Leadership
Leadership: Board of Directors
| Chairman, W2 Group, Inc. Larry Weber is Chairman of W2 Group, a global marketing services ecosystem that helps CMOs in their new role as builders of communities and content aggregators. W2 Group includes public relations agency Racepoint Group, social media marketing firm Digital Influence Group and branding company Two Martinis. A public relations visionary, in 1987 Larry established The Weber Group, which within a decade became the world's largest technology public relations firm. Interpublic purchased The Weber Group in 1996 and in 2000, Larry was named Chairman and CEO of Interpublic's Advanced Marketing Services group. In 2001 Larry built Weber Shandwick, which today is the world's largest public relations firm. Larry serves on a number of boards for corporations, non-profit organizations and academic institutions. He is co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), the largest interactive advocacy organization in the world. Larry has also published three books about next-generation business. Sticks and Stones: How Digital Business Reputations Are Created Over Time and Lost in a Click was published in July 2009 from Wiley & Sons. Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business was first published by Wiley in 2007 with a second edition in 2009. The Provocateur: How a New Generation of Leaders Are Building Communities, Not Just Companies was printed in 2002 by Random House. |
| CEO, Yankee Group Emily Nagle Green leads all aspects of Yankee Group's strategic, financial and global research initiatives. An industry veteran, Green is chartered with continuing Yankee Group's expansion by delivering timely and actionable research, consulting and events that empower clients to make successful business decisions. Before joining Yankee Group, Green was the CEO and member of the board of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), the preeminent research and consulting firm in the energy sector, and led its sale in 2004 to IHS Energy (Englewood, Colo.). Previously, Green served for nine years in leadership roles with IT advisory firm Forrester Research, helping the company grow from a privately held boutique to a publicly traded market leader. From 2001 to 2003, she was managing director, Forrester Research North America. She also launched and built the company's European operations, serving as managing director, Forrester Research Europe from 1998 to 2001, acquiring and integrating several regional competitors during that time. Green is a frequent speaker and author on the challenges and opportunities of new technologies for businesses and consumers alike. Green holds a B.S.L. degree in linguistics from Georgetown University and an M.S.E. degree in artificial intelligence and computer graphics from the University of Pennsylvania. |
| Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP A Business Assurance Partner in the Technology, InfoComm and Entertainment practice, Vic is the leader of the Technology, InfoComm and Entertainment (TICE) practice for the firm's Northeast Region. Vic was previously the Global Leader for the Software and Internet Sector. His clients range from start-ups to multinational companies, including closely and publicly held, high growth companies. His educational background includes a MS in Accounting and a BS in Economics from the State University of New York at Albany (SUNYA). Vic is a member of the Curriculum Advisory Board for the Accounting Department of SUNYA. He is a Board member of The Massachusetts Interactive Multimedia Council and an active member of the Massachusetts Software Council. He is also a member the American Institute and Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants. |
Partner, DLA Piper |
| Founder & CEO, Bzzgent, Inc. Dave Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, Inc., the advertising industry's only cross-continental word-of-mouth media channel. He launched BzzAgent in late 2001, and today a half-million consumers have joined the company's network, which spans North America and the United Kingdom. Since its launch, BzzAgent has been featured everywhere from the CBS Evening News to the BBC to The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Dave co-founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and he currently serves on its Executive Council and as Chair of the Association's International Committee. He is also a founding member of the Social Media Advertising Council (SMAC), designed to set industry standards for buying and measuring marketing in social media. The author of two books on the subject, Grapevine and The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II, Dave lectures around the world on trends in word of mouth and social media. BzzAgent is the subject of two Harvard Business School cases, and in 2007 the university dubbed him one of Boston's "Hottest Technology CEOs." In 2008, Dave was recognized as a Future Legend by the AdClub and he was named to the "40 under 40" list by The Boston Business Journal and Advertising Specialty Institute. Dave also sits on the advisory boards of Crowdsprout, a collaborative commerce start-up, and the Boston Boys & Girls Club Marketing and Communications Committee. |
