Editor’s Note

Naveen Jain was born in India and completed his engineering degree at the Indian Institute of Technology in 1979. He earned an M.B.A. from the XLRI Jamshedpur School of Management in 1982. In 1983, Burroughs Corporation tapped Jain for a business exchange program in the United States and he later joined Microsoft in 1989, working on products ranging from Operating Systems to Internet Services. In 1996, he founded his first Mobile Information Services company, InfoSpace, which he took public and served as its first CEO for almost seven years. Jain left InfoSpace to launch Intelius, a premier information commerce company, in early 2003. Jain (www.naveenjain.com) has won the Albert Einstein Technology Medal, Top 20 Entrepreneurs award, Information Week’s Web Innovators award, American Business Awards’ “Best New Company Award,” and Ernst & Young’s Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Pacific NW Region for his entrepreneurial ventures.

Company Brief

A pioneer in the world of information commerce, Intelius (www.intelius.com) is a technological powerhouse whose services range from basic people search to comprehensive background checks for consumers and FCRA compliant employment background screens. The company also offers an award-winning identity theft protection service (IDProtect). Founded in January 2003, the company has served over 10 million customers and has just over 300 employees. Intelius has been ranked by Inc. magazine and Deloitte & Touche as one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies. Intelius has been voted as one of the best places to work by the CEO magazine and Puget Sound Business Journal, based on interviews with its employees. Intelius was also ranked as a top employment screening provider in surveys conducted by industry publications, HRO Today and Workforce Management magazine.

Would you provide an overview of the products and services Intelius provides?

Intelius allows people to manage their digital lives by better understanding what information about them is available – an important step in helping them manage their online privacy and personal/financial safety, while also helping them achieve their personal and professional goals.

As pioneers in the information commerce industry, we provide innovative technologies to collect, interpret, and deliver information-based services online. By providing unparalleled accuracy in providing solutions using information from thousands of public sources, we facilitate intelligent and informed decision-making in business and in life. In fact, we recently celebrated our 10 millionth Intelius customer.

Our products and services range from locating long lost friends, colleagues, and family members to providing comprehensive background information for consumers and also FCRA level corporate human resources employment checks. We also offer the best identity theft protection product on the market (IDProtect) and have recently launched an award-winning Date Check mobile application that helps people manage their social lives better.

But we don’t just deliver reliable and accurate information – we also analyze, dissect, and present it intelligently, based on the user’s unique needs. It’s this unique approach that has helped us expand our customer base and services so successfully.

Can you talk about the need for people to manage their online profile in today’s increasingly online world?

We’ve truly entered a new level of transparency in our private and professional lives, thanks to the Internet and the resultant “digitalizing” of information. More public records about your life, ranging from education and real estate transactions to social activities and business relationships, are now accessible to people. From a personal, professional, and safety point of view, it has never been more important than now to understand the information about you that is available for anyone to see – we refer to this as managing your digital footprint. Intelius equips people with knowledge about their Internet footprint – whether it’s through our people search services, which offer an aggregate profile of what’s online about a particular person, or through Identity Protect, which monitors changes in your credit report, address history, aliases, and more, so you can ensure that you’re being accurately depicted online and beyond. We also provide information to help reduce the risk of identity theft which is a real and rapidly growing problem.

People are looking for trusted Web sites, because more and more of our transactions are being made online. At Intelius, our Web site received the prestigious TRUSTe Web Privacy seal of approval. The TRUSTe seal demonstrates the trusted relationship between individuals and online organizations. It demonstrates our commitment to the relationship we have between Intelius and our customers and the respect we have for personal identity and information in this rapidly evolving networked world.

You devote considerable time to philanthropy and giving back to the community. Would you elaborate on these concepts and why they’re so important to you?

While many corporations have been cutting back on charitable giving because of the difficult economy, we have ramped up our contributions. When our country has an unprecedented number of people in need, it’s our responsibility to step up when others are forced to step back. Groups who received gifts from Intelius include a mix of nonprofits supporting education, health care, youth, and family issues. We’ve been listed among the top 25 corporate philanthropists in the greater Puget Sound area. Among the community organizations that have benefited from these activities are: Seattle Children’s Hospital, United Way, Boys & Girls Club, Seattle Art Museum, and the Bellevue Schools Foundation. My wife and I also have focused our personal foundation’s charitable contributions on supporting education, technology, and children’s welfare.

Like any company, we want to be financially successful, but more important than that, we never want to lose sight of our core values and the understanding that we are only as good and productive as the communities in which we do business. The results are numerous, including employees who are truly proud and energized to be associated with such an organization.•