Kimberly Barnes has always been attracted to potentially highgrowth companies that have a specific business problem. After an early career in sales at Xerox, Barnes found herself continually in companies involved in technology. She worked at an early version of a company ultimately acquired by Yahoo, spent two years as vice president of sales at Juno Online Services, and then was vice president of business development for several years at Letstalk.com. Ultimately, she became vice president of sales and marketing at Altus Learning Systems, a California-based company that provides archiving and search services for large corporations.