| SVP, Director, Fidelity Center for Applied Technology Sean Belka is Senior Vice President, Director of Fidelity Center for Applied Technology (FCAT), a unit of Fidelity Investments, the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans and a leading online brokerage firm. FCAT's vision is to serve as Fidelity's idea and innovation catalyst, helping Fidelity's employees and businesses to imagine and realize the possibilities of emerging technologies and new ideas. Mr. Belka joined Fidelity in 1993 to lead marketing and product development for Fidelity Trust Company. In 1997, he became Senior Vice President of mutual fund customer marketing for FPI. In 1998, he transitioned to FPI's Core Segment, where he led Fidelity's efforts to better understand and serve its mass market and mass affluent customers. From 1999 to 2000, Mr. Belka served in FPI's Online Brokerage unit, where he was responsible for Fidelity's strategic partnerships with online content providers, marketing partners and online capabilities providers. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Belka led FPI's market research, database marketing, CRM, lead management and customer analysis and modeling functions. From 2003 to 2005, Mr. Belka led FPI's customer strategy and marketing efforts for Emerging, Engaged, Established, High Net Worth, Active Trader and Corporate Employee segments and was also responsible for FPI's direct acquisition efforts and online marketing. Prior to his current role, Mr. Belka was Senior Vice President, Online Strategy, where he led the re-design of fidelity.com, transforming it into a more content rich and engaging experience. Prior to joining Fidelity, Mr. Belka was a senior vice president for Digitas, LLC in Boston. His responsibilities included client engagement with start-up and blue chip companies, providing strategy, CRM, Web and direct marketing services. Previously, Mr. Belka was a marketing director for Advanta Credit Cards (now Bank of America) in Philadelphia, where he led customer acquisition, new product development and customer development and retention. He previously worked in strategic planning and new product development at Sallie Mae. Mr. Belka began his career at Citibank, where he was a member of the Management Associate program and a marketing executive in the credit card division. |
Entrepreneur in Residence, General Catalyst Partners |
| General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners Jeff is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and entrepreneurial experience are in consumer, Internet commerce, marketing services, software and wireless start-ups. Jeff currently represents the firm on the boards of BzzAgent, ClickSquared, DataXu, digitalArbor, i4cp, Mall Networks, SimpleTuition, and Transpera and was previously a director at Brontes Technologies (acquired by 3M), go2Media, and PanGo Networks (merged with InnerWireless). Prior to joining the firm in January 2003, Jeff co-founded Upromise (acquired by Sallie Mae), a loyalty marketing and financial services firm with 11 million members that currently manages $20 billion in college savings assets, where he served as President, Chief Operating Officer and Board Director. Prior to Upromise, Jeff was an executive at Open Market, an Internet commerce software leader that went public in 1996 and grew to nearly $100 million in revenues. During his five-year tenure, he served as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services and head of Product Management. Prior to Open Market, Jeff was with the strategy consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group, and served on the executive team of Athena Design, an object-oriented software start-up. Jeff holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar. |
| Managing Director, The Jordan, Edmiston Group David Clark, a Managing Director with JEGI, provides M&A advisory services to traditional and technology-enabled marketing services companies. Mr. Clark's focus and transaction experience also includes companies in adjacent markets, such as business information, market research, application software and information technology services. Mr. Clark has nearly 20 years of experience in investment banking and business development consulting. Prior to joining JEGI, he was a Managing Director at Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance and a senior member of Deloitte's global TMT (Technology, Media & Telecom) industry practice. At Deloitte, Mr. Clark acted as financial and strategic advisor to US and international companies on cross-border M&A assignments, joint ventures and growth capital financings. Previously, he served as Vice President of the Bank of Tokyo's New York Investment Banking Group where his