Yelp is pleased to announce the appointment of Jose Martin as the VP of HR overseeing all Yelp’s global presence. Martin comes from the Apollo Group where he led HR for University of Phoenix. Prior to Apollo, he led EA and CNET through tremendous growth periods.
Yelp is a website, founded in San Francisco in July 2004 that connects people with great local businesses. Since then, Yelp communities have taken root in major metros across 19 countries. Yelp drew an audience of more than 78 million unique visitors in Q2 of 2012.
Yelpers have written more than 30 million local reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists. Yelp’s mobile apps are used by millions of consumers monthly and Yelp is now integrated in Apple Maps.
Yelp is 1200 people strong with a presence in 19 countries including recent expansions into Poland and Singapore.
Yelp (Corporate Website)
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Hitesh Sachan has started in his role as the new Chief Technology Architect for Yoox Group, a global ecommerce and online marketplace company based in Italy, and serving more than 100 countries worldwide. Based in Bologna, outside of Milan – Yoox.com is a public company founded in 2000 and run by Federico Marchetti and COO Guiseppe Guillot. Known for being a dominant global online fashion retailer, Yoox implements omni-channel strategies for their own website marketplaces (yoox.com/thecorner.com/shoescribe.com) and for brands such as Dolce&Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, Armani, Valentino, etc. Hitesh Sachan, an experienced ecommerce executive, joins Yoox from Alvarez & Marsal and a long tenure at Amazon. Carol Bell, Partner at Daversa Partners commented, “He will be moving from Seattle, Washington to Milan, Italy to lead the technology strategy for all of Yoox Group.”
Yoox (Corporate Website)
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Gary Schofield joins Gaia as the Chief Executive Officer. Gary was most recently President and Chief Executive Officer of Mobile Money Ventures which was acquired by Intuit. Gaia makes games that capture the imagination. With beautiful artwork and compelling game design, our innovative titles have delighted millions of players -- and we're just getting started. With a long-standing culture built on creativity, collaboration, and quality execution, along with investor backing from leading VCs at Benchmark and Redpoint, we have the team, talent, and resources to build smash hits loved by gamers around the globe.
Gaia Online (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Kimberley Grayson as the Chief Revenue Officer for Abe’s Market, the online marketplace for great natural products. Kimberley brings over 20 years of marketing and merchandising experience and most recently served as SVP and CMO of Ulta. Abe’s Market connects buyers seeking amazing natural products with the people who make them. There’s no need to prowl the internet for a broader natural product selection than can be found at your local natural market. At Abe’s market, you can get all your natural product buying done in one place.
Abes Market (Corporate Website)
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Today, Etsy, New York’s darling craft marketplace, announced the addition of a new CFO. Kristina Salen, 41, will join the company beginning in February, following seven years leading Fidelity Investments’ media, Internet and telco group. Salen has experience leading “tens of billions of dollars” worth of investments, including in such high growth startup and tech companies as Google, eBay, Amazon, Spotify, and Hubspot. Prior to Fidelity, Salen worked in various financial and executive roles at Oppenheimer Capital, Merrill Lynch, and Lazard Freres & Co. She holds an MBA in finance from Columbia University and was designated a Fulbright Scholar in Political Science and Economics following earning her undergraduate degree at Vassar College.
Etsy (Corporate Website)
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Phillip Carty joins 10gen as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations. Philip came from SuccessFactors where he served as the Global Vice President of Sales. 0gen is the company behind MongoDB, the leading NoSQL database. MongoDB is the open-source, document-oriented technology that is reshaping the market due to the popularity of its agile and scalable approach among developers and IT professionals. 10gen leads MongoDB development, supports the large and growing MongoDB community, provides commercial subscriptions and offers professional support, consulting and training services.
10Gen (Corporate Website)
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Raul Corella joins Leap Motion as VP of Operations. Raul Corella oversees global demand planning, strategic procurement, manufacturing operations, quality assurance, logistics, transportation and distribution, by leveraging his 20+ years of continuous improvement in global supply chain and operations. Prior to joining Leap Motion, Mr. Corella was Vice President Supply Chain at Jawbone, and Vice President of Global Supply Chain Operations for Monster Cable Products. He also managed supply chain operations for the Home Entertainment division of BOSE Corporation’s southwest region. Leap Motion is a motion-control software and hardware company developing the world's most powerful and sensitive 3-D motion-control and motion-sensing technology. Leap Motion's first product, the Leap Motion controller, will be available in early 2013. Leap Motion is 200 times more sensitive than existing motion-control technology, making it the first product to let users navigate and interact with computer applications using natural hand and finger movements. Leap Motion was founded in 2010 by Michael Buckwald and David Holz.
Leap Motion (Corporate Website)
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AUSTIN, Texas (Jan. 7, 2013) - Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM), the world's largest organic and natural foods supermarket, announces it is hiring Jason J. Buechel as Global Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the company.
Starting in January 2013, Buechel will report directly to Co-CEO Walter Robb and Chief Financial Officer Glenda Flanagan. As a member of the company’s global leadership team, Buechel will be responsible for all aspects of information technology at Whole Foods Market. He will oversee the technology team at the global headquarters in Austin, Texas and twelve regional offices around the country and in the United Kingdom.
“In addition to enhancing our existing IT capabilities, Jason will play a significant role in helping expand and improve our customer experience through the use of technology. We are thrilled to have him join our team,” said Walter Robb, Co-CEO.
Buechel comes to Whole Foods Market following a distinguished 12 year career at Accenture, where he served most recently as a Senior Executive and Managing Director within the Retail Operations Practice. Buechel was promoted to Partner in 2009 and has worked with leading retailers in the strategic planning, delivery and operational management of IT and business capabilities. Buechel has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is an avid runner, adventure race competitor and traveler.
Whole Foods Market (Corporate Website)
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Ted Theocheung joins Leap Motion as Vice President and General Manager and is responsible for all OEM and licensing opportunities for LEAP technologies into all vertical markets from PC and mobile devices to automotive, medical, aerospace, big data visualization and general Consumer Electronics. Leap Motion is a motion-control software and hardware company developing the world's most powerful and sensitive 3-D motion-control and motion-sensing technology. Leap Motion's first product, the Leap Motion controller, will be available in early 2013. Leap Motion is 200 times more sensitive than existing motion-control technology, making it the first product to let users navigate and interact with computer applications using natural hand and finger movements. Leap Motion was founded in 2010 by Michael Buckwald and David Holz.
Leap Motion (Corporate Website)
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Laura Fortner joins PetCareRX as its Chief Marketing Officer. Laura came from CafeMom where she was the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. There, Laura Fortner was responsible for growing the CafeMom brand and audience, overseeing the CafeMom Plus Ad Network, and generally establishing CafeMom as a leading source of mom expertise and insights in the marketplace. Laura also lead efforts to build CafeMom's profile with consumers, businesses and the media. Her MomIndex and Digital Mom studies have been covered extensively in business and consumer media including Ad Age, eMarketer, and her frequent appearances on ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today show.
Laura was previously CafeMom's senior vice president of Sales Strategy and Operations, where she was responsible for developing and marketing the company's sales offerings, and overseeing the production, management and measurement of all advertising programs. Prior to joining CafeMom in 2006, she held executive positions in sales and business development at Time Warner's CNN, CNN.com and CNNmoney.com, and prior to that, at Viacom's Nickelodeon. Laura holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three young sons.
PetcareRX (Corporate Website)
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Matias Monges joins Green Dot as Vice President of Business Development. Matias most recently served as Vice President of Product and Partner Strategy for Online and Mobile at American Express. Green Dot provides widely distributed, low-cost banking and payment solutions to a broad base of U.S. consumers. Green Dot\'s products and services include its market leading category of General Purpose Reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards and its industry-leading cash transfer network which are available directly to consumers online and through a network of thousands of leading retailer locations nationwide.
Green Dot (Corporate Website)
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Facebook Sales Director Bill Masterson Joins SocialCode As Chief Revenue Officer
Social marketing solutions provider SocialCode reached into Facebook’s executive ranks for its latest hire, tapping Bill Masterson, a former sales director for the social network, as its new chief revenue officer.
While with Facebook, Masterson led a sales team that created custom social experience for Fortune 100 brands. Prior to the social network, he served as vice president of sales at Clickable, and he led direct sales efforts for the commerce and analytics team atGoogle.
In his new role, he will help drive growth of SocialCode’s social ad buying and intelligence platform, which provides marketing and analytics services across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.
SocialCode CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy said:
We know that brands that take a sophisticated approach to social media have a huge advantage over their competitors. Bill’s deep experience with marketing technology will help us do even more to help brands use social media to move the marketing needle.
Masterson added:
I am thrilled to be part of SocialCode. It is exciting to join a fast-growing company that is behind much of the most innovative and effective social media marketing in the industry. The last two years at Facebook have put me in a unique position to fully understand the social needs of advertisers and the custom social strategies necessary to achieve exceptional results. I hope to build on SocialCode’s progress of 2012 and look forward to additional growth and success for the company and our clients.
SocialCode (Corporate Website)
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WhaleShark Media, the profitable coupon company that generated more than $140 million in revenue last year, has hired Douglas Jeffries as its new chief financial officer. The Austin, Texas-based company said Jeffries will manage WhaleShark’s global finance, legal, facilities and human resource teams — and at this rate, he’s presumably being brought on board to expand the company’s management team ahead of a potential IPO. In late 2011, the company raised a massive $150 million round to continue buying up coupon sites around the world. Some of its brands include RetailMeNot and Deals2Buy in the U.S., VoucherCodes in the U.K., Bons-de-Reduction in France and Deals.com in Germany. The company is conducting a classic rollup, in which it achieves scale through acquisition. In total, it has raised $300 million in capital from major investors such as J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Institutional Venture Partners, as well as others, including Austin Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners and Google Ventures. It’s logical to have a proper money manager to keep track of the burgeoning business, but a WhaleShark spokesman declined to say if a public offering was in the making, adding, “Right now, we’re focused on growing our business.” Most recently, Jeffries was EVP and CFO at Taleo, a software company purchased by Oracle for $1.9 billion last year. Prior to that, Jeffries played top financial roles at Palm, where he was CFO, and eBay, where he was VP of finance and chief accounting officer. In the release announcing the new executive appointment, WhaleShark confirmed that it was “highly” profitable last year, and that it clocked more than 450 million visits to its websites. WhaleShark’s business plays nicely with the deals craze. While the practice of coupon-clipping is ancient, investors have embraced tech startups in the space, as consumers start looking for deals online rather than in the Sunday newspaper. Competition includes CouponCabin.com, Coupons.com, CouponTrade.com and many others.
WhaleShark Media (Corporate Website)
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Reply.com, the leading marketplace for local advertisers, today announced that Chris Mancini has joined the company as its chief marketing officer. Reply.com also announced that it has reached 1 million auctions per day and 26 million local consumer visits per month across all of its properties. These increases point to the success of Reply.com\'s marketplace for local advertisers, which is recognized as the most effective way for local advertisers to reach their target consumers. Mancini brings over 12 years\' experience in performance-based online marketing operations and management. Prior to joining Reply.com, Mancini spent two years as EVP and General Manager at QualityHealth, where he was responsible for consumer experience, client marketing, operations, media, client services and analytics. Before that, Mancini spent more than 10 years at QuinStreet, where he was instrumental in helping the company grow to over $300M in revenue and complete an IPO. As SVP and GM at QuinStreet, Mancini launched the company into new verticals and spearheaded efforts to form partnerships with Fortune 1000 companies and leading industry partners. \"We\'re thrilled to have Chris join the Reply.com team. We have seen significant increase in budgets from advertisers using our marketplace, and we anticipate this trend to continue in 2013 and beyond. Reaching 1 million auctions per day is just another proof point that local advertising offered in proper format is essential in bringing local advertisers to the internet in a meaningful way,\" said Payam Zamani, founder and CEO of Reply.com. \"I am confident that Chris\' expertise in online advertising and strategic partnerships will be instrumental as we accelerate the growth of our traffic and meet the needs of our advertisers.\" Reply.com also announced today that it is now supporting more than 1 million advertising auctions per day in the company\'s real-time auction marketplace and hosts 26 million local consumer visits per month across all of its properties including MerchantCircle.com, Contractors.com, iMotors.com among others. An auction represents the process through which a consumer is matched with a local service provider for their given inquiry. For example, when a request to be matched with a roofing contractor in a specific zip code on Contractors.com is made, the consumer\'s request on a realtime basis is auctioned to determine its value if distributed as a \"lead\" or an Enhanced Click™ (a consumer generated click including consumers service need and zip code where service needs to be rendered). This is a format that is supported by the Reply.com marketplace and is necessary for local advertisers. Within milliseconds the marketplace matches the consumer with their requested service provider and the auction is completed. \"Reply.com is at a very exciting and interesting point in time, especially as the market is shifting dollars to local online advertising as a more cost-effective way to reach the right audiences,\" said Mancini. \"Advertisers and publishers in the Reply.com marketplace are realizing profits and reaching audiences in ways only dreamed of 10 years ago. I\'m truly thrilled to be joining such a talented team and am hopeful I can add tremendous value from day one.\"
About Reply.com, Inc. Reply.com, Inc. operates the leading marketplace for locally-targeted advertisers. Reply.com\'s platform provides advertisers of all sizes with a simple and scalable solution for locally-targeted marketing. Reply.com owns and operates many destination sites including iMotors.com, Contractors.com and MerchantCircle.com, which is the largest online network of local business owners in the nation with over 1.4 million member merchants and 17 million monthly local consumer visits. To learn more about Reply.com, please visit www.reply.com.
Reply.com (Corporate Website)
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Lot18, the New York-based company that provides its members with access to expert-selected wines from around the world, has named Jay Sung its Chief Executive Officer. Sung joined Lot18 in April 2012 as Chief Marketing Officer, and has presided over the company’s significant growth in membership and revenue since that time. Sung was previously the President of Adaptive Marketing, and has also worked as CMO of ConsumerInfo.com, the parent company of FreeCreditReport.com.
“Jay is an experienced executive who has built and run organizations reaching hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue,” said Lot18 Founder Philip James. “He understands and believes in our core vision, and has positioned the company for strong growth in the future as we continue to fulfill our mission to deliver top-quality wine and service to our valued members.”
Board member Amish Jani, Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, said, “Jay is a seasoned leader with tremendous experience. He’s joined Lot18 and done a great job building out our team, scaling our infrastructure, and mastering the industry. All of us are excited to have him drive the next phase of Lot18 as CEO.”
In addition, Olly Garland, the former CEO of Direct Wines, has joined Lot18’s board of directors after several months working as an advisor to the company.
“Lot18 is incredibly well positioned to meet and surpass the stalwart operators of online wine sales,” said Garland. Direct Wines operates the wine clubs of Virgin, The Wall Street Journal and Zagat, among others.
“Our new, more inviting and personalized services will be the lifeblood of our business – an effort Philip will spearhead,” said Sung. “These engaging features will educate consumers about the wines they love, then drive them to our proven private-sale channel or to our rapidly evolving subscription products – whichever proves right for them.”
Lot18 has raised $45 million in venture financing from FirstMark Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Accel Partners. Since its launch in October 2010, the company has facilitated the sales of more than one million bottles of wine.
Lot18 (Corporate Website)
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NoWait, a Pittsburgh-based startup using mobile technology to solve one of the most common pain points in the restaurant business -- seating management -- has named Ware Sykes as CEO. Sykes previously led all sales and enterprise marketing for TheLadders, and was responsible for developing the vision and execution of the services business. He honed his expertise in building and leading high-growth businesses and high-performing teams as VP of Sales & Services and a member of the company’s leadership team. The company was founded in the summer of 2010 and is quickly emerging as a market leader in restaurant seating management for the casual dining industry. The appointment of Sykes to the top leadership role comes as the company looks to expand its product line and reach within this popular market segment. \"Of the 300,000 table service restaurants in the U.S., only ten percent take reservations,” said Sykes. “It’s a market nine times greater than that served by reservation companies like OpenTable. Our system gives customers a better dining experience and restaurant owners the rich analytics about wait times and diner turnover they need to run their businesses better.” Texas Roadhouse, Mad Mex, Red Robin, Moretti’s Ristorante & Pizzeria and TGI Friday’s are among a growing number of big restaurant brands using NoWait’s technology. The company has seated more than six million diners through its system. NoWait’s cloud-based, mobile software serves as the OpenTable for casual dining. In no-reservation restaurants, NoWait’s application streamlines operations and optimizes turnover thanks to its ease of use, speed, and overall simplicity. Once a diner enters the restaurant, the host inputs the customer’s name and cell number into an iPad running the NoWait Host app. Within seconds, guests receive a message indicating the wait time until their table is available. If they have a smartphone, the system will send both a text and a link to “What’s my Place,” a feature unique to NoWait that not only indicates the estimated wait, but also a diner’s position in line. This frees up guests to visit retailers or bars nearby, reducing both congestion and the frustration of waiting. Once the table is ready, the diner receives a text to return to the restaurant to be seated without delay. NoWait founder Robb Myer will remain President and take on the added responsibility of Chief Product Officer. “We built NoWait to do more than than just replace a vibrating plastic hockey puck,” said Myer. “NoWait makes life easier for hosts and hostesses. And it gives restaurant owners a tool to delight customers even after they\'ve paid their check.\" Birchmere Ventures, which led the company’s Series A round of funding, played an integral part in an aggressive search to fill the CEO role. “One of the things we noticed right away was the great blend of skills and personality between Robb and Ware,” said Birchmere partner Sean Ammirati. “They make a great team. And with Ware based in New York City, we anticipate even greater penetration as he builds out the team in one of the world’s largest restaurant markets.” \"We are honored to be able to support CMU entrepreneurs like Robb, especially since it means we don\'t have to wait in line at restaurants,\" said Peter Stern, a founding director at OFEF, a fund dedicated to helping CMU entrepreneurs.
About NoWait NoWait is a mobile seating management service that enables restaurant owners and managers to get a view of the queue and optimize turnover, while diners have the freedom to wait where they want until their table is ready for seating. The company is backed by Birchmere Ventures and Innovation Works (IW). Based in Pittsburgh, PA, NoWait was built with seed funding from IW’s AlphaLab Tech Accelerator and Carnegie Mellon University Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund. More information is available at: http://www.nowaitapp.com/.
NoWait (Corporate Website)
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Online deal and discount marketplace, WhaleShark Media, is happy to announce Shaun Adams as its Creative Director beginning January 21st. Shaun Adams began his career in design, as a Graphic Designer at Meeks. After one year, Shaun shifted into a Web Designer role for the startup TravelNow, which was acquired by Hotels.com the following year. During his six year career with Hotels.com, Shaun held various roles for the company, including: Creative Designer, Sr. Creative Designer, Creative Design Manager, and Visual Design Manager. Throughout his career, Shaun’s responsibilities have included : leading visual /user experience teams and user interface for the global ecommerce products. In 2011, Expedia.com acquired Hotels.com. With the acquisition, Shaun shifted into a Visual Design Director role for Expedia.com. Over the past year at Expedia, Shaun has lead the digital strategy for the entire global web ecommerce platform, including mobile.
WhaleShark Media (Corporate Website)
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Sheryl Roland has joined Auction.com as its EVP of Human Resources. Sheryl was most recently the EVP of HR at the Active Network. Since its founding in 1990, Auction.com has distinguished itself as the world leader in maximized asset disposition strategies, asset management and real estate sales. Our expertise lies in selling residential, commercial, luxury homes, multi-family and hospitality properties, land, as well as performing and non-performing notes and loan pools. To date, Auction.com has sold over $12 billion of real estate assets for our clients. In 2011, our residential sales totaled $1.8 billion and 35,000 homes auctioned. Our commercial real estate division auctioned 1,169 Notes totaling over $4.6 billion at a recovery rate of 52 percent; additionally, it auctioned 1,087 REO valued at $1.2 billion with an average recovery price at 103 percent of the reserve.
Auction.com (Corporate Website)
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Online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe, Inc. announces the addition of Michelle Peluso to their board of directors. Former President and CEO of Travelocity, Peluso brings a tenure of brand development, consumer marketing and expertise in e-commerce to the company. In this new position, Peluso contributes a veteran e-commerce industry perspective to further guide and enhance the strategic development of the Gilt Groupe brand. "Given Gilt Groupe's momentum and growth, the time is right to enhance our board of directors with top industry expertise. Michelle's track record of innovating in the e-commerce sector is impressive and I know she will be a valuable resource to the team," said Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne. "We look forward to her contributions as a member of Gilt's board of directors." Peluso spent the previous six years as president and CEO of Travelocity and Executive Vice President of Sabre Holding Corp. Prior, she served as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, Chief Executive Officer of travel Web site Site59.com and as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Labor and White House Fellow, allowing her to be named to lists such as the Wall Street Journal's "Top 50 Women to Watch" and Fast Company's "Fast 50." Peluso earned her Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and her Masters degree in Economics, Philosophy and Politics from Pembroke College at Oxford University, where she was a Thouron scholar. "Working with Susan and Gilt's board is a unique opportunity to contribute my experience in high-traffic, consumer-based e-commerce sites to an innovative and rapidly growing company," said Peluso. "Gilt Groupe's growth in the past two years is testament to its strength as a corporation, its fantastic relationship with consumers and its place as an industry leader. I look forward to being a part of Gilt Groupe's future successes."
The Gilt Groupe (Corporate Website)
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Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE:RST), a leading provider of technology-based language-learning solutions, announced today the appointment of Westley Stringfellow as Chief Product Officer. Stringfellow will report to Steve Swad, President and Chief Executive Officer, and take on responsibility for product research, development, design and production."We are thrilled to have West join the Rosetta Stone management team," said Swad. "He has a proven track record of building and leading agile, high-velocity teams that create innovative products. I'm confident he'll be a major asset as we continue to enrich our online product experience, expand further on mobile platforms, and leverage Rosetta Stone's pioneering technology to deliver winning products that go both deeper into language and beyond language as we move into new areas of learning." West joins Rosetta Stone from PayPal, where he led the platform, architecture, experimentation and developer product teams as the company's Senior Director and Group Head, Global Product Platform. Previously, he oversaw the design, development and launch of PayPal's point-of-sale and multichannel product suite as the company's Senior Director of Emerging Opportunities. Prior to PayPal, West gained extensive experience at Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon and VISA, as well as start-ups, including netLibrary, Alibris, VSpan and Global Philanthropy Forum. Stringfellow adds new strength to Rosetta Stone's management team under Swad, who was elevated to CEO earlier this year. His arrival comes on the heels of Rosetta Stone's third consecutive quarter of improved financial performance under Swad's guidance. The company's efforts to increase innovation and push towards digital solutions and a richer online learning experience have gathered significant momentum in 2012 and are expected to accelerate in 2013 with the addition of Stringfellow as Chief Product Officer. About Rosetta Stone Inc. Rosetta Stone Inc. provides cutting-edge interactive technology that is changing the way the world learns languages. The company's proprietary learning techniques--acclaimed for their power to unlock the natural language-learning ability in everyone--are used by schools, businesses, government organizations and millions of individuals around the world. Rosetta Stone offers courses in 30 languages, from the most commonly spoken (like English, Spanish and Mandarin) to the less prominent (including Swahili, Swedish and Tagalog). The company was founded in 1992 on the core beliefs that learning to speak a language should be a natural and instinctive process, and that interactive technology can activate the language immersion method powerfully for learners of any age. Rosetta Stone is based in Arlington, VA., and has offices in Harrisonburg, VA, Boulder, CO, Tokyo, Seoul, London, and Sao Paulo. Rosetta Stone is a registered trademark of Rosetta Stone Ltd.
Rosetta Stone (Corporate Website)
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Change.org, the online petition powerhouse, has hired Jennifer Dulski from Google as president and COO to share leadership duties with founder and CEO Ben Rattray. Dulski was CEO of deal aggregator Dealmap when it was acquired for the Google Offers team in 2011. She previously spent nine years at Yahoo, where she was vice president and general manager of local and commerce. San Francisco-based Change.org has 25 million users and 150 employees in 18 countries. Dulski said in an interview that the first petition that brought her to the platform was the famous, fast-growing one from the parents of Trayvon Martin. So, Dulski, who had started her career at a nonprofit for underserved middle-school students, was receptive when an executive recruiter hit her up about the “tech company with a soul,” as she put it. (Change.org is a for-profit B corporation.) Dulski said she will lead product, engineering and design operations, while Rattray will lead communication and business development. She starts this week.
Change.org (Corporate Website)
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Tony Franklin joins RGM Group as its EVP of Sales. Tony came from Undertone where he was the Vice President of Ad Sales.
The RGM Group is an interactive media firm providing unique solutions for premium brands.
The company is comprised of three divisions offering partners with: site specific publisher options, an alliance of premium publishers, and complete creative/content build services.
The divisions combine to create a unique set of resources for its partners to fully maximize their online advertising spends and generate revenue.
RGM Group (Corporate Website)
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Evidon Appoints Mark Rudolph as Chief Revenue Officer Seasoned Sales Executive Brings More than 15 Years of Technology Sales Experience NEW YORK, Nov 19, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Evidon, the global leader in revealing the invisible web, today announced that it has appointed Mark Rudolph as Chief Revenue Officer. In this new role, Rudolph will be responsible for guiding Evidon's global sales team and devising strategies to further the company's position as a market leader in online privacy and data intelligence. A seasoned enterprise-sales leader with a deep background in developing SaaS-based sales organizations, Rudolph was most recently Vice President of North American Sales and Customer Success at Gomez Inc., which was acquired by Compuware in November 2009. Rudolph joined Gomez in 1999 and became an integral part of the organization that drove the company to be an attractive acquisition target, holding a variety of key sales and management positions. Prior to the acquisition, he was Vice President of North America Enterprise Sales for Gomez. Rudolph holds an MBA from Boston College and a BS in Management from The Georgia Institute of Technology. "Evidon continues to attract the right talent to lead our company into the next phase of our evolution," said Evidon CEO Scott Meyer. "Mark's expertise in growing technology and data-driven businesses will make him a steward of our success in 2013 and beyond. I'm delighted to have him on board." About Evidon Evidon reveals the invisible web. Its technology gives brands, publishers, networks and other businesses around the world unique insight into the digital ecosystem--including unparalleled intelligence on the marketing technologies that underpin the commercial web --and the power to control their impact on business. That technology includes Ghostery(R), Evidon's browser tool that reports on data collection across 26 million websites and informs the company's business control solutions. Evidon also provides market-leading privacy controls for more than $1 billion of display media annually that empower more than 150 million people a day to control how their information is used online. Companies make smarter decisions, protect their businesses and consumer privacy, and grow revenue as a result.
Evidon (Corporate Website)
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Angela Loeffler joins Lending Club as the Chief People Officer. Angela came from Ask.com where she served as the Chief Administrative Officer. Lending Club brings together investors with creditworthy borrowers, reducing the cost and complexity of traditional lending to offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns. Focusing on prime and super-prime quality borrowers enables Lending Club to provide investors with steady returns, even during the economic downturn. In the five years since its founding, Lending Club has today helped 80K borrowers pay off their debt and has grown its pool of investors to 45K, who now see an average return on their investment of between 5.7 percent and 13 percent.The company’s facilitated loan volumes hit $1 billion this fall. To date, the company has paid out $85 million in interest and has seen 21 consecutive quarters of positive platform returns.
Lending Club (Corporate Website)
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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LIN Media (NYSE: TVL), one of the largest broadcasters in the U.S. with industry-leading television and digital media properties, today announced the launch of LIN Mobile, LLC (“LIN Mobile”), a new company that will provide mobile marketing solutions for clients nationwide.
“I am excited about this tremendous opportunity to be a part of LIN Media's impressive digital media portfolio and to launch this company at a time when mobile advertising is becoming a critical component of national and local marketers’ strategic needs”
Leveraging LIN Media’s 50-year history and its strong relationships with local and national advertisers, LIN Mobile will help clients effectively market their products and services to an increasingly mobile-centric population by delivering targeted and localized media across all dominant mobile devices.
Digital industry veteran Kevin Wassong has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of LIN Mobile and will report to Robb Richter, LIN Media’s Senior Vice President in charge of digital media. Mr. Wassong is the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of digital@JWT, the fully integrated digital branding and e-business arm of J. Walter Thompson, a global advertising agency. Most recently, he was President of Minyanville Media, Inc., an Emmy Award-winning, next-generation digital network that creates branded business content to entertain, inform, and educate investors of all ages. Mr. Wassong is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University.
LIN Mobile furthers the Company’s goal to be advertisers' preferred choice for multiplatform marketing opportunities and provide its customers with a unified digital media strategy and more sophisticated offerings, including a leading comScore, Inc.-ranked network, performance marketing technology, and SaaS content management, engagement and monetization solutions - all under one roof.
Commenting on the announcement, Vincent Sadusky, President and Chief Executive Officer of LIN Media, said: “Our investment in mobile demonstrates our commitment to responding to advertisers’ needs and providing them with the most effective marketing channels. Kevin is both a pioneer and a veteran and we are excited to have someone of his caliber advance our mobile business.”
“I am excited about this tremendous opportunity to be a part of LIN Media's impressive digital media portfolio and to launch this company at a time when mobile advertising is becoming a critical component of national and local marketers’ strategic needs,” said Mr. Wassong. “Our business model is unique and focused on giving marketers a brand-safe, engaging and measurable platform to deliver mobile marketing solutions in scale.”
LIN Mobile, LLC is based at LIN Media’s digital sales headquarters in New York, NY.
About LIN Media
LIN Media is a local multimedia company that operates or services 43 television stations and seven digital channels in 23 U.S. markets, along with a diverse portfolio of web sites, apps and mobile products that make it more convenient to access its unique and relevant content on multiple screens.
LIN Media’s highly-rated television stations deliver important local news and community stories along with top-rated sports and entertainment programming to 10.5% of U.S. television homes. The Company’s digital media operations focus on emerging media and interactive technologies that deliver performance-driven digital marketing solutions to some of the nation’s most respected agencies and brands. LIN TV Corp. is traded on the NYSE under the symbol “TVL”.
LIN Media (Corporate Website)
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Monika Belur joins Collective as its VP of Marketing. Monica came from Peer39 where she was the Director of Marketing. Collective intelligently connects brand marketers to audiences with high impact experiences across display, video and mobile advertising. Our technology solutions include AMP®, our data and media management platform for publishers, and Ensemble™, our audience buying, creative optimization and analytics platform for advertisers. Headquartered in New York with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and India, Collective has been recognized for its rapid growth on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Inc. 500/5000 lists. Collective’s investors include Accel Partners®, Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital.
Collective (Corporate Website)
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Chris Loeper joins Leap Motion as VP of Retail Sales. Loeper was prior Tely Labs, Inc. where he was SVP of Worldwide Sales and Business Development. Based in San Francisco, Leap Motion is a motion-control software and hardware company developing the world's most powerful and sensitive 3-D motion-control and motion-sensing technology. Leap Motion's first product, The Leap, will be available in early 2013. The Leap is 200 times more sensitive than existing motion-control technology, making it the first product to let users navigate and interact with computer applications using natural hand and finger movements. Founded in 2010 by Michael Buckwald and David Holz, the company has raised $14.55 million to date.
Leap Motion (Corporate Website)
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Mandy Sebel joins Capital Access Network (CAN) as its Chief People Officer. CAN constitutes the largest, non-bank alternative capital provider to small businesses in the US. The company uses its own real-time platform and risk scoring models to provide capital to small and medium-sized businesses in the US and Latin America and has funded over $2 billion in capital to SMB’s under the brands NewLogic Business Loans and AdvanceMe. This represents roughly 100,000 distinct small business finance transactions.
Capital Access Network (Corporate Website)
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Kathleen Farley joins University Now as the Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing. Kathleen came from SpotMixer where she served as the Vice President of Marketing and Product Marketing. UniversityNow is an education and technology start-up based in San Francisco. Its mission is to help ensure that affordable, high quality post-secondary education is available to people everywhere. To accomplish this, UniversityNow is building a network of the most affordable and accessible accredited universities in the world, starting with the launch of New Charter University. UniversityNow’s vision is a world in which no one is deprived of access to quality education — a world in which students can obtain recognized college degrees that improve their futures, without taking on the burden of student debt.
University Now (Corporate Website)
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Peter Cousins joins Operative as its Chief Technology Officer. Peter came from IBM where he was the Director of Human Resources. Operative is the advertising business management company that allows digital media companies to run their increasingly complex businesses with simplicity. Operative’s next-generation, SaaS based platform and technology-enabled services help media industry leaders and their partners balance operational efficiency with innovation to reduce transaction costs and boost advertising revenue. Launched in October 2010, the Operative.One platform brings together the business processes and systems necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and collect revenue on advertising products. More than 200 industry leaders rely on Operative to manage more than $6 billion in global ad revenue annually, including The Wall Street Journal, MSN, OMD, NBC Universal and National Public Media.
