By Elizabeth Cloutman
Los Altos resident Linda Hayes named e-commerce company’s chief operating officer
In a way, one might say Linda Hayes’ life has come full circle.
The daughter of two small business owners, Hayes was raised in a small farming community in northeastern Kansas, earned a bachelor’s degree in English at nearby Kansas State University and completed the Corporate Communications Program at Northwestern University. She has spent nearly three decades honing her marketing and communications skills while working mostly for Bay Area corporations, several of which are part of the electronics and high-tech industries. Her enthusiastic, friendly, articulate nature is readily apparent even to the most casual observer.
Fourteen years ago, Hayes moved to another small, friendly community - Los Altos - which she said she loves so much that for a brief period, she kept her home here while commuting to a job in Chicago. “I refused to move,” she said.
Then, 13 months ago, her reputation and skills as a marketing executive led to Ándale, a Mountain View-based e-commerce management software company, hiring her as its chief marketing officer.
Just two weeks ago, Hayes’ career culminated in Ándale’s naming her as chief operating officer. In her new position, she is responsible for all aspects of corporate communication.
“I’m excited about the promotion,” Hayes said. “I’m the type of person who needs to feel I am growing and expanding my skill level, and I love challenges, especially the good kind. I have had many years of success as a marketing executive, and my new responsibilities are a natural progression. This new job is a good fit for me as I thrive on solving problems and meeting objectives and deadlines. It’s especially exciting … because (Ándale) is such an exciting company and has a very talented executive staff.”
Ándale, a Spanish word that, roughly translated, means “Let’s go,” was founded two years ago by CEO Munjal Shah. It provides platforms for online merchandising, advertising, customer communications, customer checkout, and inventory and record management so businesses of all sizes - even small local ones like those her parents owned in Wamego, Kan. - can sell their merchandise online avoiding the pitfalls of voluminous paperwork and being just another Web site among millions.
Ándale customers include high-volume auction sellers, small online businesses, small-to-medium size enterprise businesses and retail organizations that want to expand into online sales.
“You can be a local business in a small town and have the same advantages as (a large company) on the East Coast,” Hayes said. According to the company Web site, 83 percent of all listings on eBay use at least one Ándale product.
It’s quite probable that observing the operations of her parent’s small businesses in her youth - her father’s company manufactured equipment such as snow plows for Caterpillar tractors, and her mother owned a hardware and gift store - inspired in Hayes an idea which altered the way Ándale offered its services.
She told the management team that the company should not require its customers to buy all its online services as a package if they needed only a few of the services. Her fellow executives agreed.
However, Hayes said, each service remains part of a fully integrated package and a customer may opt for additional services at any time while retaining the services they already have. Under Hayes’ plan, customers pay for the services they use on a sliding scale of profit percentages, depending on the volume of their sales.
Completing the full circle of her life, Hayes and her husband, Ed Schroeder, a retired high-tech executive, have recently moved to a Spanish-style San Antonio Hills area home that was built in 1926, when Los Altos was a rural area filled with orchards.