responsibilities included managing the bank's US venture capital and private equity relationships and investment portfolio. In 2008, Mr. Clark was elected to the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Information & Technology Exchange (MITX), the leading industry association bringing together digital technology, marketing, and media professionals to engage in "what is next" for the web and how it impacts the marketing and business worlds. Mr. Clark earned an MBA from the University of Virginia-Colgate Darden School of Business, an MA in International Studies from the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences, and a BS in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis. Mr. Clark is a certified NASD representative. |
CEO & Co-Creator, Holland Mark |
| SVP & GM Online, IDG Enterprise Martha Connors is responsible for leading the online operations and editorial for both Computerworld and CXO, the two leading brands in enterprise IT. In this role, she is the primary driver of online strategy and direction and is charged with overseeing the dramatic growth these organizations are seeing in all areas of online media. Prior to coming to Computerworld, Connors worked for 10 years at Technology Review, an MIT enterprise, where she was instrumental in transforming the once-small magazine into a leading independent media company. Starting out as circulation director at Technology Review, she worked her way up to executive vice president and chief operating officer, with responsibility for the online business, circulation and operations. During her time there, she put Technology Review online in 1994, making it one of the first 10 publications on the Web. Connors joined Computerworld in 2005 as vice president and general manager, online, and in 2006 she was given the added responsibility of overseeing the online properties of CXO Media, including CIO.com and CSO.com. Connors currently serves on the board of directors at MITX (the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange), and she has served on the Massachusetts Board of Education's technology subcommittee and on the board of her alumni magazine. Connors received her bachelor of arts degree in English and journalism from the University of Massachusetts. |
| President & CEO, Turbine, Inc. Jim Crowley is Turbine's president and CEO brings a wealth of operational experience to Turbine and is responsible for the vision and day-to-day operations of the Company. As Chief Operating Officer of m-Qube, Crowley helped turned m-Qube into one of North America's largest mobile media companies. Prior to m-Qube, Crowley was Chief Operating Officer of Network Plus, Inc., one of the country's largest publicly traded competitive telecommunications and data providers. Crowley is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Connecticut College. |
| Head, Online Video & Display, Google Head of Online Video & Display, Retail Technology - Google 2009 - Present. Boston. Display Regional Sales Manager - Google 2007 - 2009. Boston. Regional Sales Director AOL MN - 2004 - 2007. Boston. Managed New England team and relationships with New England partners. VP Sales - IMN (formerly IMakeNews) - 2002 - 2004. Managed Outside and Inside Sales, Reseller relationships, as well as Client Support for IMN, a Marketing Services ASP. IMN provides an emarketing publishing solution including newsletter publishing, blogs and RSS distribution to over 1000 customers in the US, and partners with International resellers. (2 years) VP Sales - 2000 - 2002. Newmediary. Newmediary created private label buying directories which were housed on branded websites. Newmediary then sold advertising and sponsorship programs in these directories. Managed Inside and Outside Sales, as well as Customer Support. The assets were sold to CNet and became the foundation of a very successful White Paper Directory and publishing offering. (2 years) Dartmouth College - Bachelor of Arts, Economics Resident of Marblehead, MA, married to Michele, father of two - Morgan and Liam. |
Sarah Fay served as the CEO of Aegis Media North America, overseeing the operations of all of the Aegis Media operating units in the US and Canada. Sarah previously served as the CEO of Carat and Isobar U.S. Carat, a leading media and marketing services agency reinvented the agency model in 2007 after merging digital marketing powerhouse Carat Fusion with leading diversified media agency Carat USA. In her role with Isobar, Sarah managed the growth and integration strategies for Molecular, iProspect, Freestyle Interactive and Ammo Marketing. She is also a 20-year industry veteran of the media services business and a vanguard on media integration, Sarah established and managed an online media practice following roles in traditional media early in her career. Sarah is the recipient on many prestigious awards, including ad:tech's 2007 "Industry Achievement Award," Advertising Age's "25 Women to Watch," Media Post's "Top 100 media Influentials," and OMMA's "Top 50 To Know in Online." She was also one of B2B Magazine's Top 100 Business Marketing Influencers in 2002, 2003 and 2004 and recently was named a "Future Legend" by the Ad Club. |