Operative (Corporate Website)
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Michael Horn joins Resonate as its Vice President of Research. MIchael came from Universal McCann where he was the Senior Vice President/ Managing Partner of Decision Sciences.
Resonate, founded in 2008, has pioneered a new model for using “Big Data” to develop a sophisticated understanding of consumer values, attitudes and beliefs. Marketers need to understand “why” the audiences they target take action. Resonate answers that question, while making it simple to put that knowledge to work creating positive results for political campaigns and marketing initiatives.
Resonate’s unique approach goes beyond traditional targeting criteria such as demographics and interests. Political campaigns, advocacy groups, and major corporations now use Resonate’s Values-Based Big Data to target their ad campaigns based on viewers’ otherwise unidentifiable values such as patriotism, environmentalism, taste for luxury, or interest in innovation.
Resonate’s investors include Revolution Growth, Greycroft and iNovia.
Resonate is headquartered in Reston, Va. with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C.
Resonate (Corporate Website)
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Wrapp Names Aaron Forth Global Chief Operating Officer Former Mint and eBay Executive to Oversee Worldwide Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering Teams From Social Gifting Company's San Francisco Headquarters SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Nov 19, 2012) - Wrapp, the social gifting app that lets you celebrate your friends with sponsored and paid gift cards to top retailers, has named former Mint.com and eBay executive Aaron Forth as its new global chief operating officer (COO). For consumers, Wrapp is the fun and easy way to give, receive and redeem gift cards using mobile devices or the Web, and makes group gifting among friends a snap. For retailers, Wrapp is a discount-free, friend-to-friend marketing platform for conducting performance-based customer acquisition and retention campaigns. With Wrapp, retailers can drive highly targeted in-store and on-line sales, and receive real-time access to aggregated campaign and customer demographic data. As the company's global COO, Forth, will take charge of Wrapp's worldwide sales, marketing, product development and engineering teams in San Francisco and Stockholm. Wrapp, which started service a year ago in Sweden and now operates in eight countries, is focused on product improvements and user growth in the U.S. where gift cards are a $109 billion a year industry. Forth will now spearhead this drive. "Wrapp broke new ground when it started and has established itself as a global social giftingleader at lightning speed," said Forth. "With the gift giving season upon us, the next few months will be crucial for Wrapp's long term success. There's no question we have the necessary talent and drive to make Wrapp the highly profitable enterprise it's destined to be." Forth most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of Mint.com where he was responsible for product strategy, product management and marketing, customer service, analytics, and consumer experience -- including research, usability and design. At eBay Forth served as a Director of Advertising and Product Management, overseeing a cross-functional group of project managers, product managers, engineers and quality assurance engineers focused on advertising technology, online advertising business models and publisher economics. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Forth began his career as a product manager for CRM pioneer Kana Communications, and then moved to Half.com, a Philadelphia based person-to-person marketplace, which was acquired by eBay Inc. in 2002. Forth and his wife, Sangita, live with their two children in San Francisco. "Aaron is the consummate Internet exec with broad experience and a track record of success in start-ups and established companies," said Wrapp CEO and Co-founder Hjalmar Winbladh. "We're incredibly fortunate to have him." About Wrapp Wrapp is a social gifting service for celebrating friends with sponsored and paid gift cards from top brands. Wrapp allows friends to contribute to the gift cards for group gifting, and makes them fun and easy to give, receive and redeem using mobile devices and the web. Founded in 2011, Wrapp is based in Stockholm and San Francisco. Celebrate friends every day at www.wrapp.com.
Wrapp (Corporate Website)
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The Minerva Project, a San Francisco-based business redefining the top tier university experience, is pleased to announce that Robin Goldberg has joined the organization as Chief Marketing Officer. Robin brings over 20 years of marketing and international experience and most recently served as SVP International/SVP Marketing and Business Development at Blurb, a creative publishing and marketing platform that makes it easy to design, share, market and sell professional-quality ebooks . Robin was a key part of the executive team driving Blurb’s growth and helped ship over 1.8 million books to over seventy countries in 2011. Robin was also responsible for all business outside of the U.S. and drove geographic expansion to grow Blurb’s global audience. Prior to joining Blurb in 2007, Robin spent four years as SVP Global Marketing for Lonely Planet where she led all marketing and business development activities for the Americas. Robin also held several key marketing roles in technology and consumer brand companies such as Nestle, Clorox and ClickAction. Robin received her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and her BS at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Minerva Project (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is proud to announce: Natalie Ingram has placed a top Technology Executive with retailer Von Maur – Ms. Tina Tendall. Tina was most recently with Trinity Logistics Corporation as Chief Information Officer. She received her BA from Western Illinois University, and her MBA from St. Ambrose University. Reporting to Von Maur’s COO, Melody Westendorf, Tina will be responsible for developing long and short term system plans, including evaluation of emerging technologies and how they benefit Von Maur.
Family-owned and -operated Von Maur runs about 25 upscale department stores in 10 states, offering its customers amenities such as an interest-free credit card, free gift wrapping, and free shipping within the US. The stores range in size from 42,000 to 203,000 sq. ft. and offer clothing from brands such as Burberry, Kenneth Cole, and Tommy Bahama.
Von Maur (Corporate Website)
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Mike Sommers joins WeWork as its Chief Product Officer. Mike came from Viggle where he was Head of Product. Prior to this role Mike was the SVP, Products at Kick apps, a platform that allows any publisher to seamlessly integrate social networking and user generated content experiences into their site. Seven years prior to joining KickApps were spent at AOL in various product leadership roles, most recently as VP, Products in AOL Search. Mike had key roles on many other products while at AOL, including Local (digitalcity.com), Video (videosearch.aol.com) Instant Greetings, Podcast Search, AOL Alerts & Reminders, AOL Toolbar, You've Got Pictures, and a few others. WeWork is reinventing the way startups, freelancers and entrepreneurs launch and operate their businesses. Using social networking tools and analysis of user behaviors and preferences to uncover the indicators of affinity, WeWork is creating a predictive model for relevant business connections that lead to sustainable collaboration and acceleration. The result is an ecosystem of separate but interrelated and interdependent companies that grow and succeed in parallel. WeWork has established a foundational aspect of its plan – work environments that support and encourage connection, collaboration and innovation – in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. (The spaces look and feel much like the headquarters of Facebook, Google or Twitter.) The next step is to develop both software and hardware systems that both empower and track social business interactions. Upon analysis of these interactions, WeWork will utilize algorithmic logic to connect users to others that can provide an array of beneficial services – from advice and mentorship to accounting, web development and marketing strategy. WeWork’s holistic approach to supporting the independent startup also includes leveraging its scale to negotiate on behalf of its users a number of products and services that would otherwise be much harder to obtain at reasonable prices, such as healthcare, legal services, and credit card processing.
WeWork (Corporate Website)
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Silvio Galea joins WeWork as its VP of Engineering. Silvio came from Bloomberg where he was Head of R&D for Consumer Mobile and Web Services. WeWork is reinventing the way startups, freelancers and entrepreneurs launch and operate their businesses. Using social networking tools and analysis of user behaviors and preferences to uncover the indicators of affinity, WeWork is creating a predictive model for relevant business connections that lead to sustainable collaboration and acceleration. The result is an ecosystem of separate but interrelated and interdependent companies that grow and succeed in parallel. WeWork has established a foundational aspect of its plan – work environments that support and encourage connection, collaboration and innovation – in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. (The spaces look and feel much like the headquarters of Facebook, Google or Twitter.) The next step is to develop both software and hardware systems that both empower and track social business interactions. Upon analysis of these interactions, WeWork will utilize algorithmic logic to connect users to others that can provide an array of beneficial services – from advice and mentorship to accounting, web development and marketing strategy. WeWork’s holistic approach to supporting the independent startup also includes leveraging its scale to negotiate on behalf of its users a number of products and services that would otherwise be much harder to obtain at reasonable prices, such as healthcare, legal services, and credit card processing.
WeWork (Corporate Website)
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Social networking company, Alliance Health, is happy to announce Todd Miceli as its Chief Financial Officer beginning October 11th. Mr. Miceli brings more than 15 years of experience in finance and accounting to his role as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Miceli most recently founded and owned Volvo Rents Construction Equipment- New England Equipment Rentals. Prior to Volvo Rents, Mr. Miceli served as Chief Financial Officer of Ember Coporation and Chief Financial Offcer of Ximian, where he was instrumental in the sale of the company to Novell. Before Ximian, Mr. Miceli was the interim Chief Executive Officer and ChiefRead MoreFinancial Officer of Viveca, which was sold to OpenPages, and the Chief Financial Officer of e-STEEL, where he successfully raised over $110 million in four rounds of funding from top tier venture capitalists and investment firms. Prior to his involvement with technology startups, Mr. Miceli was in investment banking, having worked for GE Capital, Jefferies and Company, Southcoast Capital and Brenner Securities. Mr. Miceli graduated from Bentley College with a degree in Finance and received a Masters of Business Administration from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester.
Alliance Health (Corporate Website)
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CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Groupon (http://www.groupon.com) (NASDAQ: GRPN) announced today that Peter Merholz will assume the role of Vice President, Global Design. Merholz will report to Jeff Holden, SVP of Product Management.
Merholz's experience spans two decades in design and development for interactive media, and he is most noted for co-founding and growing Adaptive Path, a premier user experience design consultancy. Merholz is an internationally recognized writer and speaker on user experience; his blogs and essays for Adaptive Path, Harvard Business Review and his personal site Peterme.com illustrate his knowledge and influence in the space.
"Peter is a distinguished leader in product strategy and the craft of design, and we are very excited to have him join our team," said Jeff Holden, SVP of Product Management. "We think of Peter as a machine to translate our obsessive customer focus - on both consumers and merchants - into shockingly great design. Additionally, he will immediately accelerate Groupon's efforts to build out our world-class design team, enabling us to deliver against a high product bar for the GrouponOS vision."
Merholz has a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley and co-authored Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World.
Groupon (Corporate Website)
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Laurie Frake joins PawsPlus as its Chief Marketing Officer. Laurie came from Autonation where she was the Director of Online Marketing. PawsPlus is a team of animal health professionals dedicated to preventative health care for the family pet. We offer pet owners affordable, high quality vaccinations and diagnostics for their dogs and cats. Our low-cost vaccination clinics for dogs and cats are staffed by a team of licensed veterinarians and trained personnel.
Our family of dog & cat vaccination clinics and full-service pet hospitals operate under the individual brands of VETCO,Protect My Pet and Vet Wellcare throughout the country. We are currently in California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Hawaii, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri and New York!
You'll find our VETCO pet vaccination clinics and full-service hospitals inside PETCO stores in the western states, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee; our Protect My Pet (formerly Animal Health) clinics inside Tractor Supply Co. stores and in hundreds of independent pet stores in the south east; and our Vet Wellcare clinics inside Pet Supermarkets stores in Florida and Georgia.
Our mission is to avoid illness in animals and humans through client education regarding the value and necessity ofpreventative veterinary medicine. We strongly encourage pet vaccination, anti-parasitic treatment and diagnostic screening for all dogs and cats.
With proper vaccination and testing, pets and their owners are protected against viruses, bacteria and parasites carried via the air, insects, personal contact, surface areas and clothing. These disease causing organisms can be very harmful, expensive to treat and even deadly.
PawsPlus aspires to provide a positive, affordable and, most importantly, professional health care option for pet owners. We are dedicated to professionalism and the advancement of the veterinary field through cooperation with veterinary colleagues, practices and teaching institutions nation wide.
PawsPlus (Corporate Website)
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YAPSTONE HIRES PAYPAL VETERAN MARY HENTGES AS CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Accel-backed YapStone hires CFO from CBS Interactive and PayPal to lead its finance team and drive its rapid global growth in online and mobile payments WALNUT CREEK, CA (September 21, 2012) — YapStone, a leading global provider of Web and mobile payment solutions and processing for targeted vertical markets, has hired high-profile Chief Financial Officer, Mary Hentges. In her new role, Hentges will lead the company’s global financial operations and work closely with the management team on the creation and execution of its business strategy, operating plan and corporate development activities. Hentges has been CFO at CBS Interactive for two years, and prior to that held the position of CFO at PayPal. In her 7-year tenure as CFO at PayPal, she grew revenue ten-fold to $2.6 billion. Hentges will join the YapStone team beginning October 1. “I have been fortunate to work with some of the leading interactive media and payment companies. With Yapstone’s lead in vertically-focused payment solutions, I look forward to augmenting the company’s success in this new role,” said Hentges. Recently, Yapstone rolled out new Web and mobile bill pay products in several new vertical markets and the company also has plans to expand globally. In the past year alone, YapStone’s revenue is up 50%, profits have gone up over 100%, and Accel Partners led a $50 million minority investment in the company. “I’m confident that Mary will have a profound impact on the future of YapStone as we are entering the most exciting time in the company’s history,” said Tom Villante, Chairman and Co-founder of Yapstone. “Mary will be more than our senior-most finance executive – she has the ability and experience to help YapStone disrupt and innovate payment markets around the world. She’s one of very few who have done it before.”
Yapstone (Corporate Website)
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Rapid genetic testing provider 23andme is happy to announce Neil Rothstein as its Vice President of Marketing. With nearly 20 years of marketing experience, Rothstein most recently served as the VP of Online Marketing at Netflix having joined Netflix in 2001. Prior to joining Netflix Neil held BD roles at RateItAll and roles as a financial analyst at Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) and ESPN. Neil holds a BS from Brandeis University and an MBA from Emory University.
23andme (Corporate Website)
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Pinterest, which recently moved into its new headquarters in the heart of San Francisco, has hired Jon Jenkins to be its new head of engineering. Jenkins, 40, comes to Pinterest from Amazon, where he worked for the past eight years as an engineering lead. Most recently at Amazon, Jenkins led up the team responsible for the Silk browser on the Kindle Fire. He’s also worked as a director of developer tools, director of platform analysis, and director of website platform. Here’s what Pinterest says Jenkins will focus on in his new role: “Jon will tackle the technical challenges of developing Pinterest into an even more useful and robust discovery tool for users and connecting millions of Pinterest users to the their interests and inspirations. Specifically, he will be responsible for leading the engineering team in its continued development of the website, managing and scaling the infrastructure that supports the service, and growing the overall technical team behind Pinterest.”
Pinterest (Corporate Website)
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Bruce Felt joins Auction.com as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Felt led San Mateo-based human resources software company SuccessFactors Inc. through its $108 million IPO in 2007, as well as its $3.4 billion sale to SAP. From February 2005 through August 2006, Mr. Felt served as CFO of LANDesk Software, Inc., a security and systems management software company. Subsequent to LANDesk’s acquisition by Avocent Corp. in August 2006, Mr. Felt was retained by Avocent through February 2007 to assist with transitional matters. From April 1999 to February 2005, Mr. Felt served as Chief Financial Officer of Integral Development Corporation, an on-demand software company. Mr. Felt holds a B.S. in accounting from the University of South Carolina and an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Auction.com (Corporate Website)
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ATLANTA, Sept. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Purchasing Power has appointed Scott Rosenberg as Chief Financial Officer. Rosenberg will be joining Richard Carrano, President & Chief Executive Office, Scott Wheeler, Chief Operating Officer, and Elizabeth Halkos, Chief Marketing Officer on the company's leadership team.
Prior to joining Purchasing Power, Mr. Rosenberg served as the CFO of GSI Commerce, a leading ecommerce, multichannel, and marketing services company as part of eBay, Inc. where he was part of the leadership team that grew the company revenues from several hundred million to approximately$1.8 billion in an eight year span. His operational experience coupled with his strategic planning, thinking and financial acumen were crafted in a host of highly recognizable brands and companies such as J. Crew, Lenox, Pillsbury (now part of General Mills) and HJ Heinz.
"Scott brings Purchasing Power diverse management experience cultivated through leadership roles within finance, marketing, and operations," said Richard Carrano, Purchasing Power President and CEO. "His experience leading other high-growth companies will prove invaluable as Purchasing Power embarks on our next stage of growth and expansion."
Rosenberg holds an MBA in finance from The American University and a bachelor's degree in finance and management from Long Island University. He also serves on the board of the Institute of Management Accountants.
"I am excited about the opportunity to join Purchasing Power and helping drive the company in its pursuit to define and lead the voluntary benefits category with a customer-centric approach," said Scott Rosenberg, Purchasing Power Chief Financial Officer. "I believe the combination of broad and expanding consumer products and services offerings that enhance an employee's lifestyle and productivity, coupled with easy to use technology and payment solutions, enable Purchasing Power to deliver a superior customer experience and provide employers with a differentiated employee benefits program to help attract and retain talent to their organizations. Having managed and led other high-growth opportunities in the past, I believe Purchasing Power has accomplished a tremendous amount to date as a company, yet is just on the cusp of an industry-changing opportunity."
Purchasing Power is the premier employee purchase program that helps employees buy name-brand products such as computers, electronics, home appliances and furniture through the convenience of payroll deduction. Since January 1, 2012, Purchasing Power has increased its workforce by 30 percent, in support of the current and projected business growth, and has added capabilities and scale within all core functional areas.
Purchasing Power (Corporate Website)
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Camille comes to Audax as its first Chief Marketing Officer with a long career in consumer marketing. Most recently, she held leadership marketing positions at LivingSocial, Kobo Netflix, Gamefly and StubHub. Camille started her career in consumer packaged goods, where she served as brand manager on a variety of brands for both Proctor & Gamble and the Clorox Company. Since her CPG days, Camille has focused her work on consumer-centric, ecommerce businesses. She was responsible for all customer acquisition and brand strategy/execution for Netflix, and after many years with the company moved on to run the marketing departments for GameFly and StubHub. Camille earned both her BA and MBA degrees from Stanford University.
Audax (Corporate Website)
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Matthew Kubicina joins BaubleBar as Vice President of Engineering. Matt came from Barnes & Noble where he was the Director of Software Engineering. BaubleBar is an ecommerce platform that sources fashion jewelry direct from its large network of leading designers and manufacturers. Founded in 2011, the company is backed by Accel Partners, Greycroft Partners, Lerer Ventures and others.
BaubleBar (Corporate Website)
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Michael Freker joins AOL as their new Chief Information Officer. Michael came from The McGraw Hill Companies, where he served as the Vice President of Global Enterprise Systems & Infrastructure Delivery. AOL has raised the bar through innovation and creativity, and set the standard for what high quality content is on the Internet. Their content sites and products allow more than 250 million visitors around the world to access the best collection of journalists, artists and musicians on the web. After over 25 years, AOL is still very much a pioneer in delivering valuable content and innovative products and services in order to inform, entertain and connect the world.
AOL (Corporate Website)
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SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 27, 2012) - Eventbrite, the leading online registration and ticketing company, today announced the appointment of Matt Rosenberg as senior vice president and department head for the company's fast-growing sales and business development functions. Rosenberg is responsible for growing the global sales organization and leading the team in building on its vision to bring Eventbrite to the world. The company announced in June that it hit $1 billion in gross ticket sales, and will exceed $600 million in gross ticket sales in 2012 alone. Kevin Hartz, Eventbrite CEO and co-founder, comments, "While we've seen impressive year-over-year growth, we are ready to take our sales organization to the next level. Matt's leadership and experience will be key in unlocking new sales opportunities, while bringing a new level of strategy to our sales and business development around the world." In 2011, Eventbrite held nearly 460K events on their platform across a wide range of categories -- from classes, networking functions and races to fundraisers and large festivals and concerts. "Eventbrite's growth has been staggering, and I'm excited to help the team further penetrate the market across various categories around the world," said Rosenberg, senior vice president of global sales and business development at Eventbrite. "Given the company's momentum, strong leadership and powerful platform, I'm confident that we'll maximize the enormous opportunities ahead of us." Prior to Eventbrite, he was Chief Sales Officer at Revana, and before that he headed up sales at ServiceSource where he was instrumental in growing the company from $65M in revenue to over $220 million, which helped the company with a successful IPO in 2011. Matt is a graduate of Northwestern University's School of Law, and received a B.A. in political science from Indiana University. About Eventbrite: Eventbrite enables people all over the world to plan, promote, and sell out any event and has processed over $1 billion in gross ticket sales. Eventbrite makes it easy for everyone to discover events, and to share the events they are attending with the people they know. In this way, Eventbrite brings communities together by encouraging people to connect through live experiences. Eventbrite's investors include Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, and Tenaya Capital. Learn more at www.eventbrite.com.
Eventbrite (Corporate Website)
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David Stern joins Auction.com as VP of Customer Experience. David came from Playfish, where he was the Head of Analytics and Strategy. Since our founding in 1990, Auction.com has distinguished itself as the world leader in maximized asset disposition strategies, asset management and real estate sales. Our expertise lies in selling residential, commercial, luxury homes, multi-family and hospitality properties, land, as well as performing and non-performing notes and loan pools. To date, Auction.com has sold over $12 billion of real estate assets for our clients. In 2011, our residential sales totaled $1.8 billion and 35,000 homes auctioned. Our commercial real estate division auctioned 1,169 Notes totaling over $4.6 billion at a recovery rate of 52 percent; additionally, it auctioned 1,087 REO valued at $1.2 billion with an average recovery price at 103 percent of the reserve. Working directly with lenders, financial institutions, developers and private parties, Auction.com conducts auctions throughout the United States and abroad, ranging from live ballroom mega-auctions to local on-site and courthouse auctions, plus online auctions through the use of our proprietary and best-in-class online auction platform. Home buyers and investors alike have the opportunity to bid live at our ballroom auctions, online against ballroom bidders using our webcast platform, or participate in online only auctions through our state-of-the-art online bidding system where buyers bid in real time as the auction progresses.
Auction.com (Corporate Website)
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David Bairstow joins Catalina Marketing as its Vice President of Mobile Products. David came from Thomson Reuters where he was the Head of Mobile Product for Eikon. Catalina Marketing Corporation provides behavior-based communications, developed and distributed for consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and marketers and retailers. Its marketing solutions include discount coupons, loyalty marketing programs, in-store, instant-win games and other consumer communications. Its segments include Catalina Marketing Services (CMS), Catalina Health Resource (CHR) and Catalina Marketing International (CMI). CMS offers behavior-based marketing communications that are delivered at point of sale. CHR provides services that assist pharmaceutical and CPG manufacturers, and retail pharmacies, in providing consumers with condition-specific health information and direct-to-patient communications. CMI provides services similar to those provided by CMS in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany and Japan. In October 2007, the Company was acquired by entities affiliated with Hellman & Friedman LLC.
Catalina Marketing (Corporate Website)
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Purchasing Power has made a key appointment, David Carlock as Vice President of Merchandising.
David Carlock brings a history of success in consumer electronics to Purchasing Power. Most recently Domain Head of Consumer Electronics at Newegg.com, David spent four years as Vice President of Merchandising for Ultimate Electronics, and seven years as Vice President of Merchandising for Hollywood Entertainment. David studied Theology at Multnomah University and Business Administration at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.
“It is a very exciting time to join Purchasing Power,” said David Carlock, Purchasing Power Vice President of Merchandising. “Purchasing Power has built a defined and differentiated business model in the eCommerce space. I look forward to working with the team to drive growth in core strategic product categories, strengthen our supplier base, widen our product and service assortment, and improve our customer shopping experience.”
Purchasing Power (Corporate Website)
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Scott Hernandez joins Kixeye as VP of Human Operations. Hernandez has over 14 years of experience in the field of Human Resources and Talent Acquisition and was prior Head of Talent Acquisition at ModCloth. Founded in 2007, KIXEYE (formerly Casual Collective) is an independent game developer that makes games for gamers by gamers. Responsible for popular titles like Desktop Defender, Backyard Monsters, Battle Pirates and War Commander. KIXEYE is the first to deliver proper game play experiences on social networks. The company is based in San Francisco and backed by Trinity Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
KIXEYE (Corporate Website)
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John Hood joins Auction.com as the Executive Vice President of Sales. John came from Hewlett-Packard where he was a Vice President and General Manager. John cut his teeth at Dell where he led the development of several very successful sales organizations. Since its founding in 1990, Auction.com has distinguished itself as the world leader in maximized asset disposition strategies, asset management and real estate sales. Our expertise lies in selling residential, commercial, luxury homes, multi-family and hospitality properties, land, as well as performing and non-performing notes and loan pools. To date, Auction.com has sold over $12 billion of real estate assets for our clients. In 2011, our residential sales totaled $1.8 billion and 35,000 homes auctioned. Our commercial real estate division auctioned 1,169 Notes totaling over $4.6 billion at a recovery rate of 52 percent; additionally, it auctioned 1,087 REO valued at $1.2 billion with an average recovery price at 103 percent of the reserve.
Auction.com (Corporate Website)
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Eric Burd joins Capital Access Network (CAN) as its General Manager of Digital. Eric came from The Ladders.com where he was the Vice President of Product. CAN constitutes the largest, non-bank alternative capital provider to small businesses in the US. The company uses its own real-time platform and risk scoring models to provide capital to small and medium-sized businesses in the US and Latin America and has funded over $2 billion in capital to SMB’s under the brands NewLogic Business Loans and AdvanceMe. This represents roughly 100,000 distinct small business finance transactions.
Capital Access Network (Corporate Website)
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David Walters joins SpaFinder Wellness as Vice President of Technology. David came from XO Group where he was the Vice President of Technology Solutions. SpaFinder Wellness, Inc. is dedicated to providing the inspiration, information and experiences to help people find – and share – their path to wellness. As the world’s largest spa/wellness media, marketing and gifting company, SpaFinder Wellness connects millions seeking a healthier, happier lifestyle with wellness providers around the globe. With over 25 years of experience, the company is also the industry’s largest seller of spa, wellness and beauty gift cards and vouchers, bringing clients to a global network of thousands of spas, fitness studios and wellness practitioners. Its unique Worklife Wellness program motivates employees to take control of their personal wellness.
SpaFinder Wellness (Corporate Website)
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Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world – online or from a mobile phone. Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 19,000 cities and 192 countries. And with world-class customer service and a growing community of users, Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an audience of millions.
Airbnb (Corporate Website)
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SAN DIEGO, Aug. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Slacker, Inc. today announced the addition of Craig Rechenmacher, Chief Marketing Officer, and Carter Brokaw, Chief Revenue Officer, to the Slacker Radio team.
\"We\'ve built a tremendous platform and consumer base over the past few years. The addition of Craig and Carter to the executive team will accelerate our already strong growth and momentum,\" said Jim Cady, president and CEO at Slacker. \"Both bring impressive experience, an understanding of the entertainment landscape and genuine love of music to their roles at Slacker.\"
Formerly holding a variety of executive leadership roles at Electronic Arts, including most recently serving as VP of Marketing and Business Development for EA\'s Origin platform, Craig Rechenmacher brings to Slacker 17 years of experience in driving brand, product, digital marketing and business development. During his time at EA, Craig also led global marketing efforts for EA Partners and Games Label including key products such as Rockband, Need for Speed, Dead Space and Godfather. Craig held senior level positions at THQ and Sony Computer Entertainment prior to working at EA, and he now brings his analytical and strategic marketing skills, creativity and love of music to Slacker Radio.
\"Slacker offers an unrivaled lineup of content in the digital music space,\" said Craig Rechenmacher. \"From personalized music to ESPN Radio and ABC News, Slacker is taking a unique approach to radio, and I am looking forward to my new position and the opportunities it brings.\"
Carter Brokaw brings to Slacker Radio his extensive experience working across digital media and marketing platforms with Fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining Slacker, Carter played an instrumental role as Chief Revenue Officer at Meebo, Inc., spearheading the go-to-market monetization strategy and successfully developing a unique cost-per-engagement distribution platform. Prior to joining Meebo, Carter was Vice President of Digital Media at Warner Music Group, where he helped structure the blueprint for its direct-to-consumer business model. Additionally, Carter spent more than a decade at CNET Networks where he focused on integrating large technology brands and product assets into the online shopping process.
\"Slacker is a leader in the expanding digital music landscape,\" said Carter Brokaw. \"I have always been impressed by their diverse listening options, and I am honored to be a part of this ground breaking company.\"
Slacker has also appointed board member Steve Wadsworth to Executive Chairman. Steve is focused on helping to drive strategic direction, pulling from his 17 years of experience at The Walt Disney Company as a pioneer for Disney\'s digital media and technology business. Steve\'s past experience includes more than 11 years as Disney\'s chief executive overseeing Internet and digital media, and serving as president of Disney Interactive Media Group.
Slacker Radio has the most varied and compelling range of customizable content offered by any radio service, while maintaining the most personal listening experience. This includes over 200 expert-programmed and interactive music stations, along with customizable stations featuring ESPN Radio and live programming, ABC News, comedy, custom artist-hosted showcase stations and leading music festival stations. In addition, Slacker listeners can create their own personalized radio stations featuring their favorite music, news and sports. Slacker Premium Radio also includes on-demand access to the entire Slacker music library featuring millions of songs.
About Slacker, Inc.
Slacker offers the world\'s most complete range of radio services, from millions of songs to custom content from ESPN Radio, ABC News and much more. Whether it\'s the award-winning free Slacker Basic Radio, the fully-loaded Slacker Radio Plus, or Slacker Premium offering on-demand access to Slacker\'s music catalog, listeners enjoy a unique, custom listening experience. Slacker enables music lovers to play highly personalized music online at the Slacker web site, in Ford vehicles with SYNC AppLink, on connected home devices or on-the-go with free Slacker Personal Radio applications. Slacker mobile applications are available for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry smartphones and more. For additional information visit:www.Slacker.com/about.
Slacker (Corporate Website)
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One Kings Lane is the leading flash sales site for the home market, offering members access to spectacular designer home décor, furnishings, accessories, and gifts – at prices up to 70% off retail. One Kings Lane works directly with leading home brands to bring the very best products at exceptional prices to its members — every day of the week. One Kings Lane also partners with top designers, decorators and industry insiders to deliver content that inspires, enlightens and informs.
One Kings Lane (Corporate Website)
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Sarah Friar Joins Square as Chief Financial Officer Key hire continues company momentum as growth accelerates. SAN FRANCISCO – JUNE 13, 2012 – Square, the company revolutionizing everyday transactions between buyers and sellers, has hired Sarah Friar to be the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Friar was most recently the Senior Vice President, Finance & Strategy, for enterprise cloud computing leader salesforce.com.“Square was founded on a commitment to help people start and grow their business,” said Friar. “I’m thrilled to join a company driving meaningful economic growth while revolutionizing the payment experience for consumers.”
Over 1 million individuals and businesses are able to accept credit cards with Square, which is now processing over $6 billion in payments on an annualized basis.
Before salesforce.com, Friar spent over 10 years at Goldman Sachs in corporate finance, M&A and equity research, and ultimately as business leader for the GS Technology Research group. She previously worked for McKinsey in both London and South Africa. She holds a Masters of Engineering from Oxford and a Masters of Business Administration from Stanford.
In the past year, Square has grown from 80 employees to over 300. The company recently added several VP-level executives including Alyssa Cutright (VP, International) from PayPal, Jesse Dorogusker (VP, Hardware) from Apple and Ricardo Reyes (VP, Communications and Brand Marketing) from Tesla. Square’s burgeoning hiring supports its growing revenue and product offerings and precedes the company’s plans for international expansion later this year.
About Square, Inc.
Square is revolutionizing millions of everyday transactions between buyers and sellers with its free credit card reader for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, allowing anyone to accept credit cards anywhere, anytime. Square Register serves as a full point-of-sale system for businesses to accept payments, track inventory, and share menu and location information. Pay with Square is the most seamless way to pay, enabling individuals to pay with their names at their favorite local merchants, discover nearby businesses, explore menu listings, and store receipts. Founded in 2009, and headquartered in San Francisco, Square is currently available only in the U.S. More information is available at squareup.com.
Square (Corporate Website)
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Josh McBride joins Offerpop as its Vice President of Sales. Josh came from Experian where he was the Vice President of Sales. At Offerpop, we\'re about forming real connections. We value connecting with marketers like you about your goals and challenges. And we\'re committed to helping you form stronger connections with your audience on Facebook and Twitter.
In 2009, Offerpop launched with the idea of helping brands find and engage audiences on Twitter. We soon expanded our vision to include social marketing on Facebook. Since then, we\'ve developed a roster of apps that help companies run successful campaigns on both social media platforms.
