Dennis Ciccone

Dennis Ciccone (born 1950 in Aliquippa, PA) is the current Chief Executive Officer of Carnegie Learning, Inc., a mathematics publisher based in Pittsburgh, PA.^[1] He has held this position since 2005.^[2]

Before joining Carnegie Learning, Ciccone was the Founder and Managing Partner of Lycos Ventures. While at Lycos, Ciccone served on the Board of Directors of Carnegie Learning, as well as several other portfolio companies. Ciccone also served as Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions of Lycos, Inc.^[3] Prior to working for Lycos, Ciccone was President, C.O.O. and Director of WiseWire, an internet software company purchased by Lycos in 1998. Earlier in his career, Ciccone, worked for Simon & Schuster as Director of Sales and Marketing.

Education and Early Career

Dennis Ciccone was born and raised in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and is the son of first-generation immigrants. He was educated in public schools in his hometown and worked to earn his way through Duquesne University where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972 with a major in History, and a minor in Education. While working in a bookstore in San Diego, CA, he was offered a position in sales with Simon & Schuster in New York City. During a decade with the publishing house, Dennis was mentored by Dick Snyder, Simon & Schuster President, who led the company through a new, high-growth era with a focus on contemporary, popular culture works by Bob Woodward, Graham Greene, Larry McMurtry, Mary Higgins Clark, Philip Roth, Jane Fonda, and David McCullough. Following his tenure at Simon & Schuster, he became Managing Partner of Grove Press in New York. In 1991, Dennis returned to Pittsburgh with his wife Nancy and three sons.

Dennis founded and launched the Three Rivers Lecture Series, now the Dru Heinz Lecture Series,^[4] with foundation support from the Bayer Foundation and the Heinz Endowments. During this time, Dennis became a marketing consultant for WiseWire, a young search engine start-up out of Carnegie Mellon University. He rose to the position of President and Chief Operating Officer and the company was sold within two years to Lycos. Dennis next led Lycos Ventures, a $75 million fund investing in technology companies nationwide, during the financial rise of the internet content industry from the late 1990s through the early years of the next decade. In this role, he identified new ideas and assessed their risk and value in the context of the viability of the technology, development timeframe, potential new markets, and new business models for sustainable revenue growth.

On September 20, 2001 Dennis Ciccone was charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. ^[5] He was fined $59,000.

Notes

1. ^ Pop City Media, "High Tech Ed", September 5, 2007
2. ^ Carnegie Learning Press Release, January 11, 2005
3. ^ Lycos to Expand Directory Services
4. ^ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Drue Heinz promises exciting lecture season, April 06, 2010
5. ^ [1]