| Founder & CEO, Experience, Inc. Jenny founded Experience in 1996, at the very dawn of the Internet era. Following her personal experiences with on-campus recruiting as a student and later as an employer, she knew that the laborious, complex and resource intensive approach to connecting students with employers wasn't working - especially for the students, who needed far more support in order to make informed career decisions. While Experience is consistently recognized for its leadership in technology and innovation, the mission of Experience is "to educate, assist and inspire" the next generation of talent - which encompasses far more than online career management systems or making job listings easier to find. Jenny's groundbreaking vision for how to enlist educational institutions, companies, governments and citizens around the world toward this important mission has been recognized by national press, and by industry leaders throughout academia and enterprise. The author of the upcoming book, The Gen Y Way: How New Thinking Can Reclaim the American Dream, Jenny is a frequent speaker at nationwide universities and major business events to share her unique perspective on the up-and-coming workforce. She earned a BA in psychology from Dartmouth College and was a management consultant with Bain & Company in Boston prior to starting Experience. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Jobs for the Future and the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy. |
| President, Ontios |
| Investment Partner, Bain Capital Ventures Mr. Glass joined Bain Capital in 2006. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Mr. Glass was President & CEO of m-Qube, Inc. a Bain Capital portfolio company acquired by VeriSign. In 2006, Mr. Glass was voted Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" in New England and was also named to the Boston Business Journal's "40 under 40" list. Prior to m-Qube, Mr. Glass held positions as Founder and President of Transactive Solutions, Chief Operating Officer of Travelers/NETPlus and strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group where he focused on multimedia and convergence technologies. Mr. Glass received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Amherst College. |
| President & COO, SellMyTimeshareNOW William Lee Goss is the President and Chief Operating Officer for Sell My Timeshare NOW. Lee is responsible for translating the company's strategy into action, overseeing the day-to-day activities of the company, and directing product and service fulfillment, sales, business and corporate development and finance. Lee comes to us with an extensive background that includes his most recent role as the President and COO for Eons, Inc., and prior to that, a co-investor in and the COO of Boston-based Yankee Group. His career includes extensive deal-making experience having directed growth equity and buy-out investments for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based venture equity firm, General Catalyst Partners. He also led global merger integration activities for Terra Lycos, where the combined entities acquired more than thirty companies. Starting in the early 1990's as an analyst for American Airlines and reaching the level of Vice President, he grew up professionally in the travel and leisure industry. Lee describes his enthusiasm and vision for the company, saying, "I am truly honored to partner with Jason Tremblay and the team at Sell My Timeshare NOW. The company has a great entrepreneurial spirit, and has built an extraordinary online marketplace connecting timeshare buyers, renters, and sellers in such a way that I believe it has the potential to transform the timeshare resale industry." Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Lee earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Richmond and his MBA from Duke University. While at Richmond, Lee was a member of the varsity basketball team. Still an avid basketball fan, he will be relocating to New Hampshire with his wife Kathy and sons William and Aiden. |
| President & CEO, Mullen Joe is president and CEO of Mullen, a leading integrated agency, whose clients include the likes of Zappos, Swiss Army, Panera, Match.com, Olympus, Stop & Shop, and SC Johnson among others. Joe was one of the original partners at Mullen, joining the firm 27 years ago when it had 10 employees and didn't make the top 50 agencies in New England. Joe is no stranger to change and transformation; over the years, he has witnessed or been part of leading Mullen through several economic booms and implosions as well as dramatic transformations in the advertising industry, rebuilding the agency after a devastating fire, then rebuilding it after losing 50% of his business in one year, selling the company to the Interpublic Group 10 years ago and, most recently, moving the agency to Boston after 40 years on the North Shore. Joe started his career in media at Benton & Bowles and moved on to account work at Ted Bates. He was recruited to Boston by Hill Holliday in 1981. He's been a rock musician, a Harley-Davidson bike builder, a construction laborer and a shoeshine boy in his uncle's barber shop in Queens, NY. Today he spends most of his time at the agency defining strategy and inspiring people to exceed expectations. He also serves on numerous boards in and out of the industry. |