Offerpop (Corporate Website)
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TenMarks Math, a web-based math program designed to supplement classroom instruction, is used in more than 70,000 classrooms in all 50 states and in 126 countries around the world. A cost-friendly and effective tool, TenMarks Math is mapped to Common Core State Standards and bridges fundamental gaps in student knowledge with immediate feedback in the form of hints and video lessons. With more than 1 million problems answered daily, TenMarks Math encourages students to practice and master math skills in a positive, personalized learning environment.
Ten Marks (Corporate Website)
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Nishant joined Dashlane to bring our magic to everyone on the Internet, and make us some money along the way. Before Dashlane, he built, scaled, and managed large marketing, customer acquisition and customer retention programs, both at startups and Fortune 500 companies. Most recently, he was Chief Marketing Officer at Yext, creating their targeted customer acquisition engine as well as building the brand for their new flagship local search product for businesses. Prior to that, he ran Capital One Card's outbound marketing across all online channels. He studied at IIT Bombay before earning his MBA at NYU Stern. You'll often find him contemplating the mysteries of global tribal rhythms on his Traktor Kontrol S4.
Dashlane (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce that Matt Gallatin has joined ShareThis as their new Chief Financial Officer. He brings 14 years of experience in corporate finance, investment banking and management of financial teams and processes. He joins the company from Brand.net, where he managed the company’s day-to-day and strategic financing. Prior to Brand.net, Gallatin served as Vice President of Corporate Finance at Yahoo! There, he led analysis and due diligence for acquisitions including Blue Lithium and for partnership deals generating in excess of $3 billion in revenue. Matt is also a veteran of Applied Materials, where he served in the corporate finance group, and of Merrill Lynch, where he spent eight years as an analyst and underwriter. Matt holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Allegheny College and M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
ShareThis (Corporate Website)
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Rob Smahl is responsible for leading IronPlanet's global marketing initiatives. Prior to joining IronPlanet, Rob served as Chief Marketing Officer for Ebates, the leader and pioneer in cash back shopping. Before joining Ebates, Rob was Vice President of Marketing & Communication at PriceGrabber.com for a four year period, through its acquisition by Experian in the winter of 2006. Prior to that, Rob enjoyed a 16-year stint at Ziff-Davis where he had a number of management roles in the company\'s publishing, trade show and online units, ending as an Executive Officer of ZDnet through its IPO and eventual sale to CNET in 2001. Rob brings over 20 years of marketing experience to IronPlanet, with a focus on customer acquisition and retention. Rob graduated with a B.A. in English from the University at Albany, State University of New York.
IronPlanet (Corporate Website)
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New York – Mediaocean has hired Marcella Butler, most recently Senior Director, Corporate Development, M&A Operations and Integration at Google, to become its Chief Human Resources Officer and SVP, People. Marcella will be responsible for shaping the workforce and culture of the newly formed Mediaocean organization. Within Google, Butler’s roles included HR Director to the global Product Management organization; Finance Director to the Display Advertising Sales organization; and Director of M&A Integration responsible for every aspect of integration of newly acquired businesses, from HR to intellectual property. Her other past positions include COO and Chief Compliance Officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, and Chief Administrative Officer at Sanford C. Bernstein. Prior to joining Bernstein, Butler was an executive search professional with Egon Zehnder in the US and UK. She began her career as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. “Marcella brings incredible energy and creativity, and a very rigorous approach to business practice – particularly in the tech space,” said Bill Wise, CEO, Mediaocean. “She’s precisely the leader we want to help mold an organization that’s continually growing and evolving, and to help it continue to expand at a very fast clip.” Added Butler: “Mediaocean’s human assets are tremendous. It’s an incredibly talented and passionate group of people, who understand the business of marketing technology like no one else around. To empower Mediaocean’s teams to translate their assets into the next generation of marketing technology is a role I’m tremendously excited to begin.”
mediaocean (Corporate Website)
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Groupon Grabs Faisal Masud From eBay To Lead 'Goods' Unit By Nivedita Bhattacharjee
(Reuters) - Groupon Inc has hired another former eBay Inc executive to head its discount retailing arm Groupon Goods starting Monday, according to an internal email obtained by Reuters on Friday.
The online coupon company named Faisal Masud to head the unit. Masud, who was head of global delivery experience at eBay, will report to Kal Raman, whom Groupon named head of its Americas region on Thursday.
Masud takes over from Rajen Ruparell, who was in charge of the division and will move into a global sales leadership role, Chief Executive Andrew Mason said in the email.
Groupon Goods is one of the company's newer businesses, and its first foray into more traditional e-commerce, dominated by Amazon.com Inc.
Through this unit, the company offers discounts on products, along with its regular daily deals, which typically focus on restaurants and services like massages and yoga classes.
Groupon Goods has seen some initial success, although some analysts note that profit margins on the business may be thinner than on Groupon's main daily deal business.
Groupon (Corporate Website)
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Deborah Benton joins Nasty Gal as its Chief Operations Officer. Deorah came from ShoeDazzle where she was the Chief Operations Officer. Nasty Gal is the brainchild of Sophia Amoruso who started the company in 2006 on eBay selling one-of-a-kind vintage clothing. Sophia sourced, styled, shot, and shipped her sartorial pieces to tastemakers worldwide on her own. Amoruso was an early e-tail pioneer in the social media arena, using word-of-mouth and social platforms exclusively to build her brand and communicate with customers and fans. Nasty Gal has grown over 500% each year since its inception and counts over 300,000 customers in more than 50 countries with over 35% of sales occurring outside of the US. Today, Nasty Gal has over 500,000 Facebook fans, 30,000 Twitter followers, 350,000 Instagram followers, and a growing base of Pinterest users as part of their rapidly growing cult following.
NastyGal (Corporate Website)
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Alliance Health Networks Names Digital Strategist Dan Hickey Senior Vice President of Products
SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alliance Health Networks, the leading social networking company serving consumers and the healthcare industry, announced today that Dan Hickey has been named senior vice president of products. Hickey will oversee the company’s consumer-facing properties, including the design and application engineering for its growing portfolio of health communities.
“Dan has a long-standing reputation for developing and cultivating online products that reach and engage large consumer audiences”
Prior to joining Alliance Health Networks, Hickey led the strategy and development of Meredith Corporation’s digital portfolio. Under Hickey’s leadership, the Meredith’s Women’s Network reached record levels of engagement, growing to 35 million monthly unique visitors. Most recently, Hickey was responsible for Meredith’s digital food strategy that resulted in Meredith becoming the No. 1 media company in the online food category. In this role, he was responsible for the strategy, development and monetization of Meredith’s food portfolio.
“Dan has a long-standing reputation for developing and cultivating online products that reach and engage large consumer audiences,” said Stead Burwell, chief executive officer of Alliance Health Networks. “We are excited to have someone of Dan’s caliber join the company. His expertise will undoubtedly be critical as we continue to expand our offerings and empower people to navigate their personal health journeys.”
During his tenure at Meredith, Hickey received industry recognition for innovation and teamwork. Hickey accepted the first Media Industry Newsletter (MIN) award for “Digital Team of the Year” after re-launching Meredith’s flagship brand, Better Homes and Gardens (BHG.com). He was also awarded the MIN “Social Media Superstar” award for launching the company’s first set of social networks including Momster.com and Mixing Bowl, an online community where consumers can share and discuss recipes.
“It is an exciting time to join Alliance Health Networks as consumers are increasingly turning to social networks in order to improve their health and well-being,” said Hickey. “I am eager to help elevate and evolve Alliance Health Networks’ growing communities as trusted destinations where consumers can make better, more-informed health decisions for themselves and their families.”
About Alliance Health Networks
Alliance Health Networks is building a free and independent social engagement platform that gives people the power to Navigate their personal health journey. The company owns and operates more than 50 social networks and 20 mobile versions serving over 1.5 million registered members. Alliance Health leverages social networks to help consumers more actively manage their care through personal connections, powerful tools, and deeper insights. The company's investors include New World Ventures, Physic Ventures, Highway 12 Ventures, and EPIC Ventures
Alliance Health (Corporate Website)
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Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY - News), a leading Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, today announced that it has appointed John Boris as senior vice president and chief marketing officer and that Peter Elarde has been named senior vice president, new business initiatives. Boris and Elarde will report to Shutterfly\'s president and chief executive officer, Jeffrey Housenbold. Their appointments are part of a broader evolution of the company’s organizational structure that reflects its multi-brand strategy. In January, Shutterfly named Karl Wiley, Greg Hintz and Cindy Wang as general managers of Shutterfly, Tiny Prints and Wedding Paper Divas, respectively, to lead strategy for those operating units.
\"I am thrilled to welcome John to the Shutterfly Team,” said Jeffrey Housenbold, Shutterfly’s president and chief executive officer. “John brings proven leadership experience at marquee brands like Lonely Planet, Zagat, and 1-800-FLOWERS.com. His track record of deepening consumer engagement and brand loyalty will ensure that our customers will continue to be able to share, extend and cherish their everyday memories across the Shutterfly family of brands.
\"As Shutterfly’s chief marketing officer, Boris is responsible for all facets of the company’s marketing efforts, including customer acquisition and retention, business development, brand marketing, creative services and corporate communications.
Boris brings more than 15 years of business, marketing and strategy planning experience to Shutterfly. He has held leadership roles at Zagat Survey, 1-800-FLOWERS.com and Fresh Direct. Most recently, he was executive vice president and managing director of Lonely Planet Americas, where he oversaw all aspects of the company’s business in the Americas including retail sales, B2B, marketing and public relations, business development, online, mobile, logistics and back-office. Boris earned a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
In his new role as senior vice president, new business initiatives, Peter Elarde is responsible for evaluating, incubating, and developing new growth initiatives for the company, including the new Treat™ greeting card business.
Elarde, who joined Shutterfly in 2001, has held several roles at the company. Before serving as chief marketing officer he was vice president of the services business and vice president of product marketing. As chief marketing officer, Elarde helped expand Shutterfly’s online marketing, direct mail, and social media channels and extend its leadership in personal publishing with the introduction of simple path and custom path Photo Books. He also managed the successful integration of Tiny Prints and Wedding Paper Divas’ marketing activities to create a multi-brand marketing organization.
Shutterfly (Corporate Website)
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Dena Yahya Enos joins Hopper as its Chief Marketing Officer. Dena came from TripAdvisor where she was the Vice President of Traffic Acquisition and Revenue Management. Hopper is developing a website for consumer travel discovery. Its travel-oriented search engine allows users to discover destinations and products using only keywords.Hopper is applying cluster computing techniques to build the world's largest database of travel information. The company is using Machine Learning, NoSQL databases and Big Data processing to transform raw web pages into structured and organized information, enabling a faster, more complete, and more flexible search than traditional travel sites.
Hopper (Corporate Website)
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Daniel Kjellen has more than 12 years of experience leading online marketing acquisition and product teams at a wide range of consumer finance and payments companies including Green Dot Corporation, PayPal, AccountNow, and Providian Financial. At Green Dot, he served as the Head of Online Acquisition, where he launched and expanded the online acquisition channel, resulting in substantial account and revenues growth. At PayPal, he led product management and development teams focusing on improving global merchant and consumer acquisition experience. As one of the early employees at AccountNow, he served as the Vice President of Online Marketing & Acquisition, responsible for product development, marketing channel strategy, and online acquisition. He began his career at Providian Financial, where he held numerous management positions focusing on online credit card acquisition and product management.
A native of Sweden, Daniel graduated cum laude with honors from San Francisco State University with a bachelor\'s degree in Business Administration Marketing.
Pageonce (Corporate Website)
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New York, NY (PRWEB) June 18, 2012. SpaFinder Wellness, Inc. today announced that Michelle Pae has been named Chief Product Officer of the leading spa and wellness media and marketing company. In this newly created position Pae will spearhead the company’s significant expansion in the health and wellness arena, and is charged with developing new products and online technology and tools designed to help people easily find and reserve wellness, fitness and spa experiences and services worldwide.
“Michelle is uniquely qualified to develop smarter consumer wellness platforms as our company begins a new chapter,” said Pete Ellis, chairman & CEO of SpaFinder Wellness. “Not only does she have deep experience in successfully creating new products and strategies, she is also passionate about providing consumers with the best possible online experiences, which will ultimately drive more business for our over 20,000 partners.”
SpaFinder, founded in 1986, recently rebranded itself as SpaFinder Wellness, underscoring the company’s new, much wider wellness focus – which now includes fitness, yoga, Pilates and other diverse providers, in addition to spa. In May SpaFinder Wellness also launched its Worklife Wellness division, which provides businesses with innovative incentive programs that are fully aligned with employers’ health objectives, and that help motivate employees to take control of their personal health and wellbeing.
Prior to joining SpaFinder Wellness, Pae was the co-founder of Real Direct, an online real estate technology company that empowers users to efficiently sell their homes. Previously she was vice president of product at Pronto.com, where she executed product strategy and user experience; vice president of product at Seevast, where she led product and customer acquisition strategies; director of product management at Shopping.com and interaction designer at R/GA. She has also served as a consultant to a number of companies, including YouTube and Kaboom!. Pae is a graduate of Barnard College.
“I’m excited to join the talented management team at SpaFinder Wellness and help build new, technology-driven products for a company that has been a wellness industry leader for over 25 years,” said Pae. “I look forward to bringing our loyal and dedicated community of wellness enthusiasts all the tools they need to navigate their own path to health and wellbeing.”
About SpaFinder® Wellness, Inc.SpaFinder Wellness, Inc. is dedicated to providing the inspiration, information and experiences to help people find – and share – their path to wellness. As the world’s largest spa/wellness media, marketing and gifting company, SpaFinder Wellness connects millions seeking a healthier, happier lifestyle with wellness providers around the globe. With over 25 years of experience, the company is also the industry’s largest seller of spa, wellness and beauty gift cards and vouchers, bringing clients to a global network of thousands of spas, fitness studios and wellness practitioners. Its unique Worklife Wellness program motivates employees to take control of their personal wellness.
SpaFinder Wellness (Corporate Website)
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Megan Hanley joins Auction.com as CMO. Megan came from Microsoft where she was the General Manager of Global Media. Since its founding in 1990, Auction.com has distinguished itself as the world leader in maximized asset disposition strategies, asset management and real estate sales. Our expertise lies in selling residential, commercial, luxury homes, multi-family and hospitality properties, land, as well as performing and non-performing notes and loan pools. To date, Auction.com has sold over $12 billion of real estate assets for our clients. In 2011, our residential sales totaled $1.8 billion and 35,000 homes auctioned. Our commercial real estate division auctioned 1,169 Notes totaling over $4.6 billion at a recovery rate of 52 percent; additionally, it auctioned 1,087 REO valued at $1.2 billion with an average recovery price at 103 percent of the reserve.
Auction.com (Corporate Website)
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Heather Inocencio joins J.Hilburn as its Senior Vice President of Product. Heather came from HauteLook where she was the Vice President of Product. J.Hilburn offers exclusive Italian shirting andtrouser fabrics, luxury performance knits, and a top-shelf accessories line that marries the best in handmade designs and European quality.
J.Hillburn (Corporate Website)
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Dave Brown joins HowAboutWe as its Chief Technology Officer. David came from Level 9 Technology where he was the CTO. Launched in April 2010 and based in DUMBO, New York, HowAboutWe is the first and only experience-driven dating and relationships company. Through its unique services and content, HowAboutWe supports members to fall in love and stay in love. One of the ways it does this is by giving members a seamless way to go on wonderful dates. HowAboutWe has two core products: HowAboutWe Dating and HowAboutWe for Couples.
HowAboutWe (Corporate Website)
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Another big move for Buddy Media as it continues to build out the services it offers as part of its social media marketing business: the company has hired sales supremo Susan St. Ledger as its new president.
She is joining Buddy Media from Salesforce.com, where she had been for the past seven years in a number of key roles. They included (most recently) SVP of industry verticals, where she was in charge of relationships with Salesforce.com’s biggest clients in technology, financial services, insurance, media and telecoms. Before that, St. Ledger had been SVP of global platform sales for the company.
And before her time with Salesforce.com, St. Ledger had been a sales force at Sun Microsystems, where as a VP she helped generate some $3.5 billion in annual revenue from services for the company, at a time when the company was first starting to hit $1 billion in quarterly revenues.
Buddy Media says St. Ledger’s formal role will be to lead global revenue generation and oversee the company’s sales and client service teams. Based in San Francisco, she will report directly to co-founder and CEO Michael Lazerow.Experience and expertise in selling enterprise services — not to mention those important contacts that St. Ledger made over the years — are just what Buddy Media needs right now as it continues to expand its portfolio of marketing services and looks to sign more of the world’s most notable brands.
The news of the appointment comes just one week after Buddy Media announced that it had bought Facebook ad-buying tool Brighter Option. That acquisition means that Buddy Media can sell Facebook ads directly to its 600+ clients — which include biggies like WPP. With Susan on board, Buddy Media will have an easier time convincing brands of the advantages of a combined marketing and advertising platform.
Buddy Media (Corporate Website)
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NEW YORK, March 8, 2012 — Collective today announced that former PayPal executive and eBay North American Marketplaces CFO, Aman Verjee, has joined the Company as its Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Verjee joins the senior management team and will oversee the finance and operations teams across its domestic and UK offices.
“Aman is a technology veteran with deep experience in fast growth companies,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “Collective has aggressive goals for future M&A opportunities as we work to consolidate and automate the data-driven advertising landscape. Aman’s corporate development experience and operating insight will help accelerate our growth and further strengthen our commitment to delivering measurable branding that works.”
Verjee has a comprehensive background in big data, analytics and technology platform solutions, which he refined during his tenure at high-growth businesses eBay and PayPal. At PayPal he held various positions until eventually managing the strategy, customer analytics, financial planning and analysis teams, playing a key role in the growth of the company’s revenue from $100 million to over $1.8 billion dollars.“
After meeting with Joe and the rest of the team, I was extremely impressed by their shared vision, their sense of purpose,” added Verjee. “This is a world-class team of great people and great businessmen and women. And they’re relentlessly focused on creating a smarter way of doing business for the world’s most innovative brands. I’m excited to join this effort.”
More recently, Verjee was the divisional CFO of eBay’s North American Marketplaces operation, leading its global strategy, product testing and analytics, and marketing analytics groups. Verjee is the former CFO of Sonos, a consumer electronics company specializing in wireless home music systems, which saw global expansion into Europe, Latin American and Asia Pacific during his tenure. He has also held positions in fixed income securities trading and financial engineering at Lehman Brothers, and was an associate at McKinsey & Co.
Collective (Corporate Website)
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Former designer on Playdom’s Gardens of Time and Tiki Farm relocates to Seattle from San Francisco to help lead GameHouse’s fastest growing businessVideo-game industry veteran, Jared Brinkley, comes to GameHouse as our new General Manager of Social Game Design, and brings nearly 20 years of interactive entertainment design and development experience on titles such as Gardens of Time, Tiki Farm as well as Disney Feature Animation, Dr. Seuss, and James Bond franchises.Brinkley relocates to Seattle from San Francisco to help expand on the company’s successful Facebook games including Collapse! Blast, Bayou Blast, and Slotorama, which officially launched this week. In this role for GameHouse, he will lead the overall design and creative direction of social games from concept to creation and optimization.Brinkley has held a variety of game design and production roles with marquee companies including Playdom, Disney Interactive, MGM Interactive, and Vivendi Universal. We sat down with Brinkley to ask him about his experience in the video game sector, what’s hot, what’s not, and what’s next for GameHouse.
GameHouse (Corporate Website)
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Whit Richards joins ShoeDazzle as its Chief Financial Officer. Whit came from DailyCandy where he was the Chief Financial Officer. ShoeDazzle is a monthly, online style society that works with a team of Hollywood stylists to find the hottest shoes, handbags, and jewelry for each member every month based on that member’s unique fashion personality.
shoedazzle (Corporate Website)
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Steve is currently the Chief Revenue Officer at BigCommerce. Prior to this, Steve served the Chief Sales Officer for ReachLocal. He was elevated to the position after serving as Executive Vice President of Global Sales Operations and previously four years as ReachLocal Australia's Chief Executive Officer. Prior to ReachLocal, Power served as an executive at Netus Pty Ltd, an Australian venture capital company backed by News Corporation; and at PMP as a National Sales Director and as Executive for Acquisitions and Solutions Development. Power holds both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Melbourne.
BigCommerce (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce David Geller as the new Chief Operating Officer for Dreamworks Animation Investments. David joins Dreamworks from Yahoo! Inc, where he served as their Head of Fantasy Sports. During his tenure at Yahoo!, David lead the Global Fantasy Sports division of the world’s largest fantasy sports provider. Prior, David served as Senior Product Director for RioPort, Inc, which was acquired by eCast, Inc., and Overture, Inc., a Yahoo! Company.
David lives in Los Angeles, where he received an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. David received his BA in History from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.
Dreamworks Animantion Investments (Corporate Website)
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Sheila Tan joins LegalZoom in March of this year as Chief Marketing Officer. Before joining LegalZoom, Ms. Tan held executive positions at Align Technology Inc. as Vice President, Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer from March 2009 to December 2011 and Vice President of Product Innovation and Marketing Strategy from September 2008 to March 2009. Prior to that, she was Vice President, Marketing for Moka5, Inc., a provider of virtual desktop technology, from August 2007 to July 2008. Ms. Tan served as Vice President Marketing of Presto Services Inc., a digital-delivery service that enables families and friends to stay in touch via e-mail, without the need for a computer or Internet connection, from June 2006 to August 2007. Prior to that, Ms. Tan was Senior Director of Marketing, Quicken.com and QuickBooks at Intuit from 2001 to 2004. From 1995 to 2000, Ms. Tan held marketing positions of increasing scope and responsibility at The Procter & Gamble Company and its subsidiaries. Ms. Tan received a B.S. in Business Management from California Polytechnic State University and an M.B.A. in Business Management from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
About LegalZoom:LegalZoom is the nation's leading provider of online legal document services and legal plans to families and small businesses. The company was founded by top talents in law and technology to make legal protection more accessible and affordable. LegalZoom is not a law firm. It provides self-help services and legal plans where customers have access to attorneys at a fixed monthly fee. The company is headquartered in Glendale, California, with regional headquarters in Austin, Texas.
LegalZoom (Corporate Website)
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Terrence Sweeney has been named chief marketing officer of Pinger, a Kleiner Perkins' iFund backed mobile start-up. Terrence is an accomplished consumer marketer and branding expert who has the unique ability to meld a data-driven, performance marketing approach with impactful, breakthrough creative messaging. Terrence has used his skills to create new categories (satellite radio, online reputation management & privacy control, bundled cable services) and the brands that are synonymous with them (Sirius, Reputation.com, The Comcast Triple Play). He's also developed efficient, ROI-positive customer acquisition campaigns that have delivered millions of paid subscribers and free users using a range of online and offline channels. His expertise includes subscription marketing, customer retention, direct sales, product marketing, advertising development, SEO strategy, online consumer acquisition, B2B demand generation, media planning and buying of radio and DRTV, public relations, promotions and email marketing. Terrence has navigated large, multi-national companies and fast-growing Silicon Valley technology start-ups. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty, but he also knows how to scale. As Chief Marketing Officer of Reputation.com, he helped grow the company’s revenue over 400% and acquire millions of paid and freemium users. Prior to making the move to Silicon Valley, Terrence was responsible for the creation of The Triple Play at Comcast, including its pricing, packaging, positioning and branding. Terrence also developed the award-winning "It's Comcastic!" advertising campaign. He was the VP of Marketing at Sirius Satellite Radio in its start-up phase as well as the Director of Advertising & Communications for British Airways. Early in his career, Terrence managed accounts at a number of global marketing agencies known for their outstanding creative work, including BBDO, Saatchi & Saatchi and TPMG Media Innovation. Terrence has a BA with honors in Political Science from Amherst College.
About Pinger Pinger makes texting and talking free. Our market-leading communications products have been downloaded by millions of iOS and Android users around the world. Pinger is loaded with inventive people who enjoy creating consumer products and services that make a difference in people's lives
Pinger (Corporate Website)
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NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Gilt Groupe, Inc., the innovative online shopping destination, announced that Elizabeth Francis has been named Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Ms. Francis joins the company this week and will report to Kevin Ryan, Founder and CEO. Ms. Francis will be responsible for the company\'s new customer generation and retention programs across all channels as well as creative direction, overall brand positioning, and research and analytics. Ms. Francis succeeds Alexis Maybank, a Founder of Gilt, who stepped in to lead as CMO six months ago. Ms. Maybank has held a number of critical roles at the company and will resume her previous title of Chief Strategy Officer. Ms. Francis has over 12 years of marketing and advertising experience—building and scaling emerging brands—in fashion, consumer packaged goods, and financial services companies. She joins Gilt from Intelligent Beauty, a leading e-commerce and brand-building incubator where she was CMO. In addition to her responsibilities as Intelligent Beauty\'s CMO, she was also President of JustFabulous, an online fashion and accessories brand and an Intelligent Beauty venture. Prior to Intelligent Beauty, Ms. Francis was a Vice President at Alena, a Fox Interactive Company, and also spent several years at LowerMyBills.com. \"Elizabeth\'s experience in the e-commerce fashion and accessories industry, coupled with her proven track record of scaling brands, makes her a terrific fit for Gilt,\" said Ryan. \"Gilt has quickly built a brand through unconventional marketing vehicles and Elizabeth is well suited to lead marketing to ensure we continue on that path.\" Said Maybank: \"I worked closely with Kevin to fill the CMO role, and Elizabeth stood out as someone who had a clear passion for the Gilt brand and a vision to scale our marketing initiatives and organization successfully over the coming years.\" \"I\'m thrilled to join the fantastically talented Gilt team,\" said Francis, \"and to build on their philosophy of marketing innovation and excellence in the industry.\" Ms. Francis holds Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University and is an active member of the Direct Marketing Association and Fashion Group International.
The Gilt Groupe (Corporate Website)
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Buy.com has hired Bernard Luthi as chief marketing officer for the online marketplace. Luthi’s 15 years of e-commerce experience includes executive positions at Newegg.com and PC Mall Inc. Buy.com is No. 32 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. PC Mall is No. 52 and Newegg is No. 12. At Buy.com, Luthi will oversee web site experience, advertising, BuyTV, public relations and promotions. He also will work on corporate branding with Buy.com parent company Rakuten, which bought Buy.com in 2010 for $250 million.\"Bernard\'s knowledge of online retailing and channel product marketing will be a huge asset to Buy.com, as we work to increase our value to product vendors and marketplace sellers, while continuing to build loyalty among our diverse customer-base,\" says Neel Grover, Buy.com CEO and president. \"With our plans for increasing growth under our parent company Rakuten, his deep experience and marketing acumen will give us a strong competitive advantage.\" Luthi started at Newegg in December 2006 as vice president for marketing and merchandising, ascending to senior vice president with oversight also of web management and customer service. Between June 2004 and December 2006, he worked as PC Mall’s vice president of marketing and category management, according to his LinkedIn account. Before that, he was director of product marketing for technology distributor and logistics firm Ingram Micro.
Buy.com (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Miles Reidy as the new Chief Financial Officer for Audax Health Solutions. Miles joined Audax Health from Network Solutions where he served as their Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Reidy joined Network Solutions from Sears Holdings Corporation where he was Executive Vice President and CFO. During his tenure as CFO for Sears Holding Company, Mr. Reidy led the development of strategy and financial management for the multi-billion dollar retailer. Prior to this role, he spent more than eight years at Capital One Financial Corporation, leading activities in banking integration, corporate planning and financial strategy. In addition he served as the CFO for Capital One Credit Card and Bank. Mr. Reidy’s experience also includes senior posts at a number of large commercial banks. Mr. Reidy received his Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Georgetown University and his Master of Science in Economics, from the Heinz School of Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Audax Health Solutions\' mission is to combine the power of social networking with provider-based clinical and plan-based benefit management information.
Audax (Corporate Website)
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NEW YORK, Dec. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Weight Watchers International, Inc.(NYSE: WTW) today announced the appointment of Colin Watts as Senior Vice President, Wellness and Global Innovation, effective January 3, 2012. Watts will oversee the Company's North American B2B/Healthcare business operations in addition to its Global Innovation and Consumer Insights teams. Watts will report to David A. Burwick, President, North America.
Watts brings a broad range of experiences in general management, marketing and innovation from consumer and healthcare companies. Most recently, he served as Corporate Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Walgreen Co. where he was in charge of the recently created Corporate Innovation Division. Prior to this position atWalgreens, Watts had significant senior leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson as President of McNeil Nutritionals Worldwide and McNeil Consumer Healthcare Worldwide. In these roles, he was responsible for building businesses such as Tylenol, Motrin, Imodium and Splenda. Watts also had various marketing roles early in his career at both Johnson & Johnson and Nabisco. He received his B.A. from Brown Universityand his joint MBA/Masters of International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
"Colin comes to us at a very exciting time in North America as we accelerate the growth of our B2B/Healthcare business, starting with large, self-insured companies and leading to new partnerships with payers, providers and physicians that will significantly expand the reach and affordability of our services," said Burwick. "Colin's broad array of experiences and knowledge of the healthcare space and innovation development and commercialization make him uniquely qualified to transform our efforts in these critical areas."
Weight Watchers (Corporate Website)
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Anthony Vicars joins NastyGal as its Vice President of Operations. Anthony came from Zappos where he was the Director of Fulfillment. Nasty Gal is a global online destination for fashion-forward, free-thinking girls. In 2006, founder Sophia Amoruso started an eBay store selling a highly curated selection of vintage pieces. In just five short years, the shop has grown to become an international style source offering both new and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories.
NastyGal (Corporate Website)
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SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Dec 17, 2012) - University Ventures, the premier investment firm uniquely focused on the global higher education sector, today announced the launch of UV Labs, a company that will partner directly with universities and other providers of higher education to build innovative products and technologies to help solve the serious issues of accessibility, affordability, quality and accountability facing higher education.
UV Labs will be led by Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Satish Menon. Over the past two decades, Menon has steered the development of multiple technological innovations in education and digital media, including the development of several mobile products, personalized learning management platforms and a suite of education-to-career tools for postsecondary learners. Prior to co-founding UV Labs, Menon served as Chief Technology Officer for Apollo Group, a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest private education providers. He also previously served as Vice President at Yahoo's Consumer Platforms division.
A team of product designers, social scientists, and experts in education, cognitive science and technology will support him in developing new products for students, higher education institutions and employers.
"This is an exciting collaborative new venture. For too long higher education has remained unchanged by the technological advances taking place in other industries. If universities around the world want to meet the need for a more skilled and prepared workforce, innovative products and technologies are needed," said Menon. "In partnership with global thought-leaders in higher education and the private and public sectors, UV Labs has the opportunity to deploy products that will adequately prepare learners to meet and solve the pressing needs facing our world today."
"We are thrilled to have Satish at the helm of this new enterprise. His knowledge of the education, media and consumer sectors and his strong technology expertise, paired with the team's experience and passion for higher education, will aid UV Labs in becoming a great resource for innovative education products and technologies," said Ryan Craig, Managing Director at University Ventures. "This foray into development helps advance the core mission of University Ventures and move higher education as a whole closer to where it needs to be to better serve students."
UV Labs is funded by University Ventures, and follows its differentiated strategy of "innovating from within." By partnering with top-tier universities and colleges, UV Labs will create products and solutions for universities to set new standards for student outcomes, rather than competing against them. Through this partnership, University Ventures aims to expand its role in advancing the development of the next generation of colleges and universities on a global scale.
Product designers, social scientists and others interested in becoming a part of this unique venture should visit www.uvlabsinc.com for more information.
About UV Labs
UV Labs is a company that seeks to build innovative products and technologies to help solve the increasingly complex issues facing higher education today. By collaborating with universities and working with experts in the field of social science and technology, UV Labs aims to assist learners find more efficient pathways to meet their goals through education. By doing this, UV Labs will create a more skilled and prepared workforce to solve social and economic challenges. To learn more, visit www.uvlabsinc.com.
UV Labs (Corporate Website)
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Jason Van de Loo is responsible for enrolling successful students on behalf of Everspring’s partners, including market and program strategy, marketing and admissions. He brings more than 10 years of experience driving innovation and growth in online higher education and building consumer brands online.
Most recently, Jason was the senior marketing officer for Capella Education Company, serving more than 40,000 online students worldwide. In this capacity, he oversaw all marketing and enrollment services for Capella University, and guided Capella’s international growth strategy. Under Jason’s leadership, Capella transformed itself toward a brand-driven marketing model to improve student quality and generate sustainable long-term growth. In partnership with academic leadership, his team revitalized Capella’s product portfolio, redesigning the end-to-end student experience and launching new, innovative academic programs. In his earlier work with Capella, he had end-to-end responsibility for the mental health services business Capella’s largest repositioning it to drive sustained growth.
