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alumni/ae page |
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May 2004 by Jeffrey Stanley Lucinda Duncalfe Holt ’81 is president, CEO and founder of TurnTide, Inc., a Philadelphia based company which is set to unveil “the world’s first anti-spam router,” a piece of computer hardware designed to prevent unwanted email solicitations, or spam. This promising appliance, sure to be a welcome tool to network administrators and their e-mail users everywhere, led TurnTide to be named one of the “ten startups to watch in 2004” by Network World magazine. Holt majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her MBA in entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School. “I wound down my last company, which I ran from 1996 to 2002, and was very pregnant,” says Holt. “I was recruited to join a company, eprivacy group, that had a mix of products and services including the product that TurnTide now owns. I took the summer off after delivering my second daughter. Then I started looking for a company again. We decided to spin out the product into a new company and we founded TurnTide.” Holt wants to see her company “make a meaningful impact on spam,” and, of course, “make money.” Having an entrepreneurial spirit, however, she thrives on trying to do that in new ways. She wants TurnTide to be “a special kind of company in terms of ‘how’ it is,” she says. “I have a very strong belief, fostered at BFS, that people do their best work when they are challenged, given the freedom to meet the challenge in their own way, and supported in their efforts. Building on that foundation of trust you get a company that operates differently from most…because it is driven from the individuals themselves. Overlaying a strong team ethic on that self-motivation makes it even more powerful.” Holt believes in sharing of information across the board, rather than a top-down management style. “A company where everyone knows everything and where people are trusted to work independently and in teams is unusual,” she says. Holt, whose mother, Marjorie Duncalfe, was a music teacher in the Middle and Upper Schools, attended BFS from grades 7 through 12. “I loved BFS. It was a wonderful place for me,” she says, calling it “an environment that supported me as I tuned my internal compass.” She says the six years she spent here “steeled my resolve to follow my own path.” Holt indeed had a fiercely independent—some might even say devilish—side while a student here. Among her many memories are the consequences of the skip day she took with a few senior friends, while she was still a junior, to spend the day at the beach. “We got horribly sunburned,” shes says. “When we came into school the next morning, Ms. Magzanian was waiting for us, but when she saw our pained expressions on beet red faces, she burst out laughing and told us that we had clearly suffered the consequences of our actions already.” Then there was the time she and classmate Martha Smith, whose father was Head of School Stuart Smith, decided to play a practical joke. Martha got Jim O’Brien to take her father out for the day. Next, “we got the school secretary to let us into his office. We opened the door from his office out to the lobby, and carpeted the floor with paper cups stapled together in a honeycomb, each cup with filled water. We were helped by students, faculty, and staff as we spent hours covering his entire office floor. When Stuart arrived at school the next morning, he just walked right in, stomping on the cups, and sat down and started to work. Because he couldn't shut the door, all the students got to see our masterwork as they filed into morning meeting.” Her playfulness comes in handy when juggling two young children along with running TurnTide, although she makes no separation between her work life and personal life. “There’s just one me, so it all blends together.” But she concedes, “It's tough! My husband Russell stays home with the girls, so that makes it a lot easier. We also built a house very close to our last company. This time, we moved the company to be near home. If I travel for more than a night, the whole gang comes along, which is like a traveling circus.” Holt’s voraciousness for living is evident in her admonishment to the current generation of BFS students. “Try everything! Take advantage of the amazing opportunities you have to participate, to lead, to try, to learn. You’ll be very lucky if you’re ever in an environment that is so enriching.” |
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