Barnes & Noble.com chief steps down

Toulantis ran Web operations for six years

By Danny King -- Video Business, 8/19/2008

AUG. 19 | Barnes & Noble said today that Marie Toulantis, who ran Web operations for the largest U.S. bookstore chain for the past six years, stepped down after more than doubling the company’s Internet sales as a percentage of Barnes & Noble’s total revenue.

Toulantis, a former chief financial officer of the company who joined Barnes & Noble more than a decade ago, resigned as Barnes & Noble.com’s CEO, though will remain a consultant.

Barnes & Noble.com chief financial officer Kevin Frain and Tom Burke, the company’s executive VP of e-commerce, will take over leadership of Internet sales, the company said in a statement.

For the year ended Feb. 2, Barnes & Noble.com accounted for 8.8% of the company’s sales, up from 3.5% for the year ended Jan. 31, 2004, the first year the company tracked such figures in regulatory filings. Barnes & Noble, which reports fiscal second-quarter earnings later this week, said in May that Internet sales for the quarter ended May 3 were $99.6 million, or 8.6% of the company’s revenue.

“Marie Toulantis has played a pivotal role in the emergence of Barnes & Noble.com as one of the leading Internet sites of any retailer in the world,” Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio said in the statement.

Toulantis had worked a quarter-century in the banking industry, including a stint at Chase Manhattan Bank, before joining the bookstore chain in 1997.