Leeman joins Talk2 as president, CEO

(Telephony) Omar Leeman, formerly president of MCI’s business operations, has been named president and CEO of Talk2 Technology.

Talk2 is creating what it calls a carrier-class application and services platform. For Leeman, who served as president of special markets for WorldCom after its merger with MCI, the move to a start-up vendor was based on the company’s ability to address carriers’ requirements in creating new applications.

“Talk2 impressed me because of the vision they had and their understanding of what carriers need,” said Leeman. “Oftentimes, when you want to add a new feature, what it took from a development perspective you were looking at 6 months to get it to the marketplace. We have the ability to rapidly deploy an application.”

In a separate announcement Talk2 said it hired Jeff Lindauer as executive vice president of sales and marketing. Most recently, Lindauer served as president and CEO of WorldCom’s SkyTel group. At Talk2, Lindauer will oversee all marketing, advertising and public-relations strategies, as well as the company's global sales force.

Talk2, which has an equity investment from HP along with a partnership with Oracle, plans to continue selling its product directly to carriers, though it will rely on some channel partners, Leeman said. The company also will evolve with technology as it moves into the carrier market, he added.

“We want to be able to provide extensible development tools—for example Voice XML,” he said. “Our major focus is continuing to develop our partnerships.”