Prior to his work with Capella, Jason built several successful e-commerce and digital marketing platforms for Carlson Companies, a global leader in the marketing, hospitality and travel industries; and its partner brands, including T.G.I. Frida’s, Radisson and Country Inns & Suites by Carlson.
Jason holds a master’s in business administration and a bachelor of science in business, both with high distinction, from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.
Everspring (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is proud to announce Frank Ambrose as EVP Platform and Technology for Audax Health Solutions. Ambrose has 20 years of experience in technology infrastructure development, data architecture and operations. Ambrose joins Audax from Linden Lab as SVP Global Technology. He also held several consecutive executive roles at AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider, where he spent nine years developing network and infrastructure services. Previously Ambrose was a senior manager at MCI Telecommunications. He holds a bachelor's degree in Finance from Siena College in New York, and was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy, serving in both active duty and reserve capacities from 1985-1998. Audax Health Solutions' mission is to combine the power of social networking with provider-based clinical and plan-based benefit management information.
Audax (Corporate Website)
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Bryan Bennett joined Booyah, part of Kleiner Perkins’ iFund, in December of 2011 as Vice President of Marketing. Bryan leads all aspects of marketing, including customer acquisition, community management and product launches. He also is also charge with strategic initiatives around partnerships and channel development that combined with marketing will position the company to rapidly grow audience reach and revenue.
Bryan brings a wealth of experience in social gaming and community from Kabam, where he was previously General Manager for many of Kabam’s premiere games like Global Warfare, Glory of Rome and Epic Goal. Bryan was one of the first 30 employees that played a key executive role in transitioning the original company, Watercooler, in 2010 from an online publisher of fantasy sports applications to the social gaming platform, Kabam. Bryan’s DNA in content and community began with his early years at Piczo (acquired by Stardoll Entertainment) and Peerflix (acquired by LiveUniverse). He has also lead brand management for AOL’s Netscape Internet Service and Product Marketing for Covad Communications.
Bryan started his career with Verizon in marketing. He is a graduate of Texas Christian University and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.
Booyah (Corporate Website)
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Sophia Kim joins Xtranormal as its CEO. Sophia came from SK Group where she was the President and also the former President at Vivendi Universal\'s Internet Group. Xtranormal is a digital storytelling company that enables you to create your own personalized animated stories using its groundbreaking technology already used by millions including the world’s leading brands. Each story on Xtranormal is unique because you make it your own. You can customize your story with characters, your own voice, or add photos and videos. Have fun telling your story. Learn more on www.xtranormal.com
Xtranormal (Corporate Website)
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Mark Anderson joins Gaikai as Chief Operating Officer from Jesta Digital. As Chief Operating Office for Jesta, Mark was responsible for managing the company's product, marketing and technology operations for its global brands including Jamba, Jamster, and the groundbreaking Bitbop wireless television subscription service available currently in the U.S. and Germany. He also was one of the key executives who saw the transition of the business from Fox Mobile to Jesta Digital, a leading global provider of next generation entertainment products and services for the digital consumer. Mark originally joined Fox Mobile in 2007 as the CFO of Jamba, a leading global digital entertainment company that was headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and helped lead the integration into Fox Mobile Group following NewsCorp’s acquisition of the company. Mark oversaw global finance, business strategy, merges and acquisitions, legal and human resource operations as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development for Fox Mobile. Marc also served as Chief Financial Officer for Sony Digital Pictures, where he managed all aspects of finance and corporate development. Mark is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Gaikai is the world's first interactive cloud platform that provides its partners with the ability to deliver state-of-the-art video game and software application experiences instantly to any Internet-connected device. Gaikai's offers its global cloud streaming network as a fully managed service and is live in 88 countries with top-tier partners. Gaikai's robust service layer is specifically designed to allow Gaikai's partners to grow their online and offline revenues by improving customer acquisition while extending their reach to new channels previously unavailable using physical media. Headquartered in Southern California, Gaikai is backed by Benchmark Capital, NEA, Rustic Canyon Partners, Limelight Networks and Intel Capital.
Gaikai (Corporate Website)
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High-rolling e-commerce site Moda Operandi continues its hiring spree this week by tapping Ashley Bryan as its new chief marketing officer, effective immediately. Bryan was formerly the head of U.S. marketing and sales for Net-a-Porter, so she\'s well-experienced with international luxury web retail. She\'s also the sister of Lucky fashion editor Alexis Bryan Morgan and daughter of Anna Wintour\'s longtime boyfriend, communications executive Shelby Bryan. According to a press release from Moda Operandi, Bryan will report directly to the company\'s CEO, Aslaug Magnusdottir.
Moda Operandi (Corporate Website)
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Lee Clancy joined Trulia in November 2011 to lead consumer products, platform and mobile for the company. Lee Clancy was most recently the SVP of Product Management and General Manager of Direct Revenue for IMVU, an online community whose members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create, and play with their friends. IMVU has reached 50 million registered users, 10 million monthly unique visitors and a $40 million revenue run rate.
Lee was previously at Yahoo!, where he was Senior Director for Community Products. At Yahoo!, Lee also led product management for Yahoo! Groups, a global community of 110 million users, and Yahoo! Personals, the most visited destination in the dating market. Prior to Yahoo!, Lee co-founded a music-focused social networking startup. Lee also worked at Broadband Office in business development and at PricewaterhouseCoopers in strategy consulting advising entertainment and media clients. Lee earned a B.A. in Spanish Literature from Amherst College, an M.B.A. from Cornell University, and an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
About Trulia, Inc.
Trulia gives home buyers, sellers, owners and renters the inside scoop on properties, places and real estate professionals. Trulia has unique info on the areas people want to live that can't be found anywhere else: users can learn about agents, neighborhoods, schools, crime and even ask the local community questions. Real estate professionals use Trulia to connect with millions of transaction-ready buyers and sellers each month via our hyper local advertising services, social recommendations and top-rated mobile apps. Trulia is headquartered in downtown San Francisco and is backed by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, Inc.
Trulia (Corporate Website)
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- As it continues to round out its management team and key executive staff, Tapjoy, Inc. (www.tapjoy.com), a leading independent mobile advertising network, announced today the addition of Jim Jones as Vice President and General Manager of Sales. Jones joins other recent hires including Chief Marketing Officer Peter Dille, Chief Financial Officer Al Wood, and Vice President and General Manager, Asia-Pacific, Larry Berkin. With more than 20 years of sales and business development experience in the media, technology and mobile arenas, Jones brings to Tapjoy strong connections within the advertising and agency world and an exceptional reputation for driving strategic, high-value partnerships. Jones will be responsible for running advertising and ad operations for Tapjoy, enabling brands to leverage Tapjoy's innovative mobile advertising solutions to reach their target audience and create meaningful mobile experiences. "Tapjoy has an excellent reputation as a pioneer in mobile advertising, and the company is uniquely positioned to provide brand advertisers with the ad products and solutions they need to capitalize on the growing mobile tsunami," said Jones. "I am thrilled to be joining such an innovative and high energy team, and I look forward to contributing to our success in this fast-moving market." Jones joins Tapjoy having served most recently as America's Regional Vice President at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for managing and growing revenue with the Top 100 Global Ad Age accounts. Jones developed and initiated the global representation model for Yahoo! and helped scale the business unit's revenue from $200 Million to $350 Million. "Tapjoy is quickly becoming known as the go-to source to help brands connect with the vast and highly engaged mobile audience worldwide, and as we continue to build out our ad sales team and create lasting relationships with brands and their agencies, Jim is the perfect person to oversee our growth," said Mihir Shah, President and CEO of Tapjoy. "Jim's extensive industry connections and his previous success managing large teams will serve us well as we continue to help leading brands succeed in the evolving world of mobile advertising." Prior to Yahoo!, Jones was the Regional Vice President of West Coast Sales for CNET Networks, a leading source of technology and consumer electronics news and information. At CNET Networks, Jones led the West Coast Sales and Account Management team and helped develop, train and mentor a team of 45 people. He also served as the Southwest Region Sales Director for Ziff-Davis Publishing, where he was responsible for top tier accounts such as Toshiba, Gateway, Intuit and other leading technology brands.
About Tapjoy Tapjoy is the success engine for mobile application distribution, engagement and revenue. The company's turnkey in-app advertising platform helps developers acquire cost-effective, high-value new users, drive engagement within their applications, and create incremental income by providing an ad-funded payment method. The Tapjoy ad marketplace spans over 10,000 applications and 280 million global consumers on iOS, Android and emerging mobile platforms. Tapjoy is backed by top-tier investors including J.P.Morgan Asset Management, Rho Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, InterWest Partners and D.E. Shaw Ventures. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company also has offices in New York, London and Tokyo.
Tapjoy (Corporate Website)
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VIP Art Fair, an online marketplace for art, has hired Lisa Kennedy as CEO. She comes from Amazon.com Inc. subsidiary company Quidsi Inc., where she had been executive vice president of e-commerce. Quidsi is parent to such online retailers as Diapers.com, No. 72 in the Top 500 Guide, and Soap.com. VIP Art Fair says that Kennedy, who had worked at Quidsi since 2007, helped increase its revenue tenfold before the company’s acquisition by Amazon nearly a year ago. VIP Art Fair launched in January 2011 and says it helps consumers connect with galleries to find and buy art. As CEO of the marketplace, Kennedy was hired by Carol Bell, Partner at Daversa Partners Executive Search.
“VIP Art Fair is poised for growth and I am excited to be part of it,” Kennedy says. “VIP Art Fair is a proven platform for galleries to interact with their clients in the digital space. I look forward to combining my passion for innovation with my experience building consumer-driven companies to grow VIP into a robust international brand.”
VIP Art Fair (Corporate Website)
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Sean Aggarwal comes to Trulia with 20 years of experience including 10 years with leading Internet companies. Most recently, as VP of Finance at PayPal, he oversaw a quickly growing mobile business. He also served as Chief Accounting Officer and led the organization through periods of extraordinary top-line growth and expansion into international markets. Sean's other experience includes serving as CFO at eBay US category division and as head of finance for Amazon North America, where he was part of the management team that grew the business to over $4 billion in annual revenue. Sean started his career as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch where he helped raise over $500 million in equity and debt financing for Fortune 500 clients. During his downtime, Sean enjoys hiking, golf and tennis with his two sons and likes to discover new restaurants with his wife. Sean holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management.
About Trulia, Inc. Trulia gives home buyers, sellers, owners and renters the inside scoop on properties, places and real estate professionals. Trulia has unique info on the areas people want to live that can't be found anywhere else: users can learn about agents, neighborhoods, schools, crime and even ask the local community questions. Real estate professionals use Trulia to connect with millions of transaction-ready buyers and sellers each month via our hyper local advertising services, social recommendations and top-rated mobile apps. Trulia is headquartered in downtown San Francisco and is backed by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, Inc.
Trulia (Corporate Website)
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Callaway Digital Arts, backed by Kleiner Perkins' iFund, names Rex Ishibashi as its chief executive officer. Rex's entrepreneurial career reflects his passion for media, entertainment, and technology. Rex has held various roles at Electronic Arts during two tenures at the company, including leading Business & Corporate Development and co-founding EA.com in the late-90s, and as President of EA Japan. Rex was most recently CEO of Ohai, a next-gen social games company founded out of Sony Online Entertainment and EA. Rex was also part of the early executive teams atWIRED (acquired by CondeNast), Kontiki (acquired by VeriSign), Motricity Mobile (IPO in 2010), and the founder of Originator Media. Rex has advised a number of ventures including Elevation Partners, SecondLife, Chow/Chowhound (acquired by CBS Interactive), Matrix Memory (acquired by SanDisk), Blurb, and MOG.
Callaway Digital Arts, Inc. (CDA) publishes innovative mobile and tablet applications for children and families. Funded inAugust 2010 with an investment from Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, CDA creates meaningful digital experiences that transform the way families connect with media and with each other. With a grant from the Department of Education, CDA is reinventing learning by creating a series of game-based mobile applications that builds reading and math skills for children ages two through eight. All but one of CDA's apps have reached the number one position in the Books or Lifestyle categories in the Apple App Store. In addition, CDA apps have been featured as App of the Week and among Apple's Best Interactive Story Apps of 2010.
Callaway Digital Arts (Corporate Website)
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Redwood City, CA – October 4, 2011 – Truaxis, the leading provider of data-driven personalized services like the innovative financial technology StatementRewards and the popular money-saving search engine BillShrink.com, announces today the appointment of Jen Millard as Chief Revenue Officer.Millard comes to Truaxis as a recognized retail industry expert on consumer and channel segmentation, specializing in the convergence of technology and retail innovation that improves operations and customer experience. In her new role, Millard will be responsible for leading the sales effort with national and local merchants and complementing the success that Casey Newton and his team have accomplished introducing the StatementRewards platform to the financial services market.“Retailers today need ways to identify and reward existing customers, as well as attract new ones,” said Jen Millard, Truaxis CRO. “A product like StatementRewards can give any retailer access to real purchase information, allowing them to radically improve the customer-retailer relationship. It’s an innovative new platform that allows all retailers to create a more personal and relevant customer relationship.”“This is an exciting time of growth for Truaxis. This past month our StatementRewards platform rolled out to more than 2,500 banks and 8 million customers across the country and the announcement of our new Purchase Insights additions to StatementRewards was very well received by the financial industry,” said Schwark Satyavolu, co-founder and CEO of Truaxis. “We are committed to building a platform that drives tremendous value to the retailers and FIs on the platform. Adding Jen to the team strengthens our retail expertise and is critical to delivering on our commitment to build the most effective customer development platform for retailers. We also gain a strategic thought leader in the retail space that can help with the massive growth and expansion in store for the coming year.”Millard has more than 20 years of experience as a retail operations executive. She has an extensive background that extends into working with brick-and-mortar retailers, e-commerce, vending and automated retail channels, and pop-up environments in both strategy and execution. Millard was the founder and managing partner of Retail Growth Partners LLC, a retail consulting practice focused on helping retailers and brands create long-term relationships with customers. Her practice centered upon innovations and technologies that improve the customer experience. Prior to RGP, Millard was the Executive Vice President of New Business Development for ZoomSystems, an automated retail start-up in San Francisco. Key clients included innovation projects for traditional brick-and-mortar clients such as Macy’s, Best Buy, Metro Ag, as well as distinguished brands in luxury, personal care and specialty apparel. Prior to ZoomSystems, Millard held executive positions at Bed Bath & Beyond, Brown Shoe Group, Sears, Saks Inc. and was a Director at McMillan Doolittle LLP, a boutique retail firm in Chicago. She serves on multiple retail and consumer products Board of Directors and holds a seat on the Board of Governors to the University of North Texas Retail Merchandising School. She is a member of the National Retail Federation, International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), Airport Council international (ACI), and was recognized by Chain Store Age as a ”Rising Star – Top 40 under 40” in 2007.
Truaxis (Corporate Website)
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San Francisco, Calif. – adBrite® (www.adbrite.com), the largest independent ad exchange, today announced that digital ad sales veteran Rick Cotton has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Rick has nearly two decades of experience driving advertising sales with premium media brands such as Monster, CBS and Lycos. His focus at adBrite will be to drive the adoption of Real-Time Pricing™ (RTP), a publisher solution that automatically optimizes the floor price for every page view on a publisher property on the web.
A seasoned Internet executive, Rick comes with a proven track record in general management, sales, business development, and online marketing. At Monster, he led consumer advertising sales while simultaneously serving as general manager for Fastweb.com, a division providing online services to help students pay for college. Other channels under his sales management umbrella included Military.com, Monster Communities and Education.org. Prior to Monster, he was the general sales manager for CBS Radio.
“Rick has the experience of driving the digital ad sales strategy at one of the most recognized brands on the Internet. By adding him to our team, we have bolstered adBrite’s position as the top independent ad exchange in the market.,” said Iggy Fanlo, CEO of adBrite. “Rick will play a key role in bringing adBrite’s RTP technology to the market to unlock true audience value and drive publisher monetization levels to new heights.”
For the past few years, the online advertising segment has grown through new technology and innovation for marketers and ad buyers. This has left publishers with a void where they are now relying on a new wave ofmonetization technology to lift revenue and yield. Rick is joining adBrite as it completes the development of RTP technology.
“adBrite understands the pain points of publishers and is rolling out high impact tools to meet their needs. Coming from an ad sales and publisher mindset, I am excited about adBrite’s technology as it far exceeds what others are developing,” said Rick Cotton, CRO. “The potential for RTP is immense and it is poised to cause disruption in how online advertising is bought and sold. I am eager to leverage my experience with the adBrite team as we roll out RTP to the market.”
adBrite’s advanced algorithms drive its Real-Time Pricing solution, which empowers publishers to calculate optimal floor prices usingrich data sets from a variety of categories, such as advertiser type, audience segment, geo- and demographic information, time-of-day and more. Real-Time Pricing will be available for wide adoption this year.
adBrite (Corporate Website)
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Loic Vienne has been announced as the new Vice President of Enterprise Systems for Weight Watchers. He has proven experience in delivering transformation programs and achieving business & IT strategies. Prior Loic has had 12 years of experience working for Global Fortune 500 companies, as well as “big-5” consulting firms. Carol Bell, Partner at Daversa Partners commented on his new role, “Loic has a unique combination of client and technical skills that he will contribute to this global role. He is an articulate technical spokesman who understands and relates to the business pressures and how technology can increase efficiency and support global business functions.”
Weight Watchers (Corporate Website)
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REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—Sep 8, 2011—oDesk, the largest and fastest-growing online employment platform, announced today that Jaleh Bisharat has joined the company as vice president of marketing. Bisharat, an internet marketing veteran, will spearhead marketing strategy and operations. She will also oversee product and brand marketing, communications, customer insight, lead generation and acquisition.
“Jaleh will help us take oDesk to the next level as the world leader in online employment,” said oDesk CEO Gary Swart. “Her broad range of experience fits perfectly with oDesk’s strategic marketing goals. With Jaleh on board, we will increase global awareness of online talent as a mainstream workforce solution.”
Bisharat brings more than twenty years of technology marketing experience to oDesk. She has been a marketing executive at six leading Internet companies, including OpenTable and Amazon.com. She is known for taking companies from their early stages and growing them to recognizable brands. Bisharat has received awards for her work, including an Advertising Age Marketing 100 Award. She has also been named a Power 50 Marketing Executive by Advertising Age. Bisharat earned her AB from Harvard and her MBA from Harvard Business School.
“oDesk’s explosive growth reflects a groundbreaking shift in the marketplace,” said Bisharat. “Online work removes geography as a barrier to opportunity. It gives businesses access to the very best talent anywhere, while empowering professionals with fulfilling and flexible employment. I’m excited to help oDesk pioneer this expansive way of doing business, and to uncover new avenues to fuel the company’s growth.”
oDesk has been growing aggressively since launching its online work marketplace and proprietary oDesk Team software in 2005, and consistently reports the business nearly doubling in size every year for the past five years. With more than 100,000 new job opportunities and over $20 million earned by contractors during August 2011 alone, oDesk is continuing its mission to change how the world works.
oDesk (Corporate Website)
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SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Big Fish Games, Inc. today announced that it has appointed David Stephenson as chief financial officer, following more than 20 years of senior financial and operational leadership at Amazon.com and Procter & Gamble.
“Dave’s experience, values and performance orientation make him an excellent cultural fit for Big Fish”Dave’s responsibilities at Big Fish include oversight of worldwide strategic and business planning and finance operations. “Dave’s experience, values and performance orientation make him an excellent cultural fit for Big Fish,” said Jeremy Lewis, Big Fish chief executive officer and president. “His demonstrated track record of leading operational finance teams focused on large and complex consumer markets aligns incredibly well with our business and our plans for extending our operations, brand and product offerings across multiple platforms and geographies.”
Dave joins Big Fish after eleven years at Amazon.com, most recently as vice president of finance for the company’s $15 billion North American Retail division, encompassing physical and digital merchandise, and financial oversight of subsidiaries including diapers.com and MyHabit.com. Earlier positions included vice president of finance for the Merchant Services division and finance director for Amazon Web Services. In addition to the core controllership responsibilities for these businesses, Dave played significant roles in the Mom and Student Prime subscription programs, launching the Marketplace business in China, and leading the pricing analysis for Amazon Web Services. Prior to Amazon, Dave spent nine years with Procter & Gamble, where he focused on global strategic planning and new business development within multiple P&G business lines.
“Big Fish has kept a low profile,” said Dave Stephenson, “and when I came to know the team and the business I was incredibly impressed, particularly with their culture and talent base, their obsessive focus on developers and customers, and their data-driven decision making and operational rigor. Big Fish is a great brand with terrific opportunities ahead and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”
Big Fish Games (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces the placement of Jonathan Shapiro as CEO of PetcareRX. Before joining PetcareRX, Shapiro was CEO of MediaWhiz where he was responsible for guiding MediaWhiz's strategy and operational execution, including overseeing the integration of the company's suite of marketing services, leading the development of new and unique capabilities, and ensuring the organization can deliver better results for its performance marketing clients. Before joining MediaWhiz, Jonathan was President of Lillian Vernon Corp., where he was responsible for the management of the company and its subsidiaries. Lillian Vernon was sold to a group of investors in July of 2006. Previously, Jonathan was the Chief Strategy Officer of DoubleClick, where he was in charge of setting strategy and overseeing M&A. He began his tenure at DoubleClick as Vice President responsible for the company's Internet Advertising Network before being appointed Senior Vice President of the company's Abacus online division, where he created DoubleClick's data strategy and oversaw development of new online targeting products and services. Additionally, Jonathan was the executive responsible for developing United Media's original web businesses (The Dilbert Zone, Snoopy.com and Comics.com), and was a senior consultant with McKinsey & Co.
Based in Lynbrook, NY, PetCareRx.com is a leading national pet pharmacy that provides prescription and non-prescription pet medications, health and nutritional supplements and accessories directly to the pet owner at significant savings. In addition to cost savings, the Company also offers the pet owner the convenience of ordering online or by telephone and delivers the product to the customer’s home.
PetcareRX (Corporate Website)
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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Grockit, a social learning company, today announced the hiring of Chris Henley, vice president of engineering, to lead the company’s engineering efforts and scale technology development as Grockit continues to grow and increase its product offerings. Chris will focus on product development across new platforms and new geographies. He will also work with partners to launch new co-branded products.
“We’re thrilled to have Chris on board,” says Roy Gilbert, Grockit CEO. “He is a gifted leader, skilled technologist, and his background in building social products that engage millions of users is a perfect fit for Grockit.”
Chris was most recently the VP of engineering at Roost where he led engineering and helped shape product operations. Prior to Roost, Chris served as the founding director of engineering and executive producer at Social Gaming Network, an early pioneer in social gaming. He helped grow the company from three people to more than one hundred in just over a year, while overseeing the technology and operations behind SGN’s Facebook and iPhone games that had a combined reach of over 50 million users.
Grockit (Corporate Website)
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Bonobos, a web-only premium clothing brand for men, just announced the hiring of Michael Hart, Netflix’s former Director of Engineering for social systems, as CTO. Hart says he wanted to “lead an earlier stage company” and was excited to apply what he learned at Netflix in terms of personalization and social networking.
Hart received a BS in Business Administration from Bowling Green State University and worked as a Product Unit Manager at Microsoft. He launched Netflix’s social integration and Netflix API during his time at that company.
Bonobos (Corporate Website)
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BOSTON, Sept. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Gazelle (www.gazelle.com), the nation's leading consumer electronics reCommerce™ service, today announced that Sarah Welch has been named its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Sarah joins Gazelle as its first CMO and will be immediately responsible for the company's overall marketing strategy and award-winning product and Customer experience. In her role, Sarah will lead Gazelle's fast-growing marketing team, and bring leadership to the expansion of tactics, including advertising, online marketing, and communications. Sarah will report directly to co-founder and CEO, Israel Ganot.
Sarah joins Gazelle with more than 15 years of marketing experience. Sarah joins Gazelle from TripAdvisor, the world's most visited travel website, where she held senior roles including Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of the TripAdvisor Media Group. Before TripAdvisor, Sarah worked at an array of well-established companies including BabyCenter, the leading online resource for new and expectant parents, and eBay. Sarah earned her Bachelor's from Brown University and her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
"Sarah's experience and approach make her a great fit for Gazelle's business and culture," said Israel Ganot, Co-Founder and CEO of Gazelle. "As CMO, Sarah will round out our executive team, and I'm confident that with her mix of experience and deep background in both marketing and product she will help us bring reCommerce to the masses."
"Gazelle is the perfect match for my experience and interests," said Sarah Welch. "Gazelle's mission to redefine the consumption of electronics, the company's massive global opportunity for its business and the company's commitment to being a leading workplace all combined to make it an irresistible opportunity.
"This announcement comes on the heels of Gazelle's recently announced series D financing of $22M, led by Craton Equity Partners. Gazelle, founded in 2006, has inspired more than 200,000 Customers to change their consumption habits and trade-in more than 600,000 used electronics to be reused or responsibly recycled.
Gazelle (Corporate Website)
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As CRO, Steve Rowe will help with further monetization of MyCityWay’s products and technology. We are very excited about our plans to aggressively grow revenue through tailored integration of global brands, platform licensing, mobile commerce, content distribution partnerships, and custom-built marketing programs. Steve will use his experience to help MyCityWay partner with both global brands and local advertisers to facilitate connecting them with a valuable, engaged mobile audience, including location-based capabilities, and high precision consumer targeting.
MyCityWay (Corporate Website)
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New York, NY—Carol Bell, Partner at Daversa Partners has placed the new Vice President of Engineering for Vook, Rob Guttman. Prior to joining Vook, Rob was CTO at Juju, which experienced 10X traffic growth under his leadership. As Vice President of Engineering at Daylife, an online news aggregation and publishing platform, Rob led a team that shipped four products, powering over seventy news and media publisher sites. At the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Rob led a worldwide R&D initiative arming IBM’s business consultants with modeling tools and methods. Rob co-founded Frictionless Commerce, a consumer online comparison shopping platform, based on software agent technologies he invented at MIT’s Media Laboratory — earning him a 2002 MIT Technology Review Top 100 Young Innovators Award (TR100). Prior to MIT, he developed natural language processing software at Motorola and participated in U.S. Army war games to demonstrate and harden Motorola’s battlefield intelligence technologies.
Rob received a MS in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT in and a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Vook (Corporate Website)
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PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Jul 25, 2011) - ShareThis Founder Tim Schigel today announced the appointment of Kurt Abrahamson as the company\'s new Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. ShareThis is the world\'s largest sharing marketplace, built for advertisers and publishers to tap into the economic value of sharing and influence across the Web. Abrahamson will be charged with scaling the ShareThis platform to become an industry standard by driving new economic value for the entire online economy of publishers, consumers and advertisers. Schigel will remain Chairman of the Board and will continue to participate in the daily operations of the business, working closely with Abrahamson as ShareThis enters this new phase of growth. \"We chose Kurt not only because of his incredible reputation and stellar track record in growing companies in this space, but because he has the vision and experience to lead ShareThis as it transforms the economics of online advertising across the Web,\" said Schigel, ShareThis founder. \"He brings both operational expertise and market vision that will be critical as we enter this pivotal stage in the company\'s growth.\" Abrahamson most recently served as CEO of SocialMedia.com, a leader in online display advertising, which was recently acquired by LivingSocial. Abrahamson came to SocialMedia.com from Google, where he first served as Director of the Content Media Group. In this position, he helped lead the global launch of Google AdSense, managed the direct sales channel for publishers, and secured long-term deals with five of the top 10 Web properties. Abrahamson also served as the Director of Global Sales & Operations Strategy and as Director of Sales Operations for North America. Prior to working at Google, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Jupiter Communications and as President of Jupiter Media Metrix, where he helped build their business from a small 12-person group to 520 employees worldwide, establishing Jupiter as one of the leading Internet research organizations. \"Sharing is the Web\'s most explicit indicator of consumer influence and economic value of online content,\" said Abrahamson, CEO. \"Yet brands and publishers are still searching for a way to understand and realize the potential of sharing in driving value for the entire economy of publishers, advertisers and consumers. ShareThis is arguably the only company in the world with the scale, depth and vision to transform the industry by taking advantage of this fundamental human behavior and delivering on the value of sharing. I couldn\'t be more excited at the opportunity to shape the strategic vision and execution of its next phase of growth.\"
ShareThis is the largest market for sharing and influence across the web, reaching more than 400 million users across nearly 1 million sites. ShareThis makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more impactful for brands by tapping into its true influence and value. Based in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York and Cincinnati, the company is privately held with funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Blue Chip Venture Company, DFJ Mercury, Illinois Ventures, Matthew Pritzker Company, Queen City Angels and RPM Ventures and Reservoir Partners.
ShareThis (Corporate Website)
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PALO ALTO, Calif., June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- shopkick, the largest location-based shopping app, today announced Doug Galen has joined its C-Suite as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead the expanding network of retail partnerships and revenue growth. Galen brings more than 20 years of experience in building successful alliances to support corporate planning and strategy, most recently as Senior Vice President, Business and Corporate Development at Shutterfly where he was part of the core leadership team that took the company public and grew the business from 100 to 1,000 people and from $50 million in revenue to close to $500 million.
\"We have grown at an incredible rate, quickly building the only retailer coalition rewards program in America, with 10 nationwide strategic retail partners and 1.8M users. Now it\'s time to scale this retailer coalition to the next level, both in terms of the number of partner retailers and the revenue generated for our partners. Doug is the answer,\" said Cyriac Roeding, co-founder and CEO of shopkick. \"I believe whole-heartedly in building the best team in the business, and Doug is it for the role we need at this stage in our explosive growth: he\'s grown companies by 10x in both team size and revenue. We look forward to him doing the same here.\"
\"shopkick is a breakthrough company that presents the rare opportunity and challenge to change entire industries using new technologies, while unlocking massive value for both consumers and retailers at the same time. I see no other mobile player in the retail world that has the trajectory and power of shopkick,\" said Doug Galen, incoming Chief Revenue Officer of shopkick. \"The caliber of existing retail and brand partners, the team, and shopkick\'s rate of expansion are matchless. I want to come in, help accelerate the pace further, and have a key role in this retail revolution.\"Galen joins shopkick from a high-profile role at Shutterfly where, as the Senior Vice President of Business & Corporate Development, he managed high growth initiatives, created over 50 partnerships, and led mergers and acquisitions, including the most recent acquisition of TinyPrints for $333M. Other prior roles include President of Fourth Fleet Financial, where he oversaw strategic corporate development; and Vice President & General Manager of New Ventures for eBay, where he was responsible for building and launching eight emerging business units including Tickets & Experiences and Real Estate.
Before eBay, Galen was Vice President of Sales and Business Development for E-LOAN where, as its third employee, he helped grow the company to $150 million in revenue resulting in a successful IPO. During his tenure at E-LOAN, Galen also developed more than 70 corporate alliances, joint ventures and acquisitions.
Galen is on the Board of Directors for the Positive Coaching Alliance and an Advisor for Prosper, Abe\'s Market, Adchemy, Glam Media, Centrro, Stub Hub and the New Paradigm Broadcast Network. He earned his MBA in Real Estate & Finance and BA in Economics from University of California, Berkeley.
About shopkick, Inc. shopkick, Inc. is a Palo Alto-based startup funded by Kleiner Perkins' iFund, Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook and Zynga. In August 2010, shopkick launched the first mobile application that hands consumers high-value rewards, offers and exclusive deals at shopkick’s national retail partners simply for walking into stores and malls. Even more rewards can be earned for scanning partner brand products at over 250,000 stores nationwide. In combination with a groundbreaking new location technology called “shopkick Signal”, the app can verify location within feet, and because the detection occurs on the phone, privacy of presence information is completely in the users’ control. Shopkick’s growing partner alliance includes American Eagle Outfitters, Best Buy, Crate and Barrel, ExxonMobil, Macy’s, Old Navy, Simon Property Group, The Sports Authority, Target, Toys“R”Us, west elm, The Wet Seal, Visa, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Intel, HP and more. shopkick is the only 100% performance-based marketing platform in the physical retail world, with measurable foot traffic and transactions at stores. The app grew to 3 million users in its first 18 months. The free shopkick app is available for the iPhone and Android.
shopkick (Corporate Website)
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Chicago, IL—Vibes Media, the industry leader in mobile marketing, today announced that John Haro has joined its executive team as Chief Technology Officer. Haro will be responsible for leading the IT and engineering teams focused on scaling and driving innovation around mobile marketing optimization and personalization.
