Norma becomes president of rs-unix

It's a loss for the analyst relations world: today I heard that Norma Larosa has been hired as President of rs-unix, an IBM reseller up in San Francisco.

Norma will be well known to AR veterans as co-founder, with Efrem, of Kensington Group, Inc. (KGI).

Norma was been one of the most widely respected and trusted AR advisors through the 1990s. KGI became part of MetaSource in 2002, but the new owners were not able to give KGI the backing it needed to grow. After KGI decellerated, it wasn't able to offer clients the sort of support they wanted. Of course, analyst relations needs are developing all the time and weak support from MetaSource wasn't enough to keep KGI ahead of the market.

Efrem returned to academia in 2002 (through he still does some research and training through Lighthouse). Through 2003 and 2004 Norma worked hard to keep some of KGI's services running for existing clients. KGI's website hadn't been worked on since 2003, and that reflects how she was focussed on meeting existing clients' needs. Earlier this year the KGI website was taken offline, and not much as been heard from Norma since.

In the long run, even someone with Norma's intense client loyalty cannot have her interest held by a low-growth mature business.Her skills are very broad, and rs-unix look set to gain.

KGI's collapse, like SageCircle's, shows the rapid maturing of the AR market. Nimble firms like KCG, ASG and Lighthouse have been able to deliver similar value at lower prices by copying those pioneers. Norma has not left a minute too early. We wish her every success in the future.