Jay Jordan will continue as President and CEO of OCLC.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
The OCLC Board of Trustees has concluded that rather than moving forward with the appointment of Jack B. Blount as its President and CEO, it is in the best interest of OCLC to have Jay Jordan continue serving in these capacities. Mr. Jordan has agreed to postpone his retirement to continue leading OCLC.
The OCLC Board of Trustees believes Mr. Jordan's strong track record, his skills as a leader, and his ability to identify and navigate emerging trends, make him uniquely qualified to serve the nearly 72,000 institutions that use OCLC services.
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This is a very interesting development. Someone got cold feet about the direction of OCLC becoming a software company, I think. Jay Jordan may not have wanted to leave or there was some sort of backlash about putting a software exec at the helm. Or you could speculate that the new chief changed his mind. Paradoxically a business exec might be what they need but on the other hand it takes them away from a sense of their own identity. How can they compete with software companies for business? What is OCLC now? Is it too broad? Is their mission technological, cultural politial? These are interesting times for OCLC. It’s certain that they are spending what appears to be a lot of money in a bunch of areas!