Haro has a proven track record of success that he will bring to Vibes as they scale the team and its platform through extreme growth. Most recently, Haro was the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at iCrossing. Prior to iCrossing, he was Vice President of Technology at Agency.com. Haro holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University.
Vibes Media (Corporate Website)
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Long Island City, NY—Tabula Digita, an industry leader out to revolutionize K-12 education through its suite of educational video games, today announced that Ralph Seaman has joined its management team as Vice President of Technology. Seaman will be responsible for growing, leading, and managing the team that develops the social experience for the fastest-growing educational gaming company in the United States. He will also be responsible for outlining the strategic direction for technology infrastructure at the company. Seaman adds a breadth of experience and success to the executive team, most recently having held the position of Vice President of Technology at TheStreet.com. Prior to this, Seaman held director-level positions in technology at MTV Network and Agency.com. Seaman attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Dimension U (Corporate Website)
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Long Island City, NY—Carol Bell, Partner at Daversa Partners has placed Michael Henson at Songza as their Chief Technology Officer. Michael brings an incredible user-centric skill set to Songza. He has established himself as a powerful technologist within the advertising and marketing space. Prior with Songza, Michael was with 24/7 Real Media as a technology manager. Prior, he was Director of Engineering at Did-It Search Marketing. Michael holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from RPI.
Songza (Corporate Website)
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Dan Sormaz recently joined Boxee as their Head of Design. Boxee is the creator of the Boxee Box and is a partially open-source freeware media player software platform that integrates personal locally stored media with Internet streaming media along with social networking features. Boxee’s social networking component allows users to share information about what they are watching or listening to with other Boxee users or friends on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. In this new role, Sormaz will be responsible for designing the features of the Boxee software from user interface to user experience. Sormaz has an extensive background in creative space, having led the development of The Daily for News Corp and being the Art Director for GameDaily, a multimillion dollar company online media company that was acquired by AOL.
Boxee (Corporate Website)
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NEW YORK -- AdSafe Media, (www.adsafemedia.com), the rating standard for online media today appointed Scott Knoll as its new Chief Executive Officer. Knoll takes over management of the privately owned company during a time of rapid growth.
Knoll brings a solid combination of management experience, media sales, and technological savvy with a history of innovation to AdSafe Media.
AdSafe's co-founder Helene Monat, said, "AdSafe is at an important cross-road in its evolution and Scott joins at an exciting time to spearhead its next stage of rapid growth and expansion, especially into new products and digital platforms."
"AdSafe Media has a tremendous opportunity to innovate with technology that offers a unique and scalable approach to more effective advertising. It's an exciting time to join the company and help capitalize on the growth opportunities that exist," said Knoll.
"AdSafe is a company with tremendously knowledgeable and committed employees, with a unique culture and with many strong and exciting brands, agency, network and publisher partners. I am looking forward to helping AdSafe accelerate the recent trend of top brands choosing AdSafe's superior technology and solidifying AdSafe Media's position as the rating and verification standard in the online advertising industry," Knoll added.
Mr. Knoll most recently served as Founder and President of Aperture, a Datran Media company that provides audience targeting and measurement technology to blue chip brands, agencies and online publishers. Prior to joining Datran Media, Knoll, was CEO of BlackFoot, a digital advertising solutions company. He also spent 6 years as a senior executive at DoubleClick, directing the launch and development of the DoubleClick ad network in nine countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea.
Mr. Knoll also served as Managing Director of DoubleClick Asia Pacific and Vice President and General Manager of Global Marketer Solutions. Previously he co-founded and served as COO of Verified Person, and has held management roles at Time Warner Inc. and Andersen Consulting. Mr. Knoll holds an MBA degree from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University.
AdSafe Media (Corporate Website)
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Arnaud Collin joins Offermatic from eBay, where he was most recently Director of Marketing Strategy and Customer Lifetime Value. Arnaud’s eBay career spans over six years driving customer acquisition, user experience, segmentation, loyalty and product marketing for eBay’s Marketplace as well as eBay Belgium and eBay Australia. Before becoming one of eBay’s key marketing leaders, Arnaud was Director of Website Sales and Marketing for ViaMichelin, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Michelin Group that develops and markets digital travel assistance products and services for road users in Europe. Arnaud has also worked in management consulting for The Boston Consulting Group as well as product marketing and sales for L’Oréal and Unilever.
Offermatic (Corporate Website)
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Debra Chrapaty, senior vice president of Cisco's collaboration software group, was on Thursday named chief information officer at Zynga, a fast-rising San Francisco startup best known for games like FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars that appear on social networking sites such as Facebook and as mobile device applications.
According to a statement sent to CRN by Zynga representatives, Chrapaty will report to Zynga CTO Cadir Lee, and will "play a key role in ensuring Zynga's tools and infrastructure are a key strategic advantage, enhancing Zynga's internal collaboration, and enhancing external tools that touch our players."
"Through its focus on leading technology, Zynga is redefining how we look at play," said Chrapaty in the statement. "My job will be to make it easier for our employees to design and build for play. I am looking forward to tackling Zynga's unique technology challenges and helping develop infrastructure systems to ensure that we have the most scalable, secure and reliable systems in place."
Lee described Chrapaty as a "technology visionary."
"Her experience with both rapidly growing companies as well as running some of the largest networks in the world will prove invaluable as Zynga continues to grow and develop games that delight our millions of players," Lee said.
Chrapaty joined Cisco in September 2009 following six years as a corporate vice president at Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT). At Cisco, she replaced Doug Dennerline in the top post of Cisco's collaboration group. She has also held executive roles with Organic, AllBusiness and ETrade technologies, and was also chief technology officer of the National Basketball Association.
Chrapaty's role in the collaboration group meant she oversaw some of Cisco's key UC and collaboration products, including the WebEx platform. Her group was also at the center of a recent Cisco misfire:the discontinuation of Cisco Mail, a hosted e-mail product first unveiled in late 2009 and which is said to have cost Cisco nearly $250 million in development.
"The product has been well-recieved, but we've since learned that customers have come to view their e-mail as a mature and commoditized tool versus a long-term differentiated element of their collaboration strategy," Chrapaty wrote in a blog post at the time.
Chrapaty's exit is the latest in a recent string of executive departures from Cisco. Among the big names that have left or announced their departure in the past six months are Tony Bates, now CEO of Skype, Susan Bostrom, Cisco's chief marketing officer, and, in the channel-facing executive team, Luanne Tierney, now at Cisco nemesis Juniper.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Mazen Rawashdeh has accepted the role of Vice President of Platform and Operations at Twitter. Prior to joining Twitter, Rawashdeh was responsible for the Ebay Marketplaces product and prior to that was Senior Director of Infrastructure and Engineering responsible for servers and data center operations. Prior to eBay Rawashdesh had held positions at Oracle, OPSWARE, and LoudCloud.
Twitter (Corporate Website)
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Online learning site Grockit is scaling up its leadership team after raising $7 million last May. Today it is announcing that it is hiring Roy Gilbert as CEO. Gilbert is Google’s director of user operations and policy, in charge of many non-advertising operations. He helped set up Google’s India operations and grew it from 20 people to 1,000, and was the first business manager for Gmail.
Founder Farb Nivi recruited Gilbert, who will also be taking a board seat. Nivi will be president, chief product officer, and chairman. “I kind of look at him as our Eric Schmidt,” says Nivi, who came back getting hit by a minivan last year to keep his startup going and growing.
Gilbert served in the military driving nuclear submarines, and yes, he was a boy scout. But he also comes from a family of teachers, and he and his wife started a school in Hyderabad while he was in India for underprivileged children called the Rainbow Primary School. So he has education chops as well. “I pretty much can’t believe we landed him,” says Nivi.
Nivi also recently hired a chief marketing officer, Chris Strausser, who created the Jamba Juice brand, and previously worked at PepsiCo and Kaplan. Knewton, another online education startup, also recently made a top executive hire. The whole education space is definitely heating up.
Grockit (Corporate Website)
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PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - May 24, 2011) - ShareThis, the world\'s largest market for sharing and influence, today announced that it tops the list of distributed content media networks for the second month in a row with more than 176 million unique visitors, according to April 2011 comScore data. Additionally, ShareThis continued to increase its revenue and strengthen and expand its team with the addition of Barry Grant as the new VP of product, as well as increasing its sales footprint across the country.\"The continued growth of our publisher network and the increasing demand from advertisers reflects the ongoing massive shift on the Web toward sharing. The act of sharing content and encouraging conversation around it is at the center of a whole new era of how people interact online,\" said Tim Schigel, CEO of ShareThis. \"Adding Barry to the team will help us open new doors in our products and offerings that help publishers and advertisers recognize that changing reality and use sharing to drive their businesses.\"Additional Early 2011 ShareThis highlights include:
According to April 2011 comScore data1, ShareThis reaches the fourth largest U.S. audience among advertising focused media properties with more monthly reach than Google, Facebook, AOL and YouTube;·
ShareThis is the largest distributed media content network with more than 176 million unique U.S. visitors, a larger audience than the other networks in comScore\'s top five combined;·
Staff has grown by 50 percent, reaching more than 50 employees this quarter;·
ShareThis continues to expand their sales teams, with the hire of Giorgio Campo, Regional Midwest Director, in Chicago and several recent additions to the New York sales team, rounding out its national coverage for the company;·
Revenue continues to grow each quarter, with 100 percent growth quarter over quarter.
Barry Grant comes to ShareThis from Brightroll where he led the product organization for the last three years, driving the development, launch and evolution of the Brightroll Exchange, their self-service online video advertising marketplace. Prior to his time at Brightroll, Barry spent two years at PayPal where he oversaw several risk management product programs, focusing on improving PayPal\'s consumer initiatives and the eBay buyer experience. Barry will bring his product development experience and expertise to ShareThis where he will play an instrumental role in the development of products to bring more value to advertisers, publishers and consumers.
\"I see tremendous new opportunities in the world of social interactions. Online sharing is not just a distribution channel, it\'s an entire movement that\'s all about enhancing engagement,\" said Barry Grant, new VP of Product at ShareThis. \"I\'m thrilled to be joining ShareThis, a company that sees how important sharing is and uses it to provide valuable products to publishers, advertisers and consumers that help drive the larger Internet economy.\"
ShareThis is the largest market for sharing and influence across the web, reaching more than 400 million users across nearly 1 million sites. ShareThis makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more impactful for brands by tapping into its true influence and value. Based in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York and Cincinnati, the company is privately held with funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Blue Chip Venture Company, DFJ Mercury, Illinois Ventures, Matthew Pritzker Company, Queen City Angels and RPM Ventures and Reservoir Partners.
ShareThis (Corporate Website)
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SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jirbo Inc., a leading social entertainment and media company at the forefront of iPhone development since 2007 and backed by Insight Venture Partners, announced today that marketing and interactive entertainment veteran Will Kassoy has been named Chief Executive Officer.
“As the mobile and social games markets continue to explode, I’m eager to jump in and take on this new challenge”In this role, Kassoy will oversee Jirbo, Inc's operational management including their app gaming division, Jirbo, which has over 32 million downloads including 48 titles breaking in to the top 1% of Apple’s All Time Most Popular list. His responsibilities also include overseeing the recently-launched premium advertising network called AdColony. AdColony delivers high definition video ads to millions of app consumers, including the industry’s first Video-for-Virtual-Currency SDK, which offers a brand new way for app publishers to monetize social games. He will assume this position from founder, Jonathan Zweig who will become President of Jirbo, Inc.
Kassoy joins Jirbo, Inc. from Activision Blizzard, the world's largest video game publisher, where he served a number of Senior Vice President roles including Strategic Growth and Head of Global Brand Management. In these roles Mr. Kassoy was responsible for leading Activision’s global marketing, media research, marketing communications, business development and setting long term business goals for emerging platforms. During his 13 years with Activision Blizzard, Kassoy was responsible for guiding some of the largest entertainment properties in history including Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, Marvel and Guitar Hero.
"Will brings his extensive experience from Activision Blizzard to the CEO position at Jirbo and will be invaluable in growing both our app development and AdColony business units," said Jonathan Zweig, President of Jirbo Inc. “We’re confident that his skill set is exactly what we need to assume leadership in this thriving new market.”
"As the mobile and social games markets continue to explode, I’m eager to jump in and take on this new challenge,” said Will Kassoy. “AdColony’s innovative premium mobile ad technology will be a tremendous advantage for both advertisers and app publishers and I’m confident we can turn it into the new gold standard for generating revenue in mobile social gaming.”
Jirbo (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Anna Punsal as the new Vice President of Customer Relationship Management for Art.com, the world’s largest selection of art and décor items for homes and businesses. Most recently, Anna served as the Vice President, Customer Relationship Management at eMusic, the world’s largest retailer of independent music and the world’s second-largest digital music service after iTunes. Ms. Punsal focused on effectively building customer engagement through loyalty and retention marketing programs. She joined eMusic with more than 15 years of marketing experience with Fortune 500 companies and Internet start-ups such as EarthLink and Yahoo! where she developed strong expertise in the design and execution of multi-channel retention and loyalty programs that enhance the customer experience and result in higher customer lifetime value. Previous to eMusic, Ms. Punsal served as Director of Customer Retention and Loyalty at EarthLink where she created a customer experience that contributed to PeoplePC becoming the fastest growing dial-up provider and winner of the 2006 J.D. Power and Associates Customer Satisfaction award. At Yahoo!, Punsal drove measurable growth in the awareness and usage of Yahoo! products and services.
Art.com (Corporate Website)
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Beth Birnbaum joins GrubHub after spending 8 years at in product at Expedia. Most recently she was the VP of Connectivity and Product Management responsible for commercial relationships as well as product management for air, car and destination services. With over 13,000 delivery and pickup restaurants, GrubHub helps you find and order food wherever you are. How it works: you type in an address, we tell you the restaurants that deliver to that locale as well as showing you droves of pickup restaurants near you. Want to be more specific? Search by cuisine, restaurant name or menu item. We'll filter your results accordingly. When you find what you're looking for, you can place your order online or by phone, free of charge. Oh, and we also give you access to reviews, coupons, special deals and a 24/7 customer service team that tracks each order and makes sure you get exactly what you want.
GrubHub (Corporate Website)
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John brings 20 years of executive leadership experience with proven ability to develop and scale technology-driven businesses to profitable growth. Most recently, John served as COO/CFO of ServiceMagic where he managed long-term strategy, investment planning, resource allocation, operational efficiencies, and financial performance across all operating divisions. Prior to ServiceMagic, John served as Senior Vice President of AOL Search, Local & MapQuest, building a $700 million global online portfolio and the fastest-growing and most profitable business unit in the company. His responsibilities included management of the Google strategic partnership which generated over $3 Billion during his tenure. His past experience includes developing successful customer strategy and business solutions for leading companies like ExxonMobil, Liberty Global, Harvard Business School Publishing, and HBO.
Kannapell has been a featured industry speaker at interactive media and venture capital, and online marketing conferences. He earned a BS in Business Administration from Washington and Lee University and an MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.
2tor (Corporate Website)
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Jason Willig, a veteran of the video game industry, has been named CEO of Booyah, a Kleiner Perkins’ iFund backed mobile and location-based company. Jason was most recently Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts, where he oversaw operating activities and online initiatives, including Littlest Pet Shop Online, for EA’s Hasbro business unit. Prior to joining Electronic Arts, Willig held senior positions at leading games companies including LucasArts, Vivendi Games & Gas Powered Games as well as founded a boutique online games developer and publisher, Big Top Games. Jason is a member of the International Game Developers Association & the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts.
Booyah, headquartered in San Francisco, is a leading mobile & social games company. Booyah’s mission is to be the category leader in location-based & real-world gaming. The company draws its creativity and inspiration from the mobile, consumer web, social & traditional gaming space with a leadership team drawn from the world’s top interactive companies including Electronic Arts, Blizzard Entertainment, Activision, Ubisoft, LucasArts, Kabam and Insomniac Games. Booyah is financed by Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ iFund.
Booyah (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Meagan Kirkpatrick as the new Director of Public Relations and Social Media for Shutterstock, the largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world. Most recently, Ms. Kirkpatrick held the position of Director of Marketing for Mindspark where she spearheaded brand and market development. Prior to Mindspark, she served as Marketing Director for Brides.com and Brides Local Magazine,a division of Conde Nast Publications. Ms. Kirkpatrick was responsible for brand strategy and public relations and she was also recognized as 2006 “Condé Nast Marketer of the Year” for Brides.com. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media Studies with a Minor in Business from Fordham University.
Shutterstock (Corporate Website)
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Songbird has announced Les Schmidt as CEO. Before joining Songbird, Less was senior vice president and general manager of cross company initiatives at Macromedia. In this role, Schmidt and his team lead efforts focused on optimizing the process of buying, using, and owning a Macromedia product as well as delivering great experiences on mobile devices. Schmidt joined Macromedia in 2003 to lead the redesign of the macromedia.com website to coincide with the launch of the MX 2004 products and introduced the Synchronous Development process to Macromedia. Prior to joining Macromedia, Schmidt held CEO, COO and CFO roles at various technology companies including Quokka Sports, MECON, Inc., The Learning Company and Applied Immune Sciences. His only hiatus from the high-tech world was to serve as chief operating officer for the San Francisco 49ers during the 2001 and 2002 seasons. Schmidt has a degree in political science and economics from Antioch College and a master’s degree in taxation from Golden Gate University. Headquartered in San Francisco, Songbird was founded in 2006 with the vision of delivering a free and open media player for people to find new music, listen to old favorites and experience a deeper connection to the music they love. Today, Songbird is also available on a variety of portable media players and smart phones, so people can enjoy their media on the go. Songbird is built by a group of designers and developers that have previously worked on Winamp, Netscape Navigator, and Mozilla Firefox. Thousands of developers passionate about music, media, and open source platforms have contributed to Songbird by writing code and creating new features that bring the best of the open media web to the newest generation of smart phones and media players.
Songbird (Corporate Website)
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NASHVILLE and CHICAGO– February 1, 2011 – edo Interactive, Inc., a pioneer in digital and mobile advertising, today announced the appointment of Mark Marinacci as Chief Revenue Officer. Marinacci will be responsible for driving edo’s advertising sales strategy.
“Mark is a strong addition to our executive team, and his experience will be instrumental as we move to the next phase of edo’s growth,” said edo CEO Ed Braswell. “His solid track record of advertising sales and his experience building partnerships with national merchants will continue to shape edo’s position as a market leader in digital advertising.”
By leveraging pre-existing global payment and mobile networks, edo’s patent-pending performance marketing platform enables brand advertisers to drive targeted and measurable content and offers to consumers. This new model of digital incentives known as Prewards® motivates desired purchase behavior for brand advertisers and delivers real savings to consumers.
“When I saw the value of edo’s solutions to advertisers I was immediately impressed,” said newly appointed CRO, Mark Marinacci. “During my eight years at Google, I worked closely with top brands to help them understand how data and consumer insight could help them engage end users. I look forward to continuing this at edo and pushing it further, helping marketers bridge the gap between online insight and purchase behavior at POS. I am excited to have brands understand the full value of edo’s advertising solutions including real time analytics for both online and in-store customers and being able to touch customers through multi-channel communication methods. Edo’s marketing platform will revolutionize digital advertising and I am excited to once again be on the forefront of groundbreaking technology.”
Prior to joining edo Interactive, Marinacci was with Google where he was most recently the Head of Retail Industry, working across both client and agency partners to serve Google's largest retail brands. Prior to that he was the Team Manager for Business and Industrial Markets. In this role Marinacci helped Fortune 500 brands understand Google’s platform and apply Google tools to solve communication and marketing challenges. Before joining Google, Mark was with HotJobs, a YahooCompany, where he held various roles in the sales organization.
About edo Interactive, Inc.
edo Interactive is a leader in digital and mobile advertising solutions, leveraging everyday payment networks to connect brands with consumers. edo’s comprehensive marketing platform employs advanced analytics and loyalty solutions to create value for consumers, brand advertisers and financial institutions. For more information, please visit www.edointeractive.com.
edo Interactive (Corporate Website)
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Jim Chou brings to Shutterstock over 20 years of leadership and technology experience in delivering innovative products. Most recently, he served as CTO & SVP for American Greetings Interactive. Jim has held senior technology positions with JP Morgan Chase, Accenture, Citidon, Antenna Software and Apani Networks. Jim is a graduate from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from The State University of New York at Buffalo.
Shutterstock (Corporate Website)
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Online jewelry retailer Ice.com announces the addition of Jason Ordway to the executive team. Ordway leads the technology vision, strategy and execution for Ice.com. Most recently Mr. Ordway served as the CTO of SureSource, LLC where he lead the Development, IT/OPs, Quality Assurance and Project Management teams in support of their direct to consumer ecommerce (including mobile) model for clients such as Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Casio, Hershey’s, and Crayola. Mr. Ordway also served as the CIO of RedRoller Holdings, Inc. where he lead the development and support of a subscription based online shipping application. Mr. Ordway has held senior technology positions in the .com world for both international and domestic companies such as Weightwatchers International, Outpost.com, CNN Financial News and Y&R New York. Ice.com is one of the largest and most respected online jewelry stores and was recently voted a Top 50 Retailer by Internet Retailer. They are backed by Polaris Ventures and Ignition Partners.
Ice.com (Corporate Website)
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Dulles, VA – January 27, 2011 – He will be based in the company's Dulles office reporting to Alex Gounares, AOL's Chief Technology Officer. As part of the global technology leadership team, Manos will support the development of advances in operations and data center technologies for the company.
"Michael brings a wealth of valuable experience and expertise to the team," said Alex Gounares, AOL Chief Technology Officer. "We are thrilled to have this highly sought after candidate on board as we continue to focus on developing best in class platform technologies that enable us to deliver excellent experiences to all of our users."
Michael Manos comes to AOL with over 17 years of experience in data center management, information technology platforms and large scale operations at leading companies around the country. Most recently, he was a vice president at Nokia where he was responsible for the global operations, consolidation and re-structuring of service operations for commercial-facing products and services. Prior to Nokia, Michael was a senior vice president for technical services at Digital Realty Trust where he oversaw the design, engineering, construction, and long term operation for the company's data center operations. He also held leadership positions at Microsoft, Walt Disney and Nuclio Corporation.
"I am excited to join AOL, especially now as the company is refocusing on providing its users with the best possible experience online and that starts with building a world class technology team to support all of the great work begin done by AOL's product teams," said Michael Manos. "Working with the global technology leadership team, I look forward to advancing the technological innovation across the AOL network."
AOL (Corporate Website)
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New York, NY, October 8, 2010 – AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) today announced the appointment of two new executives to its leadership team. Kathy Andreasen will join the company as Chief People Officer, effective October 25, 2010.
\"We are thrilled to welcome Kathy as a member of our senior executive team,\" said Artie Minson, AOL\'s Chief Financial and Administrative Officer.
Kathy Andreasen, who brings more than 15 years\' experience in the field of human resources, will oversee global people strategy, organization and leadership development and compensation and benefits. Andreasen will also be responsible for AOL\'s real estate and facilities management.
Andreasen joins AOL from Orchard Brands, a leading multi-channel marketer of apparel and home products where she was Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer. Prior to Orchard, Andreasen led HR for Bill Me Later, a subsidiary of eBay, and Orbitz Worldwide Inc. In addition, she has held a number of human resources leadership roles at Cendant Corporation as well as leadership roles in human resources and operations at NBCi. A graduate of McGill University, Andreasen also has an Executive MBA from the University of New Mexico.
AOL (Corporate Website)
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Tatum Lade recently joined Boxee as their Vice President of Engineering and R&D. Boxee is the creator of the Boxee Box and is a partially open-source freeware media player software platform that integrates personal locally stored media with Internet streaming media along with social networking features. Boxee’s social networking component allows users to share information about what they are watching or listening to with other Boxee users or friends on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. In this new role, Lade will be responsible for all of the software engineering efforts for the organization. Lade has an extensive background in the online media/content space having been the founder and CTO of HD Cloud and Diversion Media and the Vice President of Technology at iFilm, Corp.
Boxee (Corporate Website)
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CHICAGO, Dec 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Groupon (http://www.groupon.com) is pleased to announce that Jason Child has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer.
Child brings nearly two decades of finance experience to the role. Most recently, he was Vice President of Finance for Amazon.com\'s $14 billion International business. Previously, Jason held key finance leadership roles for Amazon in Germany and Japan, also serving in Investor Relations, Technology, Marketing and as Worldwide Corporate Controller. Prior to Jason\'s nearly 12 years at Amazon, he spent more than seven years at Arthur Andersen where he was a CPA and Consulting Manager.
\"Groupon is one of the most amazing businesses I have ever seen,\" said Child. \"I am thrilled to join a great team that is attacking one of the biggest opportunities in e-commerce today.\" Child received a Bachelor of Arts in finance with an accounting concentration from University of Washington. He and his family have relocated from Seattle to Chicago.
Groupon (Corporate Website)
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Esther Lem joins Chegg.com, an online textbook rental company, as Chief Marketing Officer. Born in Canada, Ms. Lem came to Unilever in 1998 from account management for WPP Group\\\'s Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Toronto, then brand management with the former Warner-Lambert Co. in Canada. Once at Unilever, she began overseeing a wide range of home- and personal-care brands in Canada.
Ms. Lem in 2000 came to the U.S., where she and other Unilever marketing executives have been focused squarely on the young male psyche as they prepare for the company\\\'s biggest personal-care launch of any kind since the 1997 debut of the Thermasilk hair care brand, which topped $100 million in sales in its first year. As vice president for brand development for antiperspirants and deodorants for Unilever in North America from 2002 until June of 2005, Esther lead the large challenge of marketing Axe, Degree, Suave Naturals and Dove products to overtake Procter & Gamble products like Old Spice in the U.S. Ms. Lem then went on to become Vice President North American Hair Care for Unilever, another area where Unilever has struggled in recent years, to lead brand development and to launch the debut of Sunsilk.
Chegg, the academic hub, is transforming the way millions of students learn by connecting them to the people and tools needed to succeed in college through homework help, course selection, eTextbook and textbook options as well as school and scholarship connections. Students nationwide use Chegg 365 days a year to make learning easier, more accessible and more productive. As a part of the company's philanthropic efforts, Chegg is dedicated to its Chegg For Good program, which empowers students to be a catalyst for change on their campus, in their communities and around the world. Since its founding in 2007, Chegg's growth has made it one of Silicon Valley's most successful start-ups. From starting as a textbook rental company to evolving into an academic hub, Chegg is enhancing education for millions of students by saving them time, saving them money and helping them get smarter.
Chegg.com (Corporate Website)
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Kristen Fergason joined ShareThis as Chief Marketing Officer in December of 2010 from Yahoo! where the lead Industry Outreach. She joined Yahoo! through its acquisition of Maven Networks. As the Vice President of Marketing at Maven Networks, Kristen was responsible for all marketing efforts including product marketing, public relations, brand vision, marketing strategy, and market development. Before Maven, she served as the Vice President of Marketing for Major League Baseball Advanced Media for six years leading strategy for marketing operations for CRM, ad serving and email marketing as well as for MLB brands and its other partner properties. Previously she worked for outpost.com
ShareThis is the largest market for sharing and influence across the web, reaching more than 400 million users across nearly 1 million sites. ShareThis makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more impactful for brands by tapping into its true influence and value. Based in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York and Cincinnati, the company is privately held with funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Blue Chip Venture Company, DFJ Mercury, Illinois Ventures, Matthew Pritzker Company, Queen City Angels and RPM Ventures and Reservoir Partners.
ShareThis (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces the placement of Neil Markey as Chief Technology Officer at PlayFirst in San Francisco. He will have report directly to CEO Mari Baker.
Before joining PlayFirst, Market was Vice President of Engineering, at CafePress with responsibility for the customer-facing website and all of the company’s internal systems. Markey joined CafePress from Hewlett-Packard, where he led the Engineering organization for the hpshopping.com website. Markey has a Bachelor's degree from the U.K.'s Staffordshire University.
PlayFirst (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Annette Promes will be joining Big Fish Games as their VP of Marketing. Promes experience encompasses customer-base relationship and lifecycle marketing, email marketing, direct/database Marketing, product development and marketing, and marketing management. As senior direct of worldwide database marketing, Annette is responsible for all aspects of the database marketing channel at Expedia. Prior to this, Annette was in charge of developing and executing Expedia’s customer-centric email marketing program. Annette joined Expedia in 2006 from MSN. She has also lead marketing for Cingular Wireless and various marketing consulting firms in the Seattle area. She holds a MBA from the University of Phoenix.
Big Fish Games (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Randy Schmidt as the new VP of Internet Marketing at Direct Brands, the largest direct-to-consumer distributor of media products in the United States and Canada. Most recently, Mr. Schmidt was Director of CRM with Lord & Taylor where he was responsible for driving strategy and executing on customer relationship management, email and business intelligence initiatives. Prior to Lord & Taylor, he served as a business intelligence lead at May Department Stores. He holds a BS in MIS from Southern Illinois University.
Direct Brands (Corporate Website)
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Redwood City, Calif., (December 8, 2010) — Turn Inc., the industry’s only end-to-end platform for managing data-driven digital advertising, today announced that Tim Mahlman, former Vice President of Network Sales at Yahoo!, has joined Turn as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Mahlman also served as US VP of Sales at 24/7 and SVP of Sales for 24/7, APAC.
“Tim brings fifteen years of digital marketing experience and expertise to Turn. I’ve been impressed with his ability to lead and adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace while operating digital media organizations in the US, Europe and Asia,” said Bill Demas, CEO and President at Turn. “Tim’s deep client focus and proven success in working with large scale agencies and Fortune 500 brands makes him an asset to Turn’s growing team.”
As CRO, Tim is responsible for developing strategic relationships across the industry to drive the adoption of Turn’s platform solutions. In his new role, Mahlman will lead Turn’s sales, business development and client services divisions globally, while serving current clients and working with them on innovative solutions that address industry challenges.
“I’ve been watching Turn for several years and continue to see the company innovate,” said Tim Mahlman, Chief Revenue Officer at Turn. “There’s a tremendous amount of potential for audience targeting that sits between remnant and premium inventory and I’m excited to find creative ways to bring it to Turn’s brand and agency customers worldwide.”
Mahlman joined Yahoo! through its acquisition of BlueLithium in 2007. During his tenure, Tim delivered on innovative audience buying strategies for Fortune 100 brands, which produced best in class efficiency for their marketing spend. He also guided Yahoo! in growing its non-guaranteed inventory by 3x, showing the strongest growth in recent company history. Prior to Yahoo!, Tim was Chief Operating Officer of Winstar Interactive, an online representation company and served as Director of Sales at CLIQNOW before they were acquired by 24/7 in 1998.
Mahlman holds a BA in Communications from San Diego State University and is based out of Turn’s Headquarters in Silicon Valley, California.
For more information, visit www.turn.com.
Turn (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Andrew Nibley will be joining Yieldex as their CEO. Andy was prior Chairman, Advertising/Creative, for Burson-Marsteller, which specializes in business-to-business and corporate image advertising for such clients as Coca-Cola, Accenture and the U.S. government. Prior to that, he was President and CEO of GetMusic and Rollingstone.com, a part of Vivendi Universal's U.S. based Internet and technology company. Prior to GetMusic, he co-founded Reuters NewMedia Inc. Under his leadership, Reuters became the number one provider of news on the Internet, serving over 225 Web sites globally that generated 14 million unique visitors a month. From 1989 to 1994, he was Editor for North and Latin America for Reuters America Inc. Earlier, he served as News Editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa, based in London; News Editor North America, based in New York; and News Editor Washington. Prior to that, he covered four U.S. presidents and worked at United Press International and the Washington Star as well as Reuters. Andy also sits on the Boards of Sportsline USA Inc.; Oddcast LLC; and Newstruck Media, Inc.
Yieldex (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Philip Charles-Pierre as the new VP of Internet Marketing at Direct Brands, the largest direct-to-consumer distributor of media products in the United States and Canada. Mr. Charles-Pierre has a combined 10 years of business strategy and online marketing focused primarily on building and growing new businesses across the online travel and media space. Most recently, he served as Vice President for Digital Media at Guideposts Publishing, where he is responsible for the strategy, implementation and overall P&L of Guideposts’ digital initiatives. Previously, Philip worked at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, where he was responsible for its award-winning Loyalty programs. Prior to Starwood, Philip was an executive at Travelocity, where he managed the Travelocity Partner NetworkSM and was responsible for the P&L of the group and Travelocity’s overall white-label/strategic partnerships business. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Philosophy of Religion from Harvard University.