Co-Founder & CEO, HubSpot |
| President, HireMinds LLC David Hayes founded HireMinds in 1998 with the vision of creating Boston's most successful specialty staffing firm. Prior to HireMinds, Mr. Hayes spent 5 years at Kforce.com (formerly Source Services), serving in multiple Sr. Management roles including Managing Director of the New York practice. Previously, he spent several years at IBM working to implement multi-media technology in the classroom. |
| President & CEO, Spring Partners An experienced digital technology, media and marketing executive with a proven track record of identifying and developing new opportunities and new markets, Jeff Janer is President and CEO of Spring Partners, a venture backed consumer application development company. Prior to founding Spring Partners in January, 2008, Janer was most recently Chief Marketing Officer of Third Screen Media, a mobile advertising technology and services company, where he was responsible for the company's marketing and product management initiatives. Before joining Third Screen Media, Janer was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Britemoon, an online marketing solutions provider. In 2000, he was a founding partner of Traverse Partners, a firm providing strategic consulting and interim operational management to VCs and emerging growth companies. Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President of Fidelity eBusiness, a 90-person Internet strategy and development organization. He was also President and CEO of Larry Miller Productions, a marketing communications firm acquired in 1998 by iXL, an Internet professional services firm, where he was an Executive Vice President. Janer holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University. |
| Innovation Center Executive, IBM Interactive David Martin is currently the Innovation Center Executive for IBM Interactive's Boston/NY Offices. Mr. Martin has over twenty years of experience in the areas of management and technology consulting. He has a thorough understanding of on-line B2C, B2B and B2E trends and directions. His Innovation Center responsibilities include managing interactive service delivery programs and maintaining executive-level client relationships. He has work with some of the leading Financial Services, Manufacturing and Distribution firms. He has extensive experience working with global companies. Representative Experience Operations Management - Mr. Martin is responsible for managing consulting operations and delivery for IBM Interactive's Boston/NY office. Prior to current position at IBM, he directed consulting operations for a $24 million global consulting services company and for a $15 million international e-Commerce professional services company. Key management responsibilities include: developing and managing Business Plans; Business Development (Sales, Marketing and Strategic Alliances) and Employee Development. Solution Provider - Mr. Martin has extensive experience managing the selection, development, implementation and integration of eCommerce, Financial, Operations, Sales and Planning Enterprise Solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Solution team sizes ranged from 5 to 50 creative, business and IT consulting professionals. Sample projects include:
Areas of Expertise
Mr. Martin has his M.B.A and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut. |
Don McLagan is an information industry entrepreneur. Now he is advising start-up CEOs and writing poetry. Previously, he was Chairman, President and CEO of Compete, Inc. which was successfully acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres in March 2008. Don serves as an advisor or Board member to the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX), The Echo Nest, Localytics, Metacarta, RunKeeper, Visible Gains, and Visible Measures. Don has been an innovator of business information services for forty years. He was the founder, Chairman and CEO of NewsEdge Corporation (1988-2000). Previously, he was Vice President and General Manager of the Information Services Division of Lotus Development Corporation (1985-1988); he was a founding employee and Executive Vice President of Data Resources, Inc. (1969-1984); he started the Advanced Computer Techniques Group within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Comptroller (1967-69). Don has both B.S. (1964) and B.S.M.E. (1965) degrees from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and an MBA from Harvard Business School (1967). |
