Sandra L. Kurtzig is an American businesswoman and technology entrepreneur. She was one of Silicon Valley's first female entrepreneurs, and as the founder of the business and manufacturing software producer

ASK Group ASK Group, Inc., formerly ASK Computer Systems, Inc., was a producer of business and manufacturing software. It is best remembered for its ''Manman'' enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and for Sandra Kurtzig, the company's founder and on ...

in 1972, was the first woman to take a Silicon Valley technology company public.

Career

Early life

Sandra Kurtzig was born in Chicago on October 21, 1947. Kurtzig earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles in 1968,"Kurtzig, Sandra L." ''American Men & Women of Science'': ''A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences'', edited by Katherine H. Nemeh, 31st ed., vol. 4, Gale, 2013, p. 699. ''Gale Virtual Reference Library'', Accessed 3 Feb. 2017. and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Contract programming

In 1972, she left her job selling computer time-sharing for General Electric and devoted more of her time to starting a family. She founded ASK Group as a part-time job, using "a $2,000 commission check from GE;" the $2,000 was needed to rent a time-sharing terminal. Kurtzig launched ''ASK'' as a small, part-time contract software-programming business out of her second bedroom "to keep her mind occupied" and increase her income, never intending the business to operate outside her house. She was asked by her first client, Halcyon, to create an inventory-tracking program that could efficiently provide manufacturing information. Realizing that other manufacturers might find such a program useful, she recruited several graduates with degrees in engineering and computers. Under her direction they wrote standardized applications that addressed problems faced by local manufacturers.

ERP

Manman

Kurtzig reinvested all profits into growing the company. Her company required access to

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

s and she persuaded employees at a nearby

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

plant to allow her company to use one of the company's HP 3000 minicomputers outside of normal working hours. By 1978, ASK released a package of programs called Manman, one of the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) software suites. She later concluded a deal for Hewlett Packard to sell ''Manman'' for use on HP-3000 minicomputers, at a time when most ERP software was only available to run on more expensive

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

s. The company went public on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

in 1981, and in 1983, Kurtzig's personal stake in the ASK Group was worth $67 million. She resigned from her role of CEO of the ASK Group in 1985. but returned in 1989 to refocus and once again grow the company. ASK bought Ingres Corporation in November 1990. At its peak, the company's annual sales were just under $1 billion U.S. dollars.

Kenandy

In 2010 she founded the enterprise management software company Kenandy, where she served as the CEO through 2015 and is currently the Chairman. Kenandy specializes in producing cloud ERP solutions for manufacturing businesses. Kenandy is named after Kurtzig's sons, Ken and Andy Kurtzig,Gould, Lawrence S. "Manufacturing Meets Social Networking." ''Automotive Design & Production'' 124.1 (2012): 26-27. ''Business Source Complete''. Web. 3 Feb. 2017. who are serving as CEOs at other tech businesses. In June 2013, Kenandy announced a $33 million round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. valuing the company at $350 million. Other investors are Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, salesforce.com, and WSGR (Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati). Kurtzig's autobiography, ''CEO: Building a $400 Million Company from the Ground Up'' was published by Harvard Business Press.

Personal

When Kurtzig was awarded the ''Wall Street Transcript's Bronze Award'' and was shortly thereafter "profiled in '' The Wall Street Journal'', '' The New York Times'', and '' The Washington Post''," she said "It's fun to clip articles and send them to your mother, but ''ASK'' is really a team." Her former husband's name was Arie,died late 2001 and their sons Ken and Andy Kurtzig were born c. 1973 and 1976; their parents divorced when the boys were 12 and 9. Her father's name was Barney Brody. Her mother "Marian (Boruck) Brodywho lived til 100 came from a wealthy Chicago family, graduated from the University of Illinois, and worked for a time as a police reporter in Chicago."

References

External links

Kenandy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurtzig, Sandra American business executives American women company founders American company founders Technology company founders Living people University of California, Los Angeles alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni 1947 births 21st-century American women