Direct Brands (Corporate Website)
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Gilt Groupe recently brought on Brian Dhatt as Vice President of Engineering for Gilt City. A veteran of both e-commerce and media, Brian previously served as chief technology officer at Sugar, a network of websites for women. He also spent time as the chief architect of BestBuy.com. In his new role, Dhatt will be in charge of running all technology efforts for Gilt City, globally. Gilt City is available in six US areas, including San Francisco and Chicago and recently launched in Tokyo. Dhatt is a graduate of Duke University.
The Gilt Groupe (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners is pleased to announce Steve Wilcox as the new Chief Marketing Officer at Direct Brands, the largest direct-to-consumer distributor of media products in the United States and Canada. He will report directly to Deborah Fine, the firm’s CEO. Mr. Wilcox brings a wealth of experience in the direct marketing world with proven results across acquisition, retention, loyalty, club and digital. He joins Direct Brands from MRM Worlddwide and has also held senior executive positions with Tequila NY, Publicis and Wunderman. He has worked with top tier clients to include Home Depot, Sprint, Walt Disney, Intuit and Sony. Mr. Wilcox holds a B.S. degree in Marketing and Communications from Arizona State University.
Direct Brands (Corporate Website)
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New York, NY – November 3, 2010 – AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) today announced the appointment of Curtis Brown to the company's Technologies team. Brown will join the company as Senior Vice President of Engineering for AOL Media, effective November 29, 2010. Both Brown will report to AOL Chief Technology Officer Alex Gounares and will serve in leadership roles on the company's Global Technology Cabinet.
"AOL was founded on the idea that great engineering is behind great consumer experiences," said Gounares. "[Curtis is] just the kind of world-class engineer we want to be known for -- proven leaders and innovators in the technology industry."
Brown, who has more than 15 years of experience in the technology field, will oversee the software development of AOL's broad-scale media platforms and will be responsible for the technology roadmap for AOL Media.
He joins AOL from leading educational services provider Kaplan Test Prep, where he was Chief Technology Officer. Prior to that, he served as CTO at CTB/McGraw-Hill, The Princeton Review, Oxygen Media and Skymall. He began his technology career with CDNow, where he was part of the team that built and launched one of the first music e-commerce sites. Brown is a graduate of New York University.
AOL (Corporate Website)
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His successes as an entrepreneur, investor, and board member speak for themselves.
November 18, 2010 MocoSpace, the largest entertainment destination on the mobile Internet, today announces the appointment of digital gaming and entertainment pioneer Mark Jung to its Board of Directors. Jung currently also serves as Chairman of the Board of Songbird and Playhaven, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Vitacost.Jung also served on the board of 3PAR until its recent acquisition by Hewlett-Packard for $2.4 billion. It's a great honor to have a person of Mark's experience and expertise join our board said MocoSpace CEO and co-founder Justin Siegel. His successes as an entrepreneur, investor, and board member speak for themselves. I look forward to working closely with Mark and the rest of the board to further MocoSpace's growth. Mark Jung has spent the last 20 years as a successful Internet CEO and entrepreneur. Most recently, Jung served as CEO at Vudu, a leading provider of digital home entertainment and interactive television services that was acquired by Walmart earlier this year. Prior to that, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Fox Interactive Media where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations of all of its properties including MySpace, IGN Entertainment, FoxSports.com, Scout Media, and AmericanIdol.com. Before Fox Interactive Media, Mark was co-founder and CEO of IGN Entertainment, a leading Internet media and services company for video games and other forms of digital entertainment, that was acquired by NewsCorp for $650 million in 2005. Mark was previously co-founder and CEO of Worldtalk Corporation, an Internet security company that he took public in 1996. Jung is also a member of the Management Board of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Leadership Council of the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science...MocoSpace is incredibly well-positioned in the market today, serving a multicultural audience at the intersection of mobile, social, and entertainment, said Jung. The company is experiencing tremendous growth, has achieved profitability, and is poised to capitalize on strong trends in mobile browser-based gaming. In addition to Jung, MocoSpace's board of directors consists of company co-founders Justin Siegel and Jamie Hall, John Simon and Brad Hoover of General Catalyst Partners, and Ron Fisher of Softbank Capital. About MocoSpace MocoSpace is the largest entertainment destination on the mobile Internet, with over 15 million registered users generating more than 3 billion pages per month. For a young, multicultural, on-the-go generation, MocoSpace is the mobile community of choice for making friends, having fun and staying connected. MocoSpace is free and available on any web-enabled mobile phone in the world.
Launched in 2005, MocoSpace is based in Boston, MA and is backed by General Catalyst and Softbank Capital.
Mocospace (Corporate Website)
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London, UK – 17 November 2010 Shazam®, the world’s leading mobile discovery provider, announces today that it has appointed Evan Krauss as EVP, Advertising Sales.
Krauss joins Shazam from JumpTap Inc where he was SVP Global Ad Sales & Business Development. Previously, Evan spent six and a half years at Yahoo! where his last role was as Managing Director of Yahoo!’s Connected Life Business unit.
“Evan joins Shazam at a pivotal time,” says Andrew Fisher, CEO, Shazam. “Marketers and brands around the globe are waking up to the power of Shazam as a consumer channel which can engage customers in a unique and interactive way. Evan’s experience in fast-growth digital companies, creating and implementing innovative advertising solutions and driving revenue, combined with his skills at managing and motivating teams to succeed will prove a powerful combination for both Shazam and our media clients.”
“I couldn’t be more excited about joining Shazam at a time when it is rapidly expanding its proposition to media clients,” says Evan Krauss, Executive Vice-President, Advertising Sales, Shazam. “Whilst shazaming a song is already established behaviour for millions of people, now, marketers are also realising that they can deliver tailored, measurable marketing campaigns into people’s hands with the ability to Shazam television programming, radio shows and commercials.
“Shazam’s creation and leadership of this important new marketing category and ability to continually innovate to appeal to a growing number of consumers and marketers makes this an incredible opportunity,” continues Krauss.
Shazam has been used by more than 75 million people worldwide, including more than 20 million users on the iPhone and iPod touch worldwide and is now adding more than one million new users every week.
With 15 years experience in Internet, mobile and digital media, Krauss has built from scratch and managed some of the earliest and most successful Internet advertising teams at Excite, AOL, Looksmart and Yahoo! He has been directly responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and forging new Internet advertising products and models since 1995. Prior to his role at JumpTap, Krauss was President, CEO of online video editing service, Cuts.
Shazam Entertainment (Corporate Website)
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Rob Singer joined Ancestry.com in November of 2010 as Vice President, Customer Relationship Management. Prior to Ancestry.com, Rob served as Senior Vice President of Customer Relationship Management for Bank of the West, where he managed the development of information management, enterprise reporting, advanced analytics and campaign management infrastructures as well as all direct response marketing channels.
Rob led customer intelligence, business intelligence and relationship marketing for StubHub for three years before joining Bank of the West. His career also spans database marketing and data mining for YellowBrick Solutions, Charles Schwab and KnowledgeBase Marketing and co-founding of Triporama, a customer-centric online travel service. A graduate of James Madison University, Rob holds a Bachelor of Science in Math.
Ancestry.com (Corporate Website)
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Gary Kovacs is the CEO of Mozilla Corporation with the responsibility for leading the overall direction of the organization and the Firefox Web browser.
Prior to joining Mozilla, Gary held senior leadership roles as Senior VP of Markets, Solutions & Products at Sybase (through its acquisition by SAP earlier this year), as General Manager and VP of Mobile & Devices at Adobe and as VP of Product Marketing at Macromedia (through its acquisition by Adobe).
Previously, he led the successful creation and growth of Zi Corporation, a company specializing in embedded software and services for mobile and consumer devices.
Prior to Zi Corporation, Gary spent 10 years at IBM in leadership positions in product management, sales, marketing and operations within the global software division.
He holds a bachelor of commerce and an MBA with distinction, from the University of Calgary.
Mozilla (Corporate Website)
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TheLadders.com, the world's leading community for $100K+ job seekers and $100K+ jobs, today announced the appointments of Nicholas Karrat as Vice President, Consumer Marketing. Karrat will lead consumer-facing marketing and advertising in support of TheLadders brand. Karrat will report directly to Alex Douzet, President and co-founder of TheLadders.com. Karrat joins TheLadders.com from LexisNexis where as Senior Director of Marketing & Alliances he was responsible for branding, marketing and analytics of their consumer flagship Lawyers.com. In this capacity, Karrat led both strategy and execution for television advertising, search engine marketing, web analytics and strategic alliances. Prior to LexisNexis, Karrat was Vice President of Internet Marketing at Citigroup with accountability for the Citi-American Airlines portfolio. He previously held various marketing and advertising positions in both Youth and Affluent segments at Citigroup. Before joining Citigroup, Karrat held management positions at Juno Online and AT&T within their Partnership Marketing and Database Architecture groups. Karrat holds an MBA in Marketing from Rutgers University and has received numerous recognitions including Citigroup's Chairman Award and Reed Elsevier's Innovation Honor Roll.
The Ladders (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners has placed Aaron Peterson as the Senior Director of Integrated Marketing at Tree.com, a leading marketplace providing consumers access to business and professionals when searching for financial products and real estate. Aaron joined the company in October of 2010 and is charged with leading internet marketing. Prior to joining LendingTree.com Aaron was the VP of Marketing at Hometownquotes.com. Aaron began his career at Netquote. At Netquote he developed and implemented several of the largest marketing programs in Netquotes history.
LendingTree.com (Corporate Website)
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Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE:RST), a leading provider of technology-based language-learning solutions, announced today that Stephen Swad will join the management team as chief financial officer effective November 9, 2010. Reporting directly to Tom Adams, the chief executive officer of Rosetta Stone, Swad, 49, will be responsible for Rosetta Stone's finance and investor relations functions. Swad, who has previously served as CFO at Comverse Technology, Fannie Mae and AOL, brings extensive experience in finance and the technology sector to his new role.
"We're delighted to have an executive of Steve's caliber join Rosetta Stone," said Tom Adams, CEO of Rosetta Stone. "He is a gifted CFO, with strong public-company experience - and he brings a business operations perspective to everything he does. Having been a CFO at a Fortune 500 high technology company, combined with his broad experience at complex, fast-paced environments, we are confident that Steve will contribute broadly to our financial operations and business strategy."
"I'm excited to join Rosetta Stone at this point in their evolution," Swad said. "The company addresses a global market sized at over $80 billion, offering the best available technology-based solutions for learning languages. Their latest advances are not only helping people learn through socialization, they are also strengthening the company's business model. I'm confident that this talented team of innovators has the skills and drive to capitalize on a tremendous opportunity to grow globally, extending the company's reach across markets and around the world. I look forward to partnering with Tom and the leadership team to create value for all of our stakeholders."
In September, the company introduced Rosetta Stone(R) Version 4 TOTALe(TM), the innovative language-learning solution that pairs trusted Rosetta Stone software with an entirely new online experience. This allows people to 'awaken' their natural ability to learn a new language. Version 4 TOTALe works through effective software and online activities that encourage customers to interact safely with native speakers and other learners, at their own level, to use their newly acquired skills.
Rosetta Stone (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Imran Maskatia will be joining Redbox as their VP, Digital Media Technology. Prior to Redbox, Imran was a Lead Program Manager for Microsoft's Media Platforms Business. He focuses on the next generation of interconnected media experiences across TVs, PCs, Mobile Devices, and Game Consoles. Over the past 12 years, he has designed and developed interactive media experiences for Microsoft's service provider customers, including Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and others around the world. Previously, Imran spent time at various startups in the valley, IBM, and also built networked entertainment technologies at Digital Equipment Corporation's Network Systems Laboratory in Palo Alto. He received a BS and an MS from Stanford University, focusing on Human-Computer Interaction. In his spare time, he enjoys working with Muslim community organizations, spending time outdoors, playing video games, and learning useless trivia - resulting in an appearance on Jeopardy! last year.
Redbox (Corporate Website)
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REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- RockYou today announced the appointment of Jonathan Knight, former executive at Electronic Arts and Activision, as Senior Vice President of RockYou Games.
With over fifteen years of experience producing and directing games, Knight has been a major contributor to leading franchises like Star Trek, Quake, Wolfenstein, and The Simpsons. At EA's Maxis Studio, he produced several expansion packs to The Sims (the most successful PC game in history), and was Lead Producer and a creative leader for the universally-acclaimed The Sims 2. As Vice President and Executive Producer at EA's Visceral Games studio, he was the creator of the hit game, Dante's Inferno.
Prior to his nine-year tenure at Electronic Arts, Knight held a management position as Executive Producer at Activision. He has also managed game production at other major publishers, including Interplay and Viacom New Media. Jonathan is a passionate gamer, and grew up playing and making games on the family Apple II that still sits in his office.
"I am thrilled to have Jonathan bring his wealth of experience and leadership to RockYou," says Lisa Marino, COO. "Jonathan is a creative force in gaming, and his exceptional track record in commercially - and critically-successful games will drive RockYou's growth and set a new direction for social gaming."
"The next chapter of social gaming will be defined by quality and innovation. We've barely opened the book on this story, and as more game makers gravitate toward this exciting platform, we can expect a whole new wave of social game design and online entertainment. RockYou took an early leadership role in this space, and is now poised to be a major player in the future," said Knight.
RockYou (Corporate Website)
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Greg Fant is an e-commerce veteran with extensive experience in product and marketing strategy and development, distribution and management. Prior to One Kings Lane, Greg spent 10 years at eBay where he most recently held the position of vice president of North America marketing. In this role, he was responsible for all North America marketing functions, as well as development and management of global marketing infrastructure development. He oversaw eBay’s substantial marketing budget and managed a team of more than 100.
Greg held additional senior management roles at eBay ranging from vice president of eBay buyer experience, vice president of global customer analytics, vice president of eBay global product strategy and seller product management, and vice president and divisional merchandise manager. In these roles, he developed and executed eBay’s North America end-to-end buyer experience strategy for product and marketing, managed all of eBay’s customer insights teams, overhauled the company’s web analytics tracking and measurement infrastructure, developed eBay’s first experimental testing platform, and scaled business results in hundreds of eBay Categories.
Greg also served as senior director of U.S. marketing, director of eBay sports, and senior category manager of the sporting goods category and new category development. In these roles, he was responsible for development and execution of buyer focused merchandising and marketing plans for 50 percent of eBay US categories, managed the eBay sports business and launched 100’s of new eBay categories.
Earlier in his career, Greg held positions at The Coca-Cola Company, Feld Entertainment, Cerrell Associates and also worked as a staff aide for the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton-Gore campaign.
One Kings Lane (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Jonathan Kowit will be joining Ice.com as their CMO. Jonathan Kowit is an experienced marketer and business executive who has worked in the interactive space since 1998. Jonathan came to Ice.com from Audible.com (an Amazon company), where he was the VP of Marketing for 4 1/2 years during a time in which Audible grew by over 200%. Prior to Audible, Jonathan was the VP of International Marketing at Weightwatchers.com for 4 years, where he managed marketing teams in the UK, Germany, Canada and Australia. Prior to Weightwatchers Jonathan founded a first mover in the online dating space, Metrodate.com. Before Metrodate, Jonathan was an attorney that focused on class action antitrust litigation.
Ice.com (Corporate Website)
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RecycleBank, the premier green rewards program that motivates people to take environmental actions, announced today that veteran media and Internet executive Jonathan Hsu has been named Chief Executive Officer of the Company. Mr. Hsu was most recently Chief Executive Officer of 24/7 Real Media, the leaders behind the science of digital marketing and part of WPP, the world leader in marketing communications. Hsu is an accomplished international business leader who brings years of media, marketing and Internet expertise to RecycleBank.
"RecycleBank is thrilled to be able to attract a leader like Jonathan to the Company," said Ron Gonen, Co-Founder of RecycleBank. "Jon's extensive media and marketing background will allow RecycleBank to significantly accelerate our global growth and expansion plans, and will be an incredible asset in recruiting the world's leading brands to join the movement to motivate individuals and communities to engage in positive green actions."
"RecycleBank has accomplished a great deal in its relatively short history; they've built a large community of engaged members that are motivated to have a positive impact on the environment," Hsu said. "Now is the perfect time to bring this momentum to a broader audience, as green initiatives are becoming a mandatory element of any successful brand's marketing strategy. There is extraordinary opportunity for brands to join RecycleBank's mission to motivate green actions and create incredible value for our Members, partners, employees and shareholders. I certainly look forward to the journey ahead."
"The Board and the leadership team of RecycleBank could not be more thrilled at the choice of Jonathan Hsu as Chief Executive Officer," said Stuart Ellman, co-founder of RRE Ventures and the RecycleBank Board member who led the search process. "He comes to us from a world leader in media marketing and communications at a time where corporations are realizing their ability and responsibility to effecting change on our environment. We look forward to building on RecycleBank's track record of innovation and positive environmental impact together."
This leadership evolution comes at an important time for RecycleBank. The company has had a tremendous impact on the environment to date- the material recycled by the households it services has saved cities tens of millions of dollars annually in landfill disposal fees, and has saved over 1.5 million trees and millions of gallons of oil. RecycleBank wants to expand this to a global level, using the digital medium to grow its community, deepen engagement among members and build meaningful marketing partnerships with brands like The Coca-Cola Company, Nature Made, Kashi and Yoplait. To catalyze this growth, Mr. Hsu will work with RecycleBank to introduce green rewards programs to the WPP client base and other eco-conscious brands, and roll out new product offerings that will enable municipalities and partners to innovate from a sustainability point of view. Mr. Hsu will officially take office on October 4, 2010.
About RecycleBank
RecycleBank® motivates people to take greener actions and rewards consumers with points that can be redeemed at participating local and national business partners. Through collaboration and innovation, RecycleBank is helping to create a culture that encourages people to take simple steps towards greener lifestyles like residential recycling, electronic-waste recycling, home energy conservation and more. We believe that making greener choices shouldn't at all feel like a trade off—it should be a trade up—and RecycleBank rewards its members every step of the way. RecycleBank currently provides service to over one million people across the U.S. and the U.K. and has been recognized with a number of business and environmental awards, including being named as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, as a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environmental Programme, and for Outstanding Excellence in Public/Private Partnerships from the U.S. Conference of Mayors. RecycleBank is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit www.RecycleBank.com.
Jonathan K. Hsu Bio
Jonathan K. Hsu was the former Chief Executive Officer of 24/7 Real Media, the leading global digital marketing company whose award-winning Open AdStream® ad management technology powers more than 45,000 web sites to deliver over 800 billion ads, including 24/7 Real Media's proprietary global ad network, reaching approximately 200 million unique visitors across three continents. Since its acquisition by WPP in 2007, 24/7 Real Media is now driving the digital technology strategy across the world's largest marketing company.
RecycleBank (Corporate Website)
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SecondMarket (Corporate Website)
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Mr. Kirincich joins ReputationDefender with a unique blend of experience on Wall Street in mergers and acquisitions and in the Valley high tech management. Most recently, Mr. Kirincich was CFO of Extend Health. Prior to joining Extend Health, he was Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis at Netflix. He also has held finance and marketing positions with startups Nexsi Systems and iReady Corporation, and with Lucent Technologies, Octel Communications and Tandem Computers. Mr. Kirincich earned an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and a B.A. in Math and Economics from Wesleyan University.
About ReputationDefender
ReputationDefender is the pioneer and global leader in online reputation and privacy management. The privately held company has advanced technology, unique business processes and a suite of products designed for all consumer segments — including professionals, small business owners, students, social Web enthusiasts, parents and more — that make it easier to control online reputations and protect against Internet stalking, identity theft/impersonation and other online threats. ReputationDefender has its headquarters in Silicon Valley, an office in Germany and serves customers in more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.reputationdefender.com.
Reputation.com (Corporate Website)
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Liberty joined CNNMoney from Microsoft Corporation, where she was Vice President of sales at DRIVEpm, a key business unit in Microsoft’s Advertising and Publishing solutions division (formerly aQuantive). Under Carras’ leadership, DRIVEpm became one of the largest premium ad networks. Prior to joining DRIVEpm, she managed national agency relations at LookSmart and sold for Lexmark International, Inc. Carras has been a board member of numerous interactive groups and is a frequent speaker at events such as AdTech, SIIA, The Sellers Forum, and the DreamForce/Salesforce.com Global Conference. She graduated with her BA from San Francisco State University in 1999.
Fox Audience Network (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Aaron Barnes will be joining Lockerz as their CRO. He brings over 18 years of experience in sales, marketing and operations with an impressive track record in online advertising sales, business development and subscriptions. Aaron has held senior sales, marketing and business development roles at Sequoia Capital backed Quote.com (Lycos Finance), Trident Capital backed WhenU, Inc., and publicly traded Looksmart (NASDAQ: LOOK). Aaron's global sales strategies and tactics implemented have resulted in Friendster scaling revenue to historic company highs in 2006 and 2007 while in parallel significantly improving the synergistic efficiencies of strategic business alliances. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from University of Pennsylvania and studied Entrepreneurial Management at The Wharton School of Business.
Lockerz (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Rob Schmults will be joining Intent Media as their VP, Strategic Partnerships. Before Intent Media, Rob was CMO at Smart Destinations, a ticketing platform for museums, sights, and tours. He oversaw online and offline marketing, as well as the web store responsible for 70% of the company's B2C sales. Previously, Rob spent several years at GSI Commerce, leading a group that managed 30 online and catalog businesses, including Sports Authority, Bath & Body Works, and iRobot. Earlier in his career, Rob worked for Fort Point Partners, McKinsey & Co., and Worlds Inc. Rob holds a BA from Yale, an M.Phil from Cambridge, and an MBA from Harvard.
Intent Media (Corporate Website)
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As CPMO, Louis leads a team that is responsible for leveraging data, technology and marketing expertise to bring to market a suite of products and services that enables millions of local businesses to effectively market themselves without having to spend a significant amount of time, energy and money.
Prior to joining Yodle, Louis was Senior Vice-President, Global Products at Monster Worldwide where he and his team spearheaded a major transformation of the company’s value-proposition through the delivery of an unprecedented amount of product innovations. Prior to his US assignment, Louis was Vice-President of Product and Marketing at Monster in Canada where he was named “Marketer that Matters” by the Marketing Magazine and “Personality of the Year” by the Montreal chapter of the American Marketing Association. Prior to Monster, Louis had built a long and successful career as an Internet and Social entrepreneur around the world.
Louis received a BBA from Laval University and an MSc in Marketing from HEC-Montreal. His work has been featured in many business magazines, including The Economist.
Yodle (Corporate Website)
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Daversa Partners announces that Virl Hill will be joining Blade Games as their CEO. Virl most recently was Senior Director of Business Development for Consumer Video Services at RealNetworks, leading the team by creating and managing strategic partnerships for SuperPass, Starz! Ticket on Real Movies, the Real Guide and Real's future consumer video products and services. Prior to RealNetworks, Virl led The Walt Disney Company's network television and television animation strategic planning group, focusing on production and global distribution strategy for prime time and syndicated programming including Home Improvement and The Disney Afternoon and for Disney's direct-to-video feature animation sequel initiative. He began his media career in international home video and merchandising at Hanna-Barbera Productions. Virl also worked in international investment banking with Credit Suisse First Boston in New York and Australia. Virl is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and serves on the Board of the Cable Television Association for Marketing (CTAM) Silicon Valley/Pacific Northwest Chapter. He holds an MBA and a BA from Northwestern University and also studied at the London Business School.
Blade Games (Corporate Website)
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Lakhani is an experienced financial executive with a successful track record at public and private growth companies in the technology, media and telecommunications industries. He has served in various financial management roles for the past 26 years and, as part of oDesk's executive management team, will play a key role developing the company's growth strategy. Most recently, Lakhani was CFO of Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia. During his tenure as CFO at CTC Media, Lakhani led the company to a successful initial public offering (IPO).
"Our CFO position generated a lot of interest and we had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Swart. "We quickly recognized that Nilesh was the right person for oDesk. He was the CFO at CTC Media while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the international finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to oDesk in the coming years."
"After meeting with Gary and the rest of the team, I was highly impressed with the company's drive and sense of purpose to help people build successful online work relationships," said Lakhani. "oDesk has assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I'm excited to join this effort, this industry and this company."
oDesk recently marked four consecutive years of annual growth in excess of 100 percent, and has generated over $170 million in online work performed.
oDesk (Corporate Website)
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Prior to AOL, David served as a management consultant for A.T. Kearney advising Fortune 500 companies on corporate and operating strategy. He currently is a board director to PrecisionIR Group, board advisor to Assistly, LiveIntent and VigLink, and an angel investor in SimpleGeo and Blockchalk. David graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and received his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Knewton (Corporate Website)
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Whitney commented that, "Blair brings an exceptional background and track record to Moontoast. His proven ability to successfully lead teams in innovative ventures will enhance our current operations and guide Moontoast to becoming the leader in the social commerce market. He brings with him considerable experience from both Fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurial startups. Blair's unique skill set in sales, e-commerce and affiliate marketing make him a great asset to the Moontoast team."
Heavey brings over twenty years of senior management and leadership experience in startup environments. He is a veteran Internet executive with proven expertise in creating new businesses, implementing initiatives, and driving execution in companies. His tenure as Director of Sales at Open Market and Executive Vice President at Be Free demonstrated a strong executive leadership record with a proven ability to build high impact sales and marketing teams.
Heavey's past experience also includes: President and CEO of MyPerfectGig; Entrepreneur-in-Residence at North Bridge Venture Partners; and CEO of DirectoryM. He received his BA in Computer Science and Political Science from Boston College and earned his MBA from Babson College. He currently serves on the Board of Directors at Mall Networks, a leading provider of merchant-funded loyalty shopping solutions, as well as the advisory boards of two additional startups.
"Moontoast is providing solutions in an exciting multi-billion dollar market opportunity. It is carving out the 'rules of success' for brands to leverage social media to drive significant revenue streams." Heavey stated, "The team that Marcus and Stephen Collins built is well on its way to driving a unique and differentiated social commerce platform that brands will eagerly engage with to increase revenues. I'm excited to be part of the Moontoast team."
Moontoast (Corporate Website)
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Recognized Industry Leader to Drive Continued Innovation and Growth in the Semantic Advertising Space
New York (April 9, 2010) - Peer39 today announced it has named Andy Ellenthal as chief executive officer. Ellenthal will lead the online semantic advertising company's efforts to accelerate business growth and further innovate the online advertising space. In addition, Peer39 Founder Amiad Solomon will be named President of the Company and will concentrate his efforts on business development, product innovation and strategic initiatives.
Semantic advertising increases the value of online content by understanding meaning and sentiment, and matches the most relevant ad to the page. Using Peer39's patented algorithms, publishers, ad exchanges, and buying platforms can classify the true meaning of written language at lightning speed. Peer39 now helps semantically target thousands of ads every second.
"Peer39 is widely recognized as the inventor and market leader in semantic advertising. We're delighted that Andy's vast experience, coupled with his success scaling innovative advertising technology companies, will accelerate Peer39's ascension as the industry standard," said Solomon. "Andy has a track record of scaling companies in the online advertising space and will be a tremendous asset as we achieve the next level of market dominance for Peer39."
Ellenthal brings a combination of media sales, technological savvy and creativity to Peer39. He previously served as the CEO of quadrantONE, a joint venture of four major media companies focused on selling online advertising. Ellenthal has also held positions such as SVP of Sales at PointRoll, the leading provider of rich media marketing services, and a number of senior sales management roles at DoubleClick, the largest internet's ad serving company.
"Peer39 has a tremendous opportunity to innovate the industry through the use of semantics. It's an exciting time to join the Company and help capitalize on the growing online market," said Ellenthal. "The online advertising space has just begun to see the positive advantages of implementing semantics into an online strategy and I look forward to driving the Company and further setting a Peer39 as the semantic targeting standard in the industry."
Peer39 (Corporate Website)
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Rent the Runway (Corporate Website)
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Journalism Online (Corporate Website)
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OnForce Appoints Bill Lucchini as Chief Operating Officer Hires Former Intuit Executive to Support OnForce Growth
BOSTON – June 23, 2010 – OnForce, the leading on-site services marketplace that matches service buyers with service professionals to fulfill information technology and consumer electronic work, has appointed Bill Lucchini as Chief Operating Officer (COO). In his new role at OnForce, Lucchini will oversee the development, product, and marketing organizations, and will focus on aligning strategic goals with operational activities.
“Bill is an established leader with a long track-record of notable accomplishments,” said Peter Cannone, CEO of OnForce. “As OnForce continues to grow and evolve, Bill offers excellent product management and leadership expertise to effectively support OnForce’s commitment to providing service excellence.”
With more than 17 years of experience at Intuit building software and services, Lucchini brings extensive product development and leadership experience to OnForce. Most recently, Lucchini was Vice President and General Manager for the Intuit Platform as a Service Group where he led Intuit’s QuickBase business and launched the Intuit Partner Platform. Previous to this role, Lucchini was Vice President and General Manager for the Intuit Mid Market Group, where he launched Intuit’s first channel, the Intuit Solution Provider Program.
Lucchini will actively meet with service buyers and service professionals to gather their insights about how OnForce is driving their business growth today and into the future. In addition, as OnForce continues to expand and deepen its market presence, Lucchini will look to supplement the OnForce team with new talent.
“I am very impressed by the large volume of service events that is successfully fulfilled via the OnForce marketplace; it is the primary reason why I joined the OnForce team,” said Lucchini.
“It is clear that this established model provides significant value for service buyers and service professionals. I am excited to be part of an organization that shows great service strength and innovation with a very promising future.”
Lucchini will be based at OnForce headquarters in Lexington, Massachusetts.
About OnForce
OnForce is the leading outsourced services network that connects service buyers with thousands of highly skilled service professionals to fulfill on-site work. With more than one million service events completed, OnForce is the trusted marketplace that enables service buyers to lower service costs, improve service-level agreement compliance, achieve high customer satisfaction, and generate new streams of revenue quickly. The OnForce community is comprised of IT and CE service buyers and service professionals, located across the U.S. and Canada, who specialize in a variety of categories, such as computers, printers, networking, VoIP, Point of Sale, and more. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com.
OnForce (Corporate Website)
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World Golf Tour (Corporate Website)
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Redwood City, CA — June 3, 2010 — Lending Club, the world’s leading peer lending network, today announced it passed $10 million in monthly loan fundings for May 2010. This milestone marks the first time any U.S. peer lending company has funded that amount of loans in a single calendar month. Lending Club also announces the appointment of Scott Sanborn as chief marketing officer.
“Customers are getting back on their feet and looking to get rid of their high interest rate credit card debt. Banks still aren’t helping, so an increasing number of customers are coming to us for an easy, lower interest option without the fine print,” said Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club. “We are excited about our continued growth, and welcome Scott as our new head of marketing to expand our reach.”
Lending Club reduces the cost and complexity of lending by cutting out banks. Bringing investors and credit worthy borrowers together enables Lending Club to offer borrowers some of the lowest rates around for personal unsecured loans while providing investors higher returns (currently investors are earning a 9.5% net annualized return on Lending Club notes).
Scott Sanborn was previously the chief marketing and revenue officer for eHealth, Inc., a publicly traded e-commerce company. While at eHealth, Scott led double digit growth in revenue and new customer acquisitions. Prior to his role at eHealth, Sanborn was the chief marketing officer and interim president of the popular e-commerce and catalog retailer, RedEnvelope, Inc., where he oversaw the sale of the business to Provide Commerce.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Lending Club team,” said Sanborn. “Lending Club is on track to become a truly great financial services brand, and my experience growing online companies and creating strong brands is a perfect match.”
Prior to joining RedEnvelope, Sanborn held several senior marketing positions at the Home Shopping Network, the television and Internet retailer of consumer products, including senior vice president of marketing. He was instrumental in growing Home Shopping Network’s online business, led an award-winning creative team, and created a new brand position and identity for the company.
Additional information about Lending Club is available in the prospectus for Lending Club's notes, which can be obtained on Lending Club's Web site at http://www.lendingclub.com/info/prospectus.action.
About Lending Club
Lending Club is a peer lending network bringing together investors and creditworthy borrowers. Lending Club eliminates the high cost and complexity of traditional bank lending to offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns. Lending Club won the Webby Award in 2008 for the "Best Banking Website" and has been nominated for "Top 100 Innovators" by The Industry Standard. It was recently recognized as one of the 20 "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009" by Harvard Business Review. Founded in 2006, Lending Club is headquartered in Redwood City, CA. More information is available at: http://www.lendingclub.com.
Lending Club Notes are only offered by a prospectus filed with the SEC which contains the risks and uncertainties related to any investment in the Notes. Currently only residents of the following states may invest in Lending Club notes: CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, KY (accredited investors), LA, ME, MN, MO, MS, MT, NH, NV, NY, RI, SC, SD, UT, VA, WA, WI, WV, or WY.