| CEO, Quattro Wireless |
Managing Partner, Google Ventures |
| Senior Vice President, Marketing, TripAdvisor, Inc. Petersen heads consumer marketing, product development and community support for TripAdvisor. Since joining in 2004, Petersen has overseen tremendous growth of site traffic, revenue, content and membership, including driving user involvement through the launch of rich product offerings such as maps, video, personalization and intra-member email. She joined TripAdvisor from Travelocity (formerly Preview Travel, Inc.), where she was vice president of member services and customer marketing. Petersen previously held senior marketing positions at Charles Schwab & Co., American Express, and Fidelity Investments. She holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree from Colby College. |
| Head of Global Brand Marketing, Reebok As Head of Global Brand Marketing for Reebok since October 2006, Richard is directly responsible for brand communicGations, media, digital marketing, Ecommerce, retail store development, public relations, in-store communications, corporate identity and events. Richard also was responsible for shaping the brand and global media strategy for Adidas AG in Germany, where he served in varying capacities from April 1999 through October 2006. As the Adidas AG vice president of global media and advertising, he created worldwide media strategy based on the brand goal of category leadership, using consumer research and youth media consumption data to create relevant media innovations. From 1992 to 1999, he served in various positions at Reebok from sports marketing manager, USA to brand marketing manager, USA to product manager of advanced technologies. A passionate athlete, Richard has competed in 33 marathons, more than 60 triathlons and was a 1998 Ironman Triathlon finisher in Montreal, Canada. |
| Partner, Longworth Venture Partners Before Longworth, Jim Savage spent 20 years successfully developing, launching, and managing early stage software and media companies. As CEO of PlanetAll, Inc., a pioneering social networking service, Jim directed the company from its early venture-funding phase through its successful acquisition by Amazon.com. Previously, Jim was the founding General Manager of ZDNet, the Web's leading IT media company, acquired by CNET for $1.3 billion. Before ZDNet, Jim was an Executive Vice President at Simon & Schuster/Prentice Hall, where he directed the online publishing activities of its legal publishing division. Jim started his career managing digital media initiatives at McGraw-Hill. Jim represents Longworth on the boards of directors of Constant Contact, Frame Media, Grab Networks, and Scrapblog. In addition, he serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) and Boston's Museum of Science. Jim graduated from Harvard University. |
| CEO, Shoebuy.com Scott Savitz is Chief Executive Officer of Shoebuy.com, an operating business of IAC. Scott Savitz founded Shoebuy.com in 1999 and serves as Chief Executive Officer. Under his guidance the company has quickly become one of the largest retailers of footwear and related apparel on the internet partnered with over 700 brands representing over 700,000 products. Prior to founding Shoebuy.com, Mr. Savitz was a Director at BancBoston Robertson Stephens specializing in the investments of large high tech corporations totaling more than $6 billion. Previously, Mr. Savitz was in the mortgage business where he originated more than $100 million in mortgages in one year. In addition, Mr. Savitz managed a full service marketing company specializing in direct mail, telemarketing and list maintenance. Mr. Savitz serves on the board of directors of Simple Tuition and MITX. He received a B.A. in English from the University of Colorado and currently resides in Boston, MA. Mr. Savitz is a frequent industry speaker and has received numerous awards and accolades including Ernst & Young's New England Entrepreneur of the Year. |
| CEO & Co-Founder, CSN Stores Niraj Shah is the CEO and co-founder of CSN Stores, a $200M+ online retailer. CSN Stores owns and operates 200 online retail stores including Bedroom-Furniture-Direct.com, Upholstery.com and RacksAndStands.com. CSN Stores was founded in 2002 and has grown into one of the largest online retailers of furniture in the US. CSN is headquartered in the Prudential Center in downtown Boston. Prior to co-founding CSN Stores, Mr. Shah was the co-founder and CEO of Simplify Mobile, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Greylock Partners, and the co-founder and CEO of Spinners, an IT consultancy. Spinners was sold to iXL, a publicly traded technology consulting firm with over 3,000 employees. Mr. Shah went on to become the Chief Operating Officer and member of the Board of Directors of iXL. Mr. Shah holds a BS from Cornell University, and lives in Boston, MA, with his family. |
