Judson Green was chairman of Walt Disney’s Theme Park and Resorts Division in 2000 when Navteq approached him about becoming its president and CEO.
Green said yes — he was up for the challenge of turning around a struggling company whose focus is on building digital maps for use in automobiles.
Under Green’s leadership, Navteq began to think about diversifying its products into new applications. The core business had mainly been navigation systems in cars, but innovative ideas have expanded its products into cell phones, PDAs and other wireless applications.
Green wanted to ensure Navteq fully understood its customers’ needs and knew their satisfaction level. He restructured the marketing and sales divisions in 2000, organizing them entirely around customer needs and lines of business to match industry knowledge and expertise. Surveys were instituted and annual user group meetings were created.
All of Green’s new programs helped move the market toward a broader acceptance of navigation systems. Within two years of taking over, and for the first time in company history, Navteq was profitable. This set the stage for the company to go public in 2004.
From the beginning, Green thought it was important to communicate with his employees the strategy he had for Navteq. Building on the company’s vision statement, each individual at Navteq is able to contribute to the organization’s success and his or her own success through annual work plans focused on clear and measurable deliverables.
