’ll say is, doing the right things with the business.”

Morgan also shared his thoughts on the current entrepreneurial climate, having just returned from a business development trip at a world trade conference.

You can listen to those comments and more in the video below.