Loans are not issued in IA, ID, IN, KS, ME, MS, NC, ND, NE, or TN. Loans are issued by WebBank, an FDIC insured Utah chartered industrial bank located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Borrowers must be US citizens or permanent residents and at least 18 years old. Valid bank account and social security numbers are required. All loans are subject to credit approval.
Lending Club (Corporate Website)
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Former Top Executive at Yahoo!, Right Media and DoubleClick Brings Unparalleled Expertise To Establish Company as Leading Operating System for Media Buying
CHICAGO, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- MediaBank, a leading provider of technology solutions designed to help better manage the end-to-end media buying and analytics process, today announced that Bill Wise, a highly accomplished executive known for building next generation media technologies that have major impact on the advertising field, is joining the company as Chief Executive Officer. Wise succeeds MediaBank CEO and founder Brad Keywell, who remains with the company as a Director and advisor. The Chief Executive Officer search was conducted by premier executive retained search firm Daversa Partners, and was lead by search Partner Peter Baiocco.
Throughout his career, Wise has demonstrated leadership in identifying and cultivating advanced media buying solutions. He comes to MediaBank from Yahoo! where he was General Manager, Ad Platforms & Global Exchange. In that position he was responsible for the company's advertising platforms business including the Right Media Exchange, a premium digital advertising exchange, and APT by Yahoo!, the online leader's intelligent media planning/buying platform.
Wise joined Yahoo! from his former role as President of Right Media, running its media and services businesses. Yahoo! acquired Right Media in 2007 for $850 million, bringing Wise on board and integrating Right Media's Exchange as the solution for Yahoo!'s entire non-guaranteed, spot market inventory.
Before his time with Right Media, Wise was CEO of Didit, the largest independent search marketing firm, from 2005 to 2007. Under his guidance the company had a three-year growth rate of 1,368%, ranking it #137 in the Inc 500 listing of America's fastest-growing private companies. Wise also spent five years at DoubleClick in various executive posts including Vice President and General Manager of DoubleClick Media, and Director of Financial Planning & Investor Relations where he was responsible for guiding Wall Street and company shareholders.
"Bill Wise has a profound ability to see the value new technologies are creating across the media buying spectrum. He also has a proven talent for developing those technologies for the benefit of ad agencies, publishers, advertisers and networks," said Keywell. "We are fortunate to have Bill assume leadership of MediaBank as we continue our quest to redefine the way media, across the entire spectrum of channels and properties, is purchased."
"Media buying is undergoing a major transformation from pre-arranged buys on disconnected media properties, to a new cross-media model that targets ads at tightly-defined audiences in real time across both traditional and digital media," said Wise. "MediaBank has helped lead this transformation. With tens of billions in media spend currently managed through our platforms, our clients are already reaping the workflow efficiencies and advanced analytics of MediaBank's technologies.
"Given the success of MediaBank to date, I believe the potential for further growth is enormous," Wise continued. "We intend to aggressively further MediaBank's position as the de facto resource for technology infrastructure, operating standards, and real-time access to every form of media, both traditional and digital. We believe we can become the holistic operating system that simplifies and adds efficiency to the entire media marketplace, and help ad agencies and marketers route inventory in real time—creating the 'smart router' for the entire advertising marketplace."
About MediaBank, Inc.
Privately-held Chicago-based MediaBank, Inc. is a leading provider of integrated procurement technology and advanced analytics to the advertising industry. MediaBank solutions allow for unprecedented cross-media analytics and intelligence through superior planning, buying, workflow and data warehousing tools. The cornerstone of MediaBank's solution is the MediaBank O|X platform, offering buying, financial, and workflow tools across all media types. The MediaBank A|X platform provides advanced analytics and predictive modeling. MediaBank has more than 25 years of industry recognized experience in providing media buying solutions and is committed to combining the latest technologies and applications to improve efficiency in the advertising industry. For more information on MediaBank, visit: www.mbxg.com.
MediaBank (Corporate Website)
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Gounares joined AOL from Microsoft, where he was Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the company's Online Services Division. During his tenure at Microsoft, Gounares led significant strategic and technical operations for some of the company's most important projects including Microsoft's global advertising platform, Bing search, MSN and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Gounares also served for three years as Technology Advisor to Microsoft Chairman and founder Bill Gates, as well as Corporate Vice President of Corporate Strategy in Microsoft's Finance Department.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 1993, Gounares worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has founded two startups and is also an inventor on more than 100 U.S. patents filed and pending.
Gounares holds a bachelor's degree cum laude in Computer Science from Princeton University.
AOL (Corporate Website)
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Drop.io (Corporate Website)
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Smartling (Corporate Website)
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The Gilt Groupe (Corporate Website)
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Ustream (Corporate Website)
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As the former CMO of Boston-based Utterli, Aaron worked closely with founders Paul Gagne and Michael Bayer to re-launch the struggling Utterz micro-blogging service and created the sustainable media property now utilized by large enterprises like eBay, RedCross and Whole Foods for variety initiatives requiring multi-channel, multimedia group communications. Prior to this role, Aaron applied his background in consumer marketing and strengths in start-up operations, business development and fund raising as Vice President of Marketing during the transformation of Jangl’s subscription and licensing business.
Aaron was one of the first five employees at PodShow, heading up marketing and communications. He also has led all outbound and product marketing efforts for Stata Labs (acquired by Yahoo) and co-founded Alterlayer, a sweat equity firm that consulted and invested in a broad array of Silicon Valley-based startups back in 1999. Aaron started his career in marketing communications and production at WebTV and Microsoft’s WebTV (1996-1999). He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a BA in Political Science.
Outspark (Corporate Website)
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Match.com (Corporate Website)
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - May 6, 2010) - Today, ShareThis, the world's largest sharing network, announced the expansion of its executive team with the addition of Brent Herd as Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development, and Julie Levitas Greenhouse as Senior Vice President of Publisher Services and Business Development. ShareThis has grown rapidly during the last two years and has helped to make sharing the center of the social Web with its sharing service on more than 150,000 sites, reaching over 400 million users per month. Herd and Greenhouse will help publishers and marketers leverage sharing to identify and target new audiences.
ShareThis is the largest market for sharing and influence across the web, reaching more than 400 million users across nearly 1 million sites. ShareThis makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more impactful for brands by tapping into its true influence and value. Based in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York and Cincinnati, the company is privately held with funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Blue Chip Venture Company, DFJ Mercury, Illinois Ventures, Matthew Pritzker Company, Queen City Angels and RPM Ventures and Reservoir Partners.
ShareThis (Corporate Website)
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Chiang has 17 years of experience in the console game industry, 15 of them at EA. He was most recently senior vice president and group general manager of EA Sports, where he oversaw the Madden NFL football series, one of the most valuable franchises in all of video gamedom.
Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, said on his blog the move will help the company double down on its investments in social gaming. It will also heat up the competition with EA, which recently paid as much as $400 million for Zynga's chief competitor, Playfish. Zynga has a number of other EA veterans on staff, including Mark Skaggs, who oversaw production of FarmVille, Zynga's biggest game with 83 million monthly active users.
During Chiang's time at EA, the company came to dominate the sports game category, minting franchises such as NCAA Football, FIFA Soccer, NHL and NBA Live — all played by millions. He helped relaunch EASports.com and Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. Chiang was a co-founder of Tiberon Entertainment along with John Schappert, current chief operating officer of EA. EA acquired Tiburon in 1998.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Rowghani is now CFO and senior vice president of strategic planning for Pixar, Disney Animation Studios and Disney Toon Studios. Prior to joining Pixar, Rowghani was an associate at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
"Ali will be an important member of a growing team focused on creating value for our users and capturing the financial opportunities that result from it," Twitter CEO Evan Williams said in a statement. "His thoughtfulness on retaining a great culture to work and staying consistent with your principles will also be a significant contribution."
Twitter (Corporate Website)
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David Jones joins Shazam from Friendster where he served as Vice President of Global Marketing. Prior to joining Friendster, David held several marketing and general management roles at eBay Inc, including roles focused on scaling the number of active members of the eBay community. David was also the director of eBay's media and entertainment businesses in the United States. Prior to eBay, David was the Vice President of Business Development at Blue Wireless and an Associate Partner at the management and technology consulting firm of Arthur D. Little. David holds a B.A. from Stanford University in Quantitative Economics with Honors & Distinction.
Shazam Entertainment (Corporate Website)
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RecycleBank (Corporate Website)
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OpenSky is based in New York City and is an innovative commerce platform that enables consumer brands and suppliers of products to efficiently and effectively introduce their wares to the rapidly growing retail channel of online influencers (bloggers, authors, celebrities and others with established audience relationships). OpenSky provides these influencers with the tools they need to merchandise, introduce, and sell products they connect with to their audiences.
OpenSky (Corporate Website)
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Targetspot (Corporate Website)
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Big Fish Games (Corporate Website)
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The young, high-growth company behind the Gorillapod, Gorillamobile, and Gorillatorch product lines expands its team and its commitment to product design, brand, and customer-service.
Joby is excited to announce two new additions to its senior management team effective January 19, 2010. The Company is focused on accelerating its incredible growth in 2009, following a record fourth quarter in which the Company, on a preliminary reporting basis, recorded more than $7 million in sales, representing a growth rate of 60% over the fourth quarter of 2008. Joby is currently making considerable investments in its team and global infrastructure to achieve its goals of continually releasing well-designed product solutions, initiating unique and creative brand marketing activities, and supporting its customers.
"Scott and Sargon add a tremendous amount of collective marketing, sales, business development, and operations experience," said Forrest Baringer-Jones, Joby's CEO. "They also share a common DNA with the rest of the Joby team that is committed to thoughtful and user-centric product design, unique marketing initiatives, and customer delight."
As Joby's VP Marketing, Scott Ellis is responsible for product and outbound marketing efforts on a global basis. Scott brings over 15 years of brand and business-building experience at world-class consumer companies including Disney, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Method. Most recently, Scott led New Ventures & Strategic Partnerships at Method Products, Inc., where he focused on strategic marketing and business initiatives to grow the Method brand. Prior to Method, Scott held various marketing and strategy leadership positions at Microsoft, Starbucks, and The Walt Disney Company.
Sargon Eshagh joins the Company as VP Sales - Americas and will be responsible for growing the Company's Americas-based sales and distribution channels. Sargon brings to his position two decades of experience in technology sales and channel marketing with an emphasis on innovative consumer products. Most recently, Eshagh served as Vice President of Sales for Creative Labs, where he was responsible for driving the company's Americas sales.
For additional product or company information, please contact media representative Mark Olson at markolson@maxborgesagency.com.
ABOUT JOBY
Joby creates well designed product solutions that enhance the creative and active capabilities of consumer electronics. The Company revolutionized the camera accessories market in early 2006 with its Gorillapod line of flexible tripods and continues to redefine the consumer electronics market with its Gorillamobile and Gorillatorch product lines. Founded in 2005, Joby is a privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with offices in Santa Cruz, CA; Geneva, Switzerland; Singapore and Shenzhen, China. For more information about Joby please visit joby.com.
Joby (Corporate Website)
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Thomson Reuters (Corporate Website)
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OpenSky (Corporate Website)
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Support.com (Corporate Website)
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"We are very pleased to add Lonhyn's experience in building successful, scalable enterprise-class software platforms to the Limelight Networks executive team. His proven track record within the areas of Internet security, distributed high-performance computing, and next-generation digital advertising platforms, as well as his focus on building an environment of innovation within software engineering, will help Limelight continue to differentiate our service offerings in a very dynamic market," said Nathan Raciborski, co-founder and chief technology officer, Limelight Networks, Inc.
Mr. Jasinskyj previously was vice president, engineering at VideoEgg, a rich media content and advertising company. Prior to VideoEgg, he led Software Development at IronPort Systems, a leader in email and network security appliances and spam and malware prevention systems that was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007. Mr. Jasinskyj also co-founded Lohika, one of the largest offshore software development companies in Eastern Europe, and was an early participant at Zembu Labs, a distributed database technology company.
In addition, Mr. Jasinskyj has eight years of both management and research and development experience at NASA's Ames Research Center in the massively parallel computing and scientific visualization fields. His earlier background includes architecting large-scale software systems at ATX Inc., a major independent telephone company as well as research in robotics, machine vision, and distributed computing in an academic environment.
Mr. Jasinskyj studied both Computer Science and Engineering, as well as Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lime Light Networks (Corporate Website)
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"Michael and Ian are both high-performance, proven leaders who fit superbly within our values-driven culture," said Lewis. "I am delighted that we have the benefit of their stewardship in finance and technology, two areas critical to us as we build toward our vision. Ian's experience in managing technology strategy and teams in a dynamic Internet media company will be invaluable as we adapt and scale. Similarly, Michael's experience in corporate finance, acquisitions, investor communications and strategic development at rapid-growth companies will be tremendously helpful as we expand globally."
During Mr. Vernon's five years (2000-2006) with global digital-marketing company aQuantive, he helped guide the company to profitability and a multi-billion dollar market cap before the company was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $6 billion. More recently, Mr. Vernon served as CFO of Zumobi, Inc., a mobile phone technology startup. Mr. Vernon also served as CFO within the hotel industry, including NYSE-traded Red Lion Hotels and Park Plaza International. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University.
"I'm excited to have the opportunity to join Big Fish Games," said Vernon. "The energy and strong entrepreneurial spirit I've observed among employees here is really wonderful. This is clearly a terrific global company that is carving out a strong position in a rapidly-growing industry. I'm thrilled to be part of the team that will pave the way for even greater successes in the future."
Mr. Hurlock-Jones served as chief information officer at Fox Interactive Media, where he was responsible for IT operations relating to social media, gaming and image-hosting platforms, including IGN, Fox Sports, Photobucket and DPG. During his tenure at Buy.com, he scaled the infrastructure and technology to help grow the business from $126 million to $692 million, in two years. Mr. Hurlock-Jones holds an advanced diploma in management and economics from Guilford Technical College, Surrey.
"I am thrilled to be joining such a cutting-edge company," said Hurlock-Jones. "I was attracted to Big Fish Games because of the balance of unfettered creativity and thoughtful business leadership. I'm looking forward to being a part of a leadership team that understands and values technology. The camaraderie of the employees, the culture and solid reputation were key factors in my joining Big Fish Games."
About Big Fish Games
Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!, Big Fish Games distributes 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle, Wash., and offices in Vancouver, B.C., and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files, Hidden Expedition, DRAWN, Fairway Solitaire, MY TRIBE and FAUNASPHERE. For more information, visit www.bigfishgames.com.
Big Fish Games (Corporate Website)
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"Since inception, Carlos and the team have built a successful company by developing a compelling product that people are passionate about," said Braff. "I am excited to be working with the Scrapblog team on its goal of making self-expression and multimedia storytelling an easy and fun way for everyone to share the joy and prized moments in their lives with others."
Since joining Glu Mobile in 2003, Braff's understanding of the digital entertainment marketplace and evolving consumer behavior has helped shape the way mobile games are marketed and launched today. In 2008, Braff was named by Digital Media Wire as one of the top 25 digital entertainment executives to watch and in 2007 she was honored as one of the 40 most influential people under 40 in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and in 2006 Braff was named one of the game industry's 100 most influential women by Next Generation.
"As the founder, I could not be more proud of our selection to lead Scrapblog going forward," said Garcia. "We have built a compelling product and we have learned a lot about selling virtual goods inside a creative platform. Now, Jill will take this offering to the next level. I look forward to working with her and supporting her strategy to maximize the potential of Scrapblog."
Prior to joining Glu Mobile, Braff held senior marketing positions at Sega of America and Konami of America. In addition to her gaming experience, Braff also held management positions at consumer web service companies Photopoint Corporation and Ancestry.com. She also held positions at The Learning Company, Nintendo of America and Griffin Bacal. Braff has a B.A. from Colgate University.
"We are thrilled to see the appointment of somebody of Jill's caliber appointed to the role of CEO at Scrapblog. The board has full confidence in Jill's demonstrated leadership ability, and the value of her industry experience is clear," said David Min, Principal of Steamboat Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of The Walt Disney Company and a member of Scrapblog's board of directors.
Scrapblog (Corporate Website)
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The Gilt Groupe (Corporate Website)
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Najafi said Fine has the "perfect background" to help build the Direct Brands business, citing her experience in turning around companies and using the Internet to market to women. "I've dedicated my career developing brands for women," Fine said, adding that direct marketing channel for books, music and movies "is far from maximized." (Figures from PubTrack Consumer show 65% of book club customers are women). Najafi and Fine both see Direct Brands adding more online channels and possibly more products to its existing mix. While Fine said she intends to respect the current business, she noted that the direct marketing channel "is a business prime for reinvention," Fine said. Najafi said he is "more convinced today than when we bought the business" about the opportunity to expand, noting Direct Brands' access to content and 6.5 million customers. Najafi said he will to continue to invest in the company as Fine rolls out her plans in the coming weeks.
Fine joined NBC Universal in 2006 as President, iVillage Properties, where she was responsible for leading one of the world's first and largest online communities for women. With 27 million members globally, the iVillage portfolio of businesses includes iVillage.com, Your Total Health.com, Gardenweb.com, iVillageUK.com and Astrology.com.
Direct Brands, Inc. (Corporate Website)
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MediaMath (Corporate Website)
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LendingTree.com (Corporate Website)
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A veteran finance executive, Grewal brings over 20 years of experience with both fast-growing technology companies and global consumer brands to TheLadders.com. He has previously held senior management and financial positions with VistaPrint Limited, GoldenSource Corporation, eGain Communications and PepsiCo.
"Harpreet will be a critical addition to TheLadders.com as we continue to grow and expand our presence throughout the world," said Marc Cenedella, Founder and CEO of TheLadders.com. "His experience with both growth-oriented technology and Internet companies as well as much larger, global brands will give us great perspective." Most recently, Grewal served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of VistaPrint Limited (NASDAQ: VPRT), a leading online supplier of marketing products and services to small businesses. Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer at GoldenSource Corporation, a global software provider of enterprise data management solutions for financial institutions. Previously, Grewal served as chief financial officer of eGain Communications, a provider of CRM software solutions. Prior to eGain, Grewal held several management roles with PepsiCo and its subsidiaries, including chief financial officer for the North America Fountain Beverage Division.
Grewal received a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
TheLadders.com is the Internet's premier job search platform for $100K+ job seekers. TheLadders.com only posts $100K+ job listings the majority of which are for C-level, vice president, director and manager positions. According to an independent survey of recruiters focusing on $100K+ talent, TheLadders.com ranked #1 for overall satisfaction when compared to all major online competitors.¹ TheLadders.com was recently named Best Employment Website at the 2009 Webby Awards.
TheLadders.com (Corporate Website)
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1Life Healthcare (Corporate Website)
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Umber's patent-pending solution offers the first real-time, automated, and transparent approach for carriers, content providers, and advertisers to extract revenue based on unprecedented visibility and insight into mobile usage. Umber is led by world-class mobile experts and backed by leading venture capitalists.
Umber Systems (Corporate Website)
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"I am excited to be joining the teams at Danoo and IdeaCast at a time when the advertising and media industries are in a period of such great change," said McGuire. "Advertisers are demanding innovative, results-based products centered on their target consumer. The Danoo and IdeaCast products are unique in their ability to reach these consumers at times when they are receptive to offers and brand messages."
Founding CEO Aileen Lee, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will become the chair of the company's board and return to her role at the venture capital firm.
"In the last year, Danoo has built some of the most attractive inventory and advanced technology platforms in one of the fastest growing areas of the media world," said Lee. "Our strong financial position and backing from National CineMedia and Kleiner Perkins put Danoo and IdeaCast in a phenomenal position to accelerate this growth. Garry's passion for the business and his extensive background in building and consolidating media businesses makes him the ideal person to lead the company down this exciting path."
McGuire has 15 years of advertising, marketing and general business experience on the client-side as a chief marketing officer and on the agency-side of the business as president of several domestic and international advertising agencies. Most recently, McGuire was the chairman of Icon Internet Ventures, which owns and publishes websites that aggregate target audiences.
Danoo is one of the fastest growing digital location-based media networks, delivering relevant messages and targeted advertising in major metro areas nationwide. The company delivers Nielsen-measured cable television to health club users and airline travelers through its IdeaCast Captive TV platform. In addition, it provides targeted digital media to urban professionals in coffeehouses, cafes and airports in top markets through its Danoo Digital Media platform.
About Danoo
Danoo is a leading digital location-based media company that delivers relevant media to highly desirable audiences when and where they are deeply engaged. The company provides cable television to health club users and airline travelers nationwide through its IdeaCast Captive TV platform and highly targeted and interactive media to urban professionals in top markets through its Danoo Digital Media platform. Leveraging the power of its content, digital and mobile technologies, Danoo screens enable deep connections between advertisers and their target consumers when and where they are most relevant.
Reach Media Group (Danoo) (Corporate Website)
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Carroll is a 20-year veteran engineer with deep experience developing product and services in areas including search, email processing, e-commerce, personalization, ad targeting, CRM, data warehousing, order management and financial services. Carroll joins Zynga from leading blog search engine Technorati where he was the VP of Engineering. Prior to joining Technorati, Dorion was Director of Engineering at Postini, Vice President of Engineering and General Manager of Neomeo (which was acquired by Postini), Technologist-in-Residence at Softbank Venture Capital, and Senior Director of Engineering at Excite@Home, among other roles. Dorion has a Bachelor of Arts from Pitzer College, with four years Mathematics / Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College, in Claremont, California.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Most recently, Mr. Virzi led the Affiliate Marketing program for Restaurant.com for the last year. Prior to that, Mr. Virzi was the Affiliate Program Manager for TicketsNow.com, where he held that position for the previous three years. Vince has a wealth of experience managing affiliate relationships and has a proven background in SEO and SEM.
Cash4Gold was derived from Albar Precious Metal Refining, which was founded in 2001 with more than 60 years experience in the precious metals business. Since our inception we have grown into one of the largest and most respected precious metal refineries in the United States. We are the only refinery ever to be listed by the prestigious Inc. 500 Magazine for both 2006 and 2007 as one of the fastest growing 500 companies in America. Along with the accomplishment of reaching #129 in Inc. 500 Magazine, we have also achieved the ranking of #57 in Entrepreneur Magazine. Our final success comes from Forbes Magazine being awarded as one of the top companies to watch in 2008.
Cash4Gold (Corporate Website)
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Mike joins Zynga from EA where he most recently served as the General Manager of EA's Los Angeles studio overseeing more than 200 creative and development professionals. Before becoming a studio General Manager, Mike served as VP and Executive Producer for EA's real time strategy games unit. Mike and his team are well known in the games industry for shipping popular games including: Command & Conquer 3 Kane's Wrath, The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II (2.6MM+ units sold), The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king, among others.
Before building a successful career at EA, Mike co-founded Legend Entertainment Company, a southern California based gaming studio that he successfully sold to GT Interactive, which was subsequently acquired by Atari.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Vish joins Zynga from Yandex Labs where he served as CEO for one year. Prior to joining Yandex in 2008, Vish was SVP and General Manager of the Yahoo Search Group. Prior to his role as General Manager, Vish was the Vice President of Yahoo Search Marketing International and International Monetization. Prior to that role, he was Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo's consumer International Search business.
Before joining Yahoo, Vish served as Vice President and General Manager of Inktomi. Under his leadership, the Inktomi Web Search business experienced continued growth, gained significant traction for its paid inclusion programs and made innovative technology enhancements to its search technology. Mr. Makhijani had been with the company since early 1999, and, prior to his role in Web search, he headed-up Inktomi's investor relations program where he built strong relationships with company stakeholders and financial analysts. Before joining Inktomi, Mr. Makhijani worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in both the company's New York Metro and Silicon Valley practices where he helped Fortune 500 clients and leading technology, media and start up companies with financial reporting, mergers, acquisitions, and public offering issuances.
Mr. Makhijani earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Connecticut.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Unisfair (Corporate Website)
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Cash4Gold has appointed Shawn Kernes as their Chief Technology Officer. Cash4Gold, the "As Seen On TV" direct response company, lets consumers send their unwanted jewelry (chains, rings, coins and earrings) in exchange for cash. The company who kicked a PR field goal when they signed Ed McMahon and MC Hammer to star in the 2009 Super Bowl, has grown significantly in the past two years and is headed for unparalleled strategic growth. According to Daversa Partners' Carol Bell who ran the CTO search, "Shawn is drinking from the firehose and loving it. He is an exceptional CTO candidate who brings a tremendous technology skillset and strategic value to the Cash4Gold leadership team".
Shawn Kernes had worked at StubHub when they were a 4-man shop and he helped build StubHub's technology and platform and then scaled the company to be acquired by EBAY. Shawn worked at EBAY for a little over a year before deciding to get back into the start-up world. He joins an ex-EBAY alumni on the Cash4Gold leadership team and is relocating to Florida.
Cash4Gold (Corporate Website)
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Roy joins Zynga from MTV Networks where he served as vice president of premium games and services as well as vice president of consumer products and strategy for MTVN`s Nickelodeon Kids & Family Division. At MTVN, he played a key role in managing and growing several of the world`s largest casual game websites and brands such as AddictingGames.com, Shockwave.com, NickArcade.com and MyNoggin.com. Previously, Sehgal held senior executive roles at venture-backed startups and public companies in the online and digital media industry including Atom Entertainment, InfoSpace and July Systems.
Roy hold a B.S. in Finance and Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Before joining Vibes, Green, a seasoned entrepreneur, served as an integral member of SHOP.COM's executive team since 2005, where he led the sales, merchant operations and business development departments. During his four-year tenure, SHOP.COM posted considerable revenue growth, launched multiple media platforms and significantly expanded their client base. Prior to this position, Green held senior sales and sales leadership roles with Grey, FloNetwork and DoubleClick.
Vibes Media (Corporate Website)
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New York, NY March 26, 2009 - Interactive One, LLC the digital connection for Black America and the digital division of Radio One, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROIAK and ROIA), the largest African-American multimedia company, today announced that Napster CTO David Wolfe will join Interactive One as its Chief Product and Operating Officer. Mr. Wolfe will drive the direction and strategy for Interactive One's network of sites and brands. Additionally, he will be at the forefront of a unique multi-platform play in partnership with Interactive One's parent company, Radio One. Wolfe will manage a staff of approximately 50 people and will report to Interactive One President, Thomas Newman.
"We are excited to bring David on board to enhance our users' experience and to build upon our strong growth and success," said Thomas Newman. "We have a very large and loyal following and we look forward to seeing David apply his proven talents to build upon our innovative products and create new offerings online and across mobile, video and other platforms."
Wolfe is well positioned to bring Black Planet into the next phase of its growth. Given BlackPlanet's history as a place for members to build their networks and fan bases around their passions for music and other interests, Wolfe will be able to leverage his understanding of the entertainment space to create a richer environment with enhanced features. He will also be charged with further developing Interactive One's media sites and advertising platform, and he will lead the conversion of Radio One's 53 station sites to create a holistic and consistent online presence across Radio One's multimedia operations.
"I am thrilled to join the Interactive One team and to further expand the opportunities for African-Americans to enrich their lives with a compelling online experience," said David Wolfe. "BlackPlanet and its sister sites have drawn an incredible number of users and we intend on continuing the tradition of creating innovative web products that add both value to existing users and strongly attract new users."
At Napster, Wolfe served as the Chief Technology Officer and as a Senior Vice President. Prior to Napster, Wolfe served as Reunion.com's President of Product & Technology for five years, during which he created a definitive product roadmap that positively engaged his team and helped drive the company from $4 million to over $50 million in revenues.
Many of the responsibilities that fall under this new position were previously handled by Ben Sun, the founder of Community Connect, the parent company of BlackPlanet and other niche social networking sites. Sun remains an important member of the Interactive One team, and as such, he will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the Company.
About Interactive One
Interactive One has over 15 million members and reaches over 10 million monthly Black Americans each month. With approximately 8 billion annual page views on its suite of sites, the Company has the definitive social network for Black America, Blackplanet, as well as a number of leading content sites. These sites include: NewsOne (www.NewsOne.com), which provides up to the minute, comprehensive coverage of newsworthy events relevant to African Americans across the country and the world through syndicated news, original news reports, local content and opinion blogs from some of the most provocative minds in Black America.; TheUrbanDaily (www.TheUrbanDaily.com), which serves as the eyes and ears for African-Americans looking for a one-stop, comprehensive destination for entertainment news, information, gossip and opinion and original celebrity interviews; HelloBeautiful (www.HelloBeautiful.com), which celebrates the lives and style of African-American women with a dynamic daily mix of fashion, beauty, entertainment and relationship content and; Elev8 (www.Elev8.com) which a personal empowerment website dedicated to uplifting and enriching the lives of African-Americans by offering services, tools, information and community.
Interactive One was launched by Radio One in last year to complement Radio One's existing portfolio of media companies targeting the African-American community. Since its launch, Interactive One has quickly become the #1 online platform for the African American community. Interactive One is powered by the mission to create an online community that engages and positively impacts the lives of African Americans.
About Radio One
Radio One, Inc. (www.radio-one.com) is one of the nation's largest radio broadcasting companies and the largest radio broadcasting company that primarily targets African-American and urban listeners. Radio One owns and/or operates 52 radio stations located in 16 urban markets in the United States. Radio One also owns Magazine One, which publishes Giant Magazine (www.giantmag.com), interests in TV One (www.tvoneonline.com), a cable/satellite network programming primarily to African-Americans, Reach Media (www.blackamericaweb.com), owner of the Tom Joyner Morning Show and other businesses associated with Tom Joyner, and Interactive One. The company is led by Chairperson and Founder Catherine L. Hughes, and her son, Alfred Liggins, III, who is Chief Executive Officer and President.
Interactive One (Corporate Website)
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"I am very excited to have an executive of Tim's caliber join our team. Tim's marketing expertise, broad operational acumen and deep experience around the customer, make him uniquely qualified to lead us into the next phase of growth," said Roy Dunbar, CEO of Network Solutions. "Under Tim's leadership we will serve and delight a growing number of small businesses with best in class solutions for success on the internet. Tim's responsibilities will include Marketing, Product, Sales, and Customer Support."
"I am most impressed with Roy's vision for Network Solutions which is to be first in mind for new and existing small business owners seeking to get online as well as those looking to optimize and expand their online effectiveness," said Tim Kelly. "Most importantly, I see great opportunity for Network Solutions to become synonymous with small business success through initiatives like the ‘Small Business Success Index.'"
During a career with Sprint Corporation and Sprint/Nextel Corporation that spanned twelve years, Mr. Kelly made a number of important contributions to the company's success. In his most recent role as CMO, Mr. Kelly, led all of the organization's Marketing and Product initiatives. Prior to this role, he held the top post at several Sprint/Nextel Corporation and Sprint Corporation business units as President of Sprint Consumer Solutions President Sprint Business, President Sprint Mass Markets and President Customer Management. In his various executive roles at Sprint, Mr. Kelly was responsible for building the Sprint brand, defining and driving its customer acquisition and retention strategy, optimizing customer service and developing Sprint's product roadmap among other things.
His career at Sprint was interrupted in 1999, by a stint as President of Tickets.com, where he led the organization's domestic and international operations. Under Mr. Kelly's leadership, the company successfully executed a number of acquisitions and deployed a new business model which drove the company from a bricks and mortar ticketing software and distribution focus to an Internet based product and distribution strategy. His accomplishments included implementing new distribution and content partnerships with AOL Digital Cities, Excite, Cox Interactive Media, Yahoo, MP3, etc. He further refined the brand through innovative ticketing and sponsorship partnerships with top selling artists.
Mr. Kelly began his career in 1985 with Lever Brothers Household Products Division in New York. He made the transition into the advertising field where he managed national accounts for several top brands including Burger King, Arm and Hammer, Visine, Arm and Hammer Dental, Crest and Scope.
Mr. Kelly received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the University of Florida and his Master of Business Administration, Graduate Management Program, from Nova Southeast University.
About Network Solutions, LLC:
Network Solutions is focused on helping small businesses start and market their companies on the Internet by offering a full range of Web-based services that include: hosting, Web site design, ecommerce solutions, online security, search engine marketing and domain name registration services. Drawing on 30 years of experience, we make it simple and affordable for our customers to build and manage an online presence. Our customers receive the best customer service in the industry, which has been recognized by J.D. Power and Associates® Certified Call Center program for providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" for the last four consecutive years. Customers around the globe trust us to manage more than 7 million domains, over 2 million e-mailboxes, and hundreds of thousands of Web sites. We make it easy for small businesses to get online so they can have more time to do what they do best - run their companies. For more information about Network Solutions visit www.about.networksolutions.com.