Founder & CEO, FastIgnite, Inc. Prior to starting FastIgnite, Sim spent seven years as technology partner at Polaris where he made investments in the enterprise, online and mobile sectors and helped start four companies that Polaris invested in. Prior to joining Polaris, Sim was vice president of emerging technologies and chief architect at Macromedia (now Adobe). Earlier, Sim was a founding member and chief architect at Allaire, one of the first large Internet platform companies. Sim's expertise covers the gamut from strategy definition and positioning to R&D execution to go-to-market and alliances development. He has played a key role in more than twenty v1.0s and M&A and spinout transactions. Sim's innovation and leadership have brought about category-defining products with significant market impact: the first Web application server (ColdFusion), a pre-cursor to Web services and AJAX (WDDX), the best open-source Web services engine (Apache Axis) and the first rich Internet application platform (Flash/Flex). Sim's past investments include 8th Ring (a company he co-founded), Allurent, Archivas (a company he helped create which was sold to Hitachi Data Systems), Meridio (sold to Autonomy) and Veracode (a company he helped create). He serves on the board of directors of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX), the largest technology non-profit in New England, and on the advisory board of the Nantucket Conference. Sim has a master's degree summa cum laude in computer science from Boston University and bachelor degrees summa cum laude in computer science, economics and mathematics from Macalester College. His research interests have ranged from microcode simulation to soft artificial intelligence to shared multi-user virtual environments to economic modeling of Russian privatization. |
| Community Relations & Business Development Manager, Microsoft As the Community Relations and Business Development Manager for the New England Research Development Center, Gus holds responsibility for Microsoft's engagement and interactions with the local Boston and technical communities. In addition, Gus is responsible for the centers relationships with Redmond based businesses and works with Microsoft leadership to actively grow and continue to make the New England Research and Development Center a first class center of Innovation for Microsoft. Prior to his current role, Gus spent 3 years as an Academic Evangelists where he worked to create awareness and to drive use of Microsoft technology and innovations among students and educators to enable them to enhance learning, grow the knowledge economy, pursue career goals, and explore their personal interests. Immediately prior to joining Microsoft, Gus was an Assistant Dean and the Director of Corporate Relations for the Golisano College of Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In this role, as a member of the college core leadership team, Gus worked to build sustainable and mutually beneficial research and strategic partnerships with key corporations and partners as well as holding responsibility for, and managing the team that drove the college's efforts around public relations, communications and marketing. Gus serves on numerous boards of non-profits and academic departments, is an alumnus of the Rochester Institute of Technology and resides in Clinton, MA with his wife and son. |
President, Garfield Group Interactive At Digitas developed the Web 2.0 Framework; a construct for understanding social media initiatives and has presented extensively to agencies, clients, at industry events and conferences. He is involved in the Web semantics group at MIT and on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX); the world's largest professional organization for digital media, marketing and technology professionals and adviser for several start-ups, non-profits and conferences. Dean holds a bachelors in communications from Boston College and an MBA from Suffolk University, Sawyer School of Management and lives near Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and son. |
| Chief Development Officer, Akamai As Chief Development Officer, Robert leads Akamai's corporate development and strategic partnership activities, as well as long-term planning and strategic finance. He brings over 15 years of deal experience in technology covering a wide range of strategic transactions. Robert joined Akamai's Business Development group as it was being formed in 1999. Since that time, he has led Akamai's acquisitions of businesses including Speedera Networks, Nine Systems Corporation, Netli, Red Swoosh, and acerno. He has also overseen the development of joint ventures, spin-out transactions, international expansion, and numerous strategic partnerships. Prior to Akamai, Robert helped found the corporate electronic commerce and Internet practice at Alston & Bird LLP, one of the nation's leading law firms. He has completed more than $25 billion worth of acquisition transactions of technology companies and financial institutions. |
