"The addition of Bill Ihrie and Sam Ellis to Intuit's senior leadership team gives us the experience and talent we need to become a highly successful multi-billion dollar enterprise," said Steve Bennett, Intuit's president and chief executive officer. "Together, Bill and Sam will ensure Intuit has the technical vision, strategy and infrastructure to continue to deliver innovative solutions to our customers - as well as to effectively and efficiently grow our business."

Ihrie to Lead Technology Strategy Efforts, Drive for Engineering Excellence

As Intuit's senior vice president of technology and chief technology officer, Ihrie's responsibilities extend from assessing technology and standards to ensuring the consistency of applications throughout the company. Ihrie, 51, will oversee Intuit's integration with various standards, such as OFX and XML, develop consistent technology standards throughout the company, and increase engineering effectiveness through improved leverage and productivity. In addition, he will serve as the company's liaison and advocate with the technical community.

"Consolidating all our strategic technology initiatives in one organization with end-to-end responsibility will make us a much stronger engineering company," Bennett said. "Bill has the skills to take us to the next level. He has demonstrated his ability to develop effective technology strategies and to maintain strong relationships with the technical community. Bringing him onto our team will make us a better, more efficient company, and will enable us to provide our customers with more robust products and services."

Ihrie joins Intuit following a 10-year career at ADP, Inc., in San Ramon, Calif., where he recently led a technology team of more than 500 people, developing division strategy and technology direction. In other assignments at ADP, he created industry-leading insurance and small business products and databases, moving from client-server based technology to thin-client Internet products, and closed several major acquisitions for entry into Europe and Brazil. Ihrie earned B.S. degrees in mathematics and management from MIT and an M.A. in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Ellis to Develop Technology Infrastructure to Drive Growth, Service Excellence
As Intuit's vice president and chief information officer, Sam Ellis is responsible for all aspects of Intuit's technology infrastructure and for ensuring the company has a scalable technology for cost-effective growth and high-quality customer service.

"One of Intuit's key initiatives is to use technology to shape our business strategy as well as deliver value to our customers, employees and shareholders," said Bennett. "While Intuit has a solid technology infrastructure in place, it's critical that we focus on continued improvements to ensure our ability to grow and deliver outstanding service in the future. Intuit will benefit significantly from Sam's strong track record of developing powerful platforms for growth and profitability."

Before joining Intuit, Ellis, 45, was senior vice president and chief technology officer for Emerald Solutions, Inc., an e-business services company in Portland, Ore., where he developed their e-business professional services portfolio and helped create their ongoing platform for growth and profitability. Prior to joining Emerald Solutions in 1999, Ellis was a senior principal consultant with the Hewlett-Packard Company where he advised major HP customers on business strategies, technologies, enterprise architectures and deployment strategies. Ellis earned a B.A. and M.A.T. from Lewis and Clark College and a Ph.D. in mathematics and education from the University of Texas at Austin.