Network Solutions (Corporate Website)
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Former Disney Online VP and Co-Creator of Pirates of the Caribbean Online and ToonTown Online Heads Up Product Development
Boston, MA, March 17, 2009
Hangout Industries (www.hangout.net) today announced the appointment of Mike Goslin as Vice President Product Development. Goslin joins Hangout from Disney Online where he most recently served as vice president, virtual world design and development. At Hangout, Goslin will lead design, development and operations of the company's online entertainment product. Goslin will report to CEO Pano Anthos.
"I recognized the opportunity at Hangout to build a new form of online entertainment, one that combines the viral power of existing social networks with the rich immersion of online games and virtual worlds," said Mike Goslin. "Hangout represents a new level in brand-driven entertainment and I am thrilled to contribute to and deliver on that vision."
One of the most influential and successful technologists in the online games and virtual worlds industries, Goslin has more than 12 years of experience bringing high-profile, worldwide brands and franchises to life online and in theme parks. Goslin comes to Hangout from The Walt Disney Company where he was the driving force behind the development of online virtual worlds, games and communities for the company, including top-selling Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Toontown Online. As Disney's vice president virtual world design and development, he also led strategy and product development for community and social networking applications.
Hangout has been built from the ground up to be a great experience for non-technical users. Hangout runs on both PCs and Macs, supports all major operating systems and doesn't require special graphics cards. Users can not only customize their room but they can even build and modify objects in their rooms including completely altering the shape and style of furniture, and many other objects in a Hangout room. Hangout leverages cross platform, browser-based and Web 2.0 technologies that plug-in to larger social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc) and Web content so that users never have to leave their profile pages to interact in their Hangout rooms.
"The progression of Hangout to a true entertainment experience from a technology platform is about to be realized," said Pano Anthos, CEO, Hangout Industries. "Mike is one of the most respected, effective and proven forces in the virtual worlds and games space. His combined talents as a natural story-teller, visionary and technologist make him the perfect candidate to bring Hangout to the forefront in the evolution of casual online entertainment."
During his tenure at Disney, Goslin was also vice president of Disney's VR Studio where he managed the company's virtual reality division and oversaw a highly talented team of 50+ programmers, artists and animators. He joined in 1996 and was instrumental in building the VR Studio into a leading theme park development studio and later reinventing the group as a studio for the design, development and operation of massively multiplayer online games.
Goslin's products are recognized worldwide and have received numerous awards and accolades including the 2005 WiredKids Safe Gaming Award, 2005 Webby Awards "Webby Worthy Selection", 2004 Game Industry News Family Game of the Year, 2003 Computer Gaming World MMORPG of the Year, 2003 Webby Awards People's Voice Award, The New York Times Top 10 Games of the Year 2003, and 2002 Outstanding Attraction from the Themed Entertainment Association.
About Hangout Industries
Based in Boston, MA and founded in 2007, Hangout Industries is developing Hangout.net, the world's first casual and immersive 3D social networking experience that leverages cross-platform, browser-based and Web 2.0 technologies while being seamlessly integrated into Facebook and MySpace. Allowing teens and young adults to create and customize their own virtual rooms featuring real brand-name products, Hangout.net provides a safe, secure, immersive and entertaining online environment for friends to hang out and have fun together. Hangout won "Best Use of Technology" from the MITX Interactive 2008 Annual Awards and was a 2008 TechCrunch50 finalist. Hangout is backed by funding from digital media-savvy venture capital firms Highland Capital Partners and Polaris Ventures. For more information, visit www.hangout.net.
Hangout Industries (Corporate Website)
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Most recently, Knight led the internal communications business for Ebay for the last two years. Prior to that, Knight was the VP of International Marketing for EBay, where he held that position for the previous seven years. Knight brings a wealth of branding experience to his most recent role at Cash 4 Gold having spent time at PepsiCo International as the Vice President of International Marketing for Gatorade as well as Quaker Oats. Early in his career Knight held various senior management roles at Frito-Lay where he was based in Sydney, Australia.
Cash4Gold was derived from Albar Precious Metal Refining, which was founded in 2001 with more than 60 years experience in the precious metals business. Since our inception we have grown into one of the largest and most respected precious metal refineries in the United States. We are the only refinery ever to be listed by the prestigious Inc. 500 Magazine for both 2006 and 2007 as one of the fastest growing 500 companies in America. Along with the accomplishment of reaching #129 in Inc. 500 Magazine, we have also achieved the ranking of #57 in Entrepreneur Magazine. Our final success comes from Forbes Magazine being awarded as one of the top companies to watch in 2008.
Cash4Gold (Corporate Website)
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Brandon Barber joins Zynga from Electronic Arts where he was the Senior Director of Global Online Marketing. Prior he was the Director of Entertainment Development and Programming at Electronic Arts, managing EA's branded entertainment activities across all TV, Web and digital mediums. Originally brought in to help establish EA's music marketing group, Barber had worked to broaden EA's entertainment footprint by working with an array of media and production partners on a broad range entertainment products based on EA franchises, such as the ESPN original series Madden Nation, NBA LIVE Bring It Home on ESPN and dozens of product-focused television shows and integrations.
Before his work at EA, Barber was the fifth employee at the original Napster, taking the service from 100k users to 100mm during his tenure and managing all aspects of the product experience and brand. Prior to that, he was a product manager and editorial contributor at Rollingstone.com and other Tunes.com properties. Barber holds a bachelor's degree from Marquette University and credentials in creative advertising from Northwestern University. Barber also co-authored a how-to manual on digital music called Sam's Teach Yourself E-Music Today, which was published by Macmillan USA in 2000.
Zynga (Corporate Website)
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Bigfoot Networks (Corporate Website)
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Jon joins GamerDNA from Nokia. Nokia acquired his former company Enpocket, a start-up company focused on mobile marketing, in October of 2007 . Jon's role at Nokia was Head of Eastern US Sales for the Nokia Interactive Advertising business unit. In his role he was responsible for building a sales team and managing Eastern US revenue in the emerging mobile advertising space.
Prior to Joining Enpocket in early 2005 Jon was at eBay and helped launch eBay's New York office. At eBay Jon was a Business Development manager in the Strategic Partnerships group overseeing relationships with significant eBay business partners and advertisers. Previous to that, he was at Fairmarket starting in early 1999 (acquired by eBay in 2003). FairMarket was a startup that created a commerce and promotional auction platform that Jon licensed to brand-name companies and agencies. During his tenure at Fairmarket, Jon experienced transition from early-stage startup, to a NASDAQ IPO, to an acquisition by eBay.
Jon holds a BA from Union College where he was a member of the varsity football for three years.
GamerDNA (Corporate Website)
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Hangout Industries (Corporate Website)
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enVIO networks, funded in 2006 by VCs Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture partners, is focused on integrating social media, mobile and social networks to solve two key problems in mobile content - monetization and discovery.
Manish brings significant media and mobile industry experience from his recent role as CEO of Vantrix, and over 16 years at ESPN. This included a stint as SVP and GM of ESPN Mobile, which included content licensing and short-lived MVNO (Mobile ESPN) initiatives. More recently, he was CEO at Vantrix. All of this will be particularly crucial for a young company that has over $17 million in funding (via two rounds) and recently launched its platform. To date, the company has scored just a couple of operator deals, including Verizon Wireless and Bharti-Airtel, the latter covered in mediabistro's MobileMarketingToday "Bharti-Airtel Says Hello Tunes To envIO" post.
The idea of integrating social media, mobile and social networks makes sense from a discovery perspective, however, for me it will be about how the company can help on the monetization front, including ad-support.
enVIO (Corporate Website)
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"We're thrilled to bring these three outstanding leaders to the OnForce team," said CEO Peter Cannone. "OnForce has experienced enormous gains in the past year, despite these economic times. We now have nearly 14,000 professional service technicians across the US and Canada who have completed nearly 800,000 work orders on behalf of major VARs, staffing firms and solutions providers that use OnForce as their marketplace. By adding these three leaders, we are going to bring the OnForce message to even larger audiences and establish the infrastructure for further growth acceleration."
Cannone added, "We set out to broaden and deepen our leadership team in order to support our growth, and Maria, Ed and George each have the expertise to help lead OnForce as we help more buyers and providers of on-site services recognize and leverage the power of OnForce's marketplace."
Battaglia brings more than 15 years of experience in strategic branding, marketing and corporate communications for global technology and consumer brands. Battaglia joins OnForce from Weplay.com, where she headed marketing for the youth sports social networking company. She previously served as vice president of brand integration and partnerships at Monster.com and worked at NBC as a corporate vice president of communications and public affairs. Previously, Battaglia was in IBM's Internet Division and ran strategic communications for IBM's 1996 Atlanta Olympics Global Sponsorship.
McGovern has more than 20 years of sales experience. McGovern will lead OnForce's sales and business development and have overall responsibility for the company's revenue goals. He was most recently at EMC in their enterprise division, where he was responsible for sales groups delivering storage, software and professional services solutions. McGovern has also led sales organizations for Danka Office Imaging, Advent Software, Micro Warehouse and Xerox Corporation.
D'Errico has more than 15 years of alliance management, marketing and operations experience. He will oversee OnForce's training, community management and market support efforts. He served most recently as senior director of product management, purchasing & supply chain operations for PC Connection. D'Errico has also served as national sales manager of AirTouch Wireless.
About OnForce
OnForce is the leading marketplace for contract information technology (IT) and consumer electronics (CE) service professionals. The company enables VARs, service organizations and staffing companies to find skilled professionals in virtually every zip code in the US and Canada. These IT service firms turn to OnForce to expand their geographic and skill set coverage without adding overhead or upfront expenses. OnForce enables increased buyer control and reduced management costs, while
improving service levels and offering faster response times than traditional methods of
finding contract technicians.
Since its inception, the OnForce marketplace has been used to successfully complete more than 800,000 work orders. The OnForce community is made up of 5,000+ IT service buyers and nearly 14,000 IT service technicians who work in a number of technology categories, including computers, printers, networking, VoIP, point of sale and consumer electronics. For more information, visit www.onforce.com.
OnForce (Corporate Website)
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Yovanno spent nine years at Internet advertising network giant ValueClick, where he ended his tenure as chief operating officer of U.S. Media. He oversaw the company's display advertising, lead generation, and comparsion shopping business units. During the time he was there, ValueClick vetted more than 300 companies and bought 14. Before he joined ValueClick, Yovanno was a Navy lieutenant and chief information officer for a naval hospital.
Gigya's Wildfire platform lets more than 1,000 widget developers post and share their creations with a broader audience. And Gigya's Socialize platform provides any site with the tools it needs to incorporate social networking features, such as a newsfeed that tracks friend activity. Brands such as Disney and Kimberly-Clarky are using Gigya to reach consumers with branded widgets.
Gigya (Corporate Website)
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San Francisco, CA, October 21, 2008 - Kontera, the leading developer of In-Text Advertising & Information Solutions for web publishers and advertisers, announced today that Mr. Hal Muchnick has joined the company as President.
Hal joins Kontera after spending more than 20 years in senior management, operations and marketing positions at market leaders in the interactive digital advertising and marketing services industries.
In his most recent position, Hal served as Executive Vice President / General Manager at Operative, a global advertising resource management (ARM) platform provider, where he oversaw global sales and professional and client services in addition to his executive responsibilities as part of the Company's management team and Board of Directors.
Previously, Hal served as Vice President, Global Sales and Account Management for DoubleClick, where he was responsible for revenue and customer growth in the web publisher, interactive agency, and Rich Media segments. Prior to DoubleClick, Hal was Chief Operating Officer of LowerMyBills.com, where he was responsible for technology, product, sales and marketing. Hal spent over 10 years at Experian, which he helped evolve from a TRW operating unit into a stand-alone marketing information services company.
"Kontera is offering consumers, publishers and online marketers a range of innovative technology-enabled, user-focused In-Text media solutions. The recently launched Hybrid, which combines relevant consumer content and advertising, is an example of how Kontera delivers a great user experience for consumers, and high performing ad units for publishers and advertisers," (http://www.kontera.com/kontera-hybrid/) said Hal Muchnick, Kontera's newly appointed President. "This is an exciting time to join the company's dynamic management team and to serve as President of Kontera."
Kontera (Corporate Website)
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A digital media industry veteran, as well as one of the most recognized executives in the web media space; Mr. Day is one of the co-founders and was CEO of About.com. Most recently he served as Chief Media Officer of the global search engine marketing firm Marchex (NSDQ: MCHX). Mr. Day's digital media experience ranges back to his role as CEO of MeMedia, (formerly WhenU) the behavioral targeting firm and as a senior member of the Prodigy team, responsible for building many of the online services we find common today.
"Our Board of Directors, co-founder and CTO Steven Lee, and I have spent a lot of time interviewing candidates and meeting specifically with Bill during this process. His perceptiveness and deep knowledge of our ecosystem combined with his proven leadership abilities and experience make him a natural choice as CEO." said Mr. Lau. "People may not be aware that while at About.com, Bill actually started another company called Sprinks – an extremely hi-performing ad network that was eventually acquired by Google. This is testament to not just his energy but also to his understanding and breadth of experience in our industry. We're extremely pleased to name him CEO of ScanScout."
"ScanScout's technology is the draw here, not just for what they alone can do for advertisers and publishers today, but for how they have already thought ahead to the future and where targeting and video delivery are going across multiple platforms," said Mr. Day. "I see the kind of forward thinking at ScanScout that enabled About.com and Marchex to succeed. In every case, the value resides in how the company's technology solves problems now and anticipates them in the future. At the same time, our network is extremely well-positioned to continue its growth and to scale our business well beyond the more than 200M streams we're currently delivering every month."
About ScanScout
ScanScout is the market-leading online video advertising network. The company partners with major advertisers and publishers to maximize video advertising opportunities. ScanScout creates a new significant revenue stream for publishers, helping them to extract the most value out of their video content and monetize it in a user-friendly manner. For advertisers, ScanScout provides the ability to target, optimize and deliver ad messages to the right content and audience, maximizing user engagement. ScanScout is one of the largest online video networks on the web, serving hundreds of millions of ad impressions every month. The company is headquartered in Boston with offices in New York and Los Angeles. For more information, please visit: www.scanscout.com.
ScanScout (Corporate Website)
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"Mike is an exceptional match for Operative. He shares our conviction that customer satisfaction is critical to long-term success," says Mike Leo, CEO and president of Operative. "His prior experience as a leader in both digital advertising sales and enterprise software in both U.S. and international markets will help our company continue its tremendous rate of customer acquisition and ongoing leadership. We are thrilled to have him as part of the executive team."
Hard joins Operative from Microsoft where he spent over 17 years working in various sales leadership roles. Most recently, he served as vice president of U.S. digital advertising sales, charged with driving online media sales for Microsoft's digital properties and partnerships, and spearheading the transformation of its digital sales model. Prior to this position, Hard led several of Microsoft's most dynamic software sales organizations, founding the company's first vertical sales and services organization in financial services and running international sales subsidiaries in the Philippines and Latin America.
"Advertising's aggressive transition from traditional to digital is undeniable, and as a result, publishers need to streamline business processes across their digital properties," said Hard. "I'm thrilled about joining Operative and working with a world-class executive team. Operative's reputation as the industry's leading provider of ad management technology and services with a history of meeting the challenging needs of publishers now and in the future solidified my decision to help lead the company's customer and growth initiatives."
Operative recently announced partnerships with NBCU and National Public Media and appointed Vedant Sampath, a former Oracle software expert, as chief technology officer. These customer-wins and executive appointments represent Operative's noteworthy reputation in the digital ad space and success in helping the world's top publishers automate their digital ad management and operations business.
Operative (Corporate Website)
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Kenshoo (Corporate Website)
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Before joining Pure Digital, Stewart spent two years as the President of Philips Consumer Electronics, North America, the Atlanta-based company serving the North American consumer electronics market for the $34.9 billion global electronics leader, Philips Electronics. Mr. Muller joined Philips in June of 2006, bringing 17 years of technology sector experience in strategic marketing, sales and general management in the retail and business-to-business sectors.
Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Muller spent nine years with Olympus America's Consumer Products Group, most recently as Executive Vice President of Olympus Imaging America. In his various assignments within Olympus, he developed a deep knowledge of national consumer electronics retailers and how to drive dramatic growth in a competitive industry. Mr. Muller also previously held managerial positions within Apple Computer for eight years, leaving the company with the title of National Sales Manager, U.S. Retail. During his years at Apple, Mr. Muller learned the importance of design and how to humanize technology for the consumer.
Pure Digital is based in San Francisco and backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Steamboat Ventures.
Pure Digital Technologies (Corporate Website)
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"We are extremely pleased that Chris Marrow is joining the Aggregate Knowledge executive leadership team. Chris has a 15-year proven track record of driving advertising growth and revenue and has deep experience in ad targeting and sales," said Paul Martino, Aggregate Knowledge CEO and founder. "Chris will drive our momentum with Discovery Ads and provide our customers with an entirely new way to get their brand discovered by new audiences."
Prior to joining Aggregate Knowledge, Marrow was vice president of western ad sales for TACODA, Inc., which was acquired by AOL in July 2007. At TACODA, Marrow was a key executive that set the standard for behavioral targeting advertising. While at TACODA, Marrow led the western US sales team and helped double sales revenue for three consecutive years. He also served a strategic role in marketing, product management and business development. Prior to TACODA, Marrow served in a business development leadership role at eBay. He also led sales for AltaVista, Digital Envoy, Respond.com, Flycast, and Engage Technologies. Marrow also served in marketing and sales for Ziff Davis Inc. and Softbank Interactive. Marrow holds a BA in business administration from the University of California.
"I am excited to join Aggregate Knowledge and drive growth and revenue with their innovative Discovery Ad offers," said Marrow. "Pique™ Discovery Ads fill a huge gap for advertisers who are looking to mix the best of brand and direct response advertising and I look forward to delivering this offer to the world's biggest brands and advertisers."
Aggregate Knowledge (Corporate Website)
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TheLadders.com (Corporate Website)
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New Management Structure Aimed at Delivering and Innovating Products and Services for Distribution to Partners, and to Web at Large
Announces Expansion of Local Media Network and Customer Solutions Team Saint Paul, MN and New York, NY - February 26, 2008 - Internet Broadcasting, a leader in local internet audience aggregation and advertising, announced today that it has appointed online veterans, Jeff Kimball, as Chief Operating Officer, and Tony Dunaif, as GM/Local Media Network, to its Management team.
Tony Dunaif as GM of Local Media Networks
Media and business development executive Tony Dunaif joins IB as GM of the newly created Local Media Network, and will be responsible for building and growing major external relationships across the broadcast stations and groups, CNN and expanding to develop new distribution partnerships. Additionally, Tony will work with the Customer Solutions team in their delivery of solutions to partners and advertisers. Tony will be based out of New York, NY, reporting directly to David Lebow.
Most recently, Tony was Vice President, Content Partnerships and International Development at Brightcove - the leading Internet TV platform that enables content owners to create, publish and monetize broadband channels. In this capacity, he was responsible for closing business agreements with leading media companies, both domestically and abroad. Prior to Brightcove, Tony held several senior posts throughout his 12 year tenure at MTV Networks. As Senior Vice President of Business Development, he successfully created new businesses, revenue streams and strategic plans that supported and enhanced the MTV brand. He also played a key role in developing Broadband, Gaming, Mobile, Satellite Radio, Hispanic Media, Video on Demand, and HDTV initiatives.
"IB is undergoing a fundamental transformation, and we're organizing our management team around aggressive goals for the Company and our customers. I'm delighted to have Jeff Kimball and Tony Dunaif join our pursuit of making local work on the Internet," said David Lebow, President and CEO of Internet Broadcasting. "We are committed to innovating for the next era of the Internet by investing in our relationships with publishers, advertisers and web consumers. We're equally committed to becoming more relevant for our TV partners by providing tools and services at scale that will help them achieve local Internet ubiquity. With the addition of Jeff and Tony to our team, we have the skills and expertise to make our vision a reality."
Internet Broadcasting (Corporate Website)
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Grayson, a principal at Viximo backer North Bridge Venture Partners, had served as CEO since the company replaced former CEO Rob Frasca in April. She will retain a board seat at the company, Strang said.
Strang, a New Hampshire native, was at IGN for three years starting in 2005, while the company, known for its online reviews of new video games, added digital game distribution. He said online publishers of all descriptions are learning from the gaming industry's embrace of digital-goods commerce.
Founded in 2007 by Brian Balfour and Sean Lindsay, Viximo provides white-label virtual goods selling software for media publishers, including micro-payments, virtual currency, analytics and virtual-goods content.
"It's the opportunity for web publishers to build a direct consumer revenue stream," Strang said. "Large social networks that aren't in that business yet, but they have large audiences that are highly interactive. That's a perfect use case. They're looking for ways to really get into this exploding market."
Viximo reports customers of its white-label software product include 24 web publishers, reaching an aggregate usership of 60 million each month. The company has also developed virtual goods for sale on its network for more than 40 brands, it reports.
Immediately prior to joining Viximo, Strang was briefly president and co-founder of the San Francisco-based ad network startup 5to1.com. He said the company's founders, including former AOL executive Michael Barrett, never intended to take full-time roles with 5to1. Barrett is now CEO of online ad optimizer AdMeld. He said he and Barrett will retain advisory roles with 5to1. Barrett still holds the chairman's seat on 5to1's board, according to the company's website.
Before IGN, Strang was vice president and publisher at Ziff Davis Media for eight years.
Viximo (Corporate Website)
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Former CEO of Organic to lead company into next phase of its evolution
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., April 22, 2008 - Linden Lab®, the developer of the 3D virtual world Second Life®, today announced that its board of directors has named Mark Kingdon to serve as chief executive officer. In his new role, Kingdon will lead the day-to-day management and operations of the company, working closely alongside Linden Lab founder, former CEO and current chairman Philip Rosedale.
Since 2001, prior to joining Linden Lab, Kingdon served as chief executive officer of Organic Inc., a leading digital communications agency, establishing its reputation as a groundbreaking, innovative provider of user-centered design. Prior to Organic, Kingdon worked with idealab!, providing strategic guidance and operational support to emerging companies. Before that, Kingdon was a partner with the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (PwC), where he held a variety of senior roles throughout his twelve-year tenure. He received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BA in Economics from UCLA.
"Our search for the leader of Linden Lab demanded both tremendous business skills and a deep understanding and passion for Second Life and where it is going. Mark is the perfect choice," said Philip Rosedale, founder and chairman of the board, Linden Lab. "His management style, unwavering leadership in the face of great challenges, and approach to team-building exactly matches Linden's needs. He is a passionate believer in the potential of virtual worlds to change the world, and I look forward to working by his side while we watch it happen."
"We wanted to find someone with an exceptional blend of strategic, analytic, business and leadership skills, but also with endless creativity and a passion for the company and growing the virtual worlds category," said Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation and a Linden Lab board member. "Mark has demonstrated all of these attributes throughout his career, particularly at Organic, which, like Linden Lab, puts an incredible emphasis on overall user experience and design."
"Joining Linden Lab at this moment in its evolution, with so much growth and opportunity on the horizon, is incredibly exciting and I look forward to working with Philip and the Linden Lab team to help Second Life realize its limitless potential," said Mark Kingdon, Chief Executive Officer, Linden Lab. "To me, the CEO role at Linden Lab combines perfectly my passions for art and design, business and technology. Until Second Life, we experienced the digital world passively in two dimensions. By enabling users to create a rich and immersive virtual world, Second Life is transforming the way we connect, collaborate, learn and transact online. I am thrilled to be part of this epic transformation."
LindenLab/SecondLife (Corporate Website)
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Mr. Taptich joins Songbird with more than 15 years experience in the digital media and entertainment industry spanning multiple disciplines including finance, general management, marketing and business development. Taptich most recently served as VP Business Development at BITTORRENT INC., the world's leading peer-assisted content delivery and platform company. Prior to BITTORRENT, Taptich spent 2 years as Director Online Business Development and Marketing at Electronic Arts where he was instrumental in developing key online partnerships with companies including Google, Yahoo, and Fox.
Songbird is based in San Francisco and backed by Sequoia Capital and Atlas Ventures.
Songbird (Corporate Website)
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New Management Structure Aimed at Delivering and Innovating Products and Services for Distribution to Partners, and to Web at Large
Announces Expansion of Local Media Network and Customer Solutions Team Saint Paul, MN and New York, NY - February 26, 2008 - Internet Broadcasting, a leader in local internet audience aggregation and advertising, announced today that it has appointed online veterans, Jeff Kimball, as Chief Operating Officer, and Tony Dunaif, as GM/Local Media Network, to its Management team.
Jeff Kimball as Chief Operating Officer
Internet and technology industry executive Jeff Kimball brings to IB more than twenty years of experience building, growing and operating successful Internet and start-up companies. With specific experience running Product Marketing, Program Management, Design, Operations, Technology and QA teams, Jeff will be responsible for all aspects of customer solutions and product delivery. In this capacity, Jeff will approach the objective of winning in local by developing innovative tools, web products and services that empower publishers to create large web audiences and to serve advertisers at scale. Jeff will be based out of St. Paul, MN and will report directly to David Lebow, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer.
Most recently, Jeff was Senior Vice President of Product Development at Vive Computing (formerly NHC Systems, Inc.) where he was responsible for delivering complete solutions - product and technology - to help Vive fundamentally alter the way consumers and small businesses purchased, used and received support for computers. Prior to Vive, Jeff spent 11 years at AOL where he held a numerous positions developing at-scale customer, advertiser, and publishing solutions. At AOL Jeff led the business and product planning for more than 10 major releases of the AOL service; he was responsible for the product direction and delivery for the most successful consumer facing products AOL ever produced (including AOL.com, e-mail, instant messaging, search, parental controls). In addition to his work domestically, Jeff also led the unified European product and technology strategy - managing teams in London, Hamburg, Paris, Dublin, Luxembourg, California and Virginia.
Internet Broadcasting (Corporate Website)
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Founded in 2005, Yodle makes buying online ads simple and easy for small businesses and offers a high-performing, affordable alternative to the outdated Yellow Pages, previously the standard for small business advertising.
"Yodle's strong position in this rapidly growing industry requires an experienced, entrepreneurial and aggressive leader for our sales group. We have found that person in Mike, and he will play a key role in driving continued dramatic growth for Yodle," said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham.
At Yahoo! HotJobs, DeLuca was responsible for leading Direct and Channel Sales for North America, and grew the organization's year-over-year Search and Display media revenue exponentially over the past several years. Prior to his time at Yahoo!, DeLuca led sales teams at EMC, StorageApps and Hewlett Packard. He was part of a 5-member executive team that sold StorageApps to HP in 2001.
"I am excited to join Yodle at such a key point in the evolution of the company. With a great product and even stronger sales organization, Yodle has the momentum to complete its drive to industry leadership," said DeLuca.
Yodle's unique approach to simplifying online advertising for local businesses has driven 400% growth in the fourth quarter 2007 vs. fourth quarter 2006. The company currently has hundreds of employees helping thousands of customers across the United States.
About Yodle, Inc.
Yodle provides local businesses with a simple and affordable way to get new customers and phone calls using online advertising. Yodle, a company funded by Bessemer Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is transforming local online advertising by connecting local business owners with consumers in a simple, measurable and relevant way. Yodle has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local businesses that are transitioning their marketing budgets online. Yodle is headquartered in New York, NY with a presence in 18 major cities across the United States and has hundreds of employees helping thousands of customers. To find out more about Yodle, go to http://www.yodle.com
Yodle (Corporate Website)
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Mr. Mitchell said, "The Board of Directors and I are very pleased that Roy is joining Network Solutions to lead our long-term growth. It was clear to us that bringing an executive of Roy's talent and experience to Network Solutions at a time when our business is strong and we are successfully executing our growth strategies will help propel Network Solutions on its growth trajectory. He has proven leadership experience and expertise in technology and sales. I look forward to this new chapter in the history of our Company, and to working with Roy and the Board to build on our significant accomplishments."
Mr. Dunbar said, "I am very excited to join Network Solutions. Under Champ's leadership, the Company has had tremendous success and positioned itself to continue to be a leader in helping small businesses establish and market their companies online. I am looking forward to working with Champ and the Company's talented management team to build on this strong franchise and capture the very attractive growth opportunities we see ahead for Network Solutions."
Mr. Dunbar, 46, joined MasterCard Incorporated in September 2004. As President of Global Technology and Operations, he was a member of the Executive Committee reporting to the Chief Executive Officer. He led a significant number of employees driving technology that processed approximately 16 billion transactions, clearing $2 trillion per year and representing 73% of the company's annual revenue in 2006.
Previously, Mr. Dunbar was with Eli Lilly and Company for 14 years, serving as President, Intercontinental Region, and as Chief Information Officer. As Lilly's President, Intercontinental Region, he was responsible for all operations in the world's fastest growing economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Mr. Dunbar had served as Lilly's Vice President and Chief Information Officer from 1999 to 2003, and is credited with having led Lilly to rank as the most innovative user of technology in the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Dunbar currently serves as a director of EDS Corporation and as a director of Humana Inc. He is also a member of the board of the Executive Leadership Council Foundation, an organization supporting the development of African American corporate leaders.
Network Solutions (Corporate Website)
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Mr. Weingartner joins RED 5 with over 20 years experience in software development and engineering. Weingartner most recently served as VP Server Technology at Oracle where he led the worldwide engineering efforts for the SOA Suite product set. Prior to Oracle, Weingartner served as VP Engineering at Talking Blocks through it's acquisition by HP, where he stayed on to lead the worldwide R&D Enablement team, a 500+ person organization. Before this, Weingartner spent 3 years as VP Engineering at Siebel systems, a CRM solutions leader acquired by Oracle in 2005.
RED 5 STUDIOS is based in Aliso Viejo, CA., and backed by Benchmark Capital and Sierra Ventures.
Red 5 Studios (Corporate Website)
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CCP Games (Corporate Website)
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"Mark's background in building successful online consumer media businesses makes him the ideal person to lead VUDU as we set out to revolutionize the home viewing experience," said Alain Rossman, VUDU Chairman and co-founder. "I'm confident that Mark's insight and drive will propel VUDU to living rooms around the country, and I'm very excited to have him join our team."
Jung comes to VUDU with 20 years of leadership in the technology industry with the last several years deep in the convergence of media and technology. He was the co-founder and CEO of IGN Entertainment, a leading Internet media and services company for video gaming and other forms of digital entertainment. Founded in 1999, Mark led IGN from a small start-up to an entertainment powerhouse with millions of users and a strong subscription business. In October 2005, Mark led IGN's sale to News Corp., the parent company of Fox Interactive Media.
Subsequent to the acquisition, Jung served as Chief Operating Officer of Fox Interactive Media where he was responsible for all of its Internet properties including MySpace, IGN Entertainment, FoxSports.com, AmericanIdol.com, and Scout Media.
Jung was also co-founder and CEO of Worldtalk Corporation, an Internet security company that he took public in 1996 and that has since merged with Tumbleweed Communications. "I'm very excited to be given the opportunity play a key role in delivering the highest quality digital entertainment directly to the living room," said Mark Jung. "VUDU's cutting edge innovation and growth trajectory in the video-on-demand category make it well positioned to win in this marketplace. I'm looking forward to helping accelerate the company's success." Jung holds an MBA from Stanford Business School and a B.S. from Princeton University.
Vudu (Corporate Website)
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Lime Light Networks (Corporate Website)
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Lab256 (Corporate Website)
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Popular Media (Corporate Website)
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Data Robotics (Corporate Website)
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EZPrints (Corporate Website)
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Reuters (Corporate Website)
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Accretive Commerce (Corporate Website)
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TotalMove (Corporate Website)
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TheLadders.com (Corporate Website)
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Reuters (Corporate Website)
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Webloyalty (Corporate Website)
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Vivox (Corporate Website)
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Kontiki (Corporate Website)
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TheLadders.com (Corporate Website)
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Matt Gay is Operative’s GM of Media Monetization, responsible for leading Operative’s channel management initiatives and enabling clients to better monetize their ad business. Most recently, Matt Gay was SVP of Global Media Systems for Mediabrands Worldwide, where he was responsible for implementing and integrating systems in order to create efficiencies within and across agencies. Prior to his stint at Mediabrands,Matt was Vice President of Media Advertising Operations for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. and also served as Manager of Technology Integration at Deloitte Consulting. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University and sits on Bucknell’s Alumni Board of Directors. In 2008, he co-founded Bucknell’s Media and Technology Network and is active in media industry standards initiatives.
Operative (Corporate Website)
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