A few months into his job at Intelidata Technologies Corp. in Herndon, Va., veteran retail banking executive Alfred S. Dominick Jr. has joined the board of Home Financial Network Inc.
The home banking software companies have a close connection. Intelidata, formerly U.S. Order, was an early investor in Home Financial Network and controls 25% of it. (See related article on page 15.)
Daniel Schley, Home Financial's chairman and chief executive officer, called Mr. Dominick "a leader and leading thinker in the emerging world of Internet commerce (who) will be a tremendous asset to our management team."
Mr. Dominick, 52, became president and CEO of Intelidata over the summer, after leaving Marshall & Ilsley Corp.'s M&I Data Services unit.
Over a 25-year career in consumer banking, he also held senior positions at Shawmut National Corp., a Fleet Financial Group predecessor, and at Bank One Texas and Boatmen's Bancshares of St. Louis.
Mr. Schley said that mix of banking and vendor experiences is a big plus. "At M&I, Al was not only a visionary with respect to the convergence of consumer banking and the Internet, but he also managed to build a healthy, profitable business delivering Internet banking services to M&I's customers."
With its share price dipping to penny-stock levels, Intelidata appears to be ailing. But there are signs of recovery, and the company is putting problems in areas other than home banking behind it.
Intelidata has called a special shareholders meeting for Jan. 12 to consider a 4-for-1 reverse stock split. The aim is to raise the stock price to comply with the Nasdaq market's $1 minimum bid requirement.
Mr. Dominick said recently that his 100-employee operation should be "close to break-even" in the fourth quarter. He has been advertising aggressively to build name recognition. He said he is pragmatically advising bankers not to move to client/server technologies just because they are there; Intelidata can play to mainframe strengths.
"There is sex appeal to the newest technology, but I don't know why some people are so mesmerized by it," he said. "When you say 'mainframe,' information technology people's eyes light up. They love it, they know it, it runs every day, and it's industrial-strength."
