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By silicon.com, 6 September 2006 15:50

NEWS

As the countdown begins to silicon.com's seventh annual Agenda Setters poll of tech's 50 most influential individuals, it is time to look back at those who held top 10 positions in 2005. Today we catch up with last year's number nine, Richard Segal.

Richard Segal was a new entry on last year's Agenda Setters list at number nine. He made it in on the back of a successful $8.5bn floatation of the online gaming company PartyGaming on the London Stock Exchange.

Within months of the IPO in 2005 the company was valued at more than $12bn and PartyGaming became the first dot-com to break into the FTSE 100 index of leading shares since the madness of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

Segal led with PartyGaming's IPO, and others followed as the industry took off. But what has he been up to this past year? In February this year he announced his decision to step aside as CEO after opting not to relocate permanently to PartyGaming's headquarters in Gibraltar, where he had spent the months leading up to the floatation.

He said at the time: "My time at PartyGaming has been one of enormous challenge and great excitement and we have achieved a huge amount in a very short space of time. The decision to leave has been very difficult given the success already achieved and the exciting prospects ahead."

Now headed by Mitch Garber, the company faces an industry in turmoil following the crackdown by US authorities on online gaming companies. Recently BetonSports' now ex-CEO David Carruthers was arrested as he changed planes in Dallas, en route from the UK to Costa Rica, and charged with a racketeering conspiracy for participating in an illegal gambling enterprise.

Although PartyGaming has no assets in the US, almost three-quarters of its revenue comes from there and so the immediate focus will be on building up its non-US business through an aggressive acquisition strategy that has already seen it buy Bulgarian company Gamebookers for $69m along with speculation it may buy the Victor Chandler group.

All these difficulties, plus Segal's departure from his post, make us feel safe in betting he won't make the Agenda Setters top 10 - or perhaps any spot on the list - this year.

silicon.com's Agenda Setters panel, made up again of CIOs, analysts, VCs, consultants, lawyers, academics and other experts, convenes in September with the results revealed at the end of the month. If you want to pass on your comments for our experts - about Richard Segal or any other contender - drop us an email at editorial@silicon.com.