Archive for April, 2010

Joe Medved

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

In 2005, Joe Medved joined SoftBank Capital, where he helps identify, evaluate and support early stage investment opportunities. The fund focuses on companies that address ubiquitous, social computing. Prior to joining SoftBank Capital, Joe was an Associate with Constellation Ventures, a media and communications venture capital fund under Bear Stearns Asset Management. Prior to Constellation Ventures, he was an Associate and Analyst for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group with JPMorgan Investment Banking. Joe is Chairman Emeritus of the New England Venture Network (NEVN), the largest young venture capital organization on the East Coast. Under NEVN, he co-founded VentureNetwork.VC, the first social network built exclusively for the venture capital community. @joevc


Mike Brown, Jr.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Mike Brown Jr. is a Founder and Partner at AOL Ventures, the venture capital arm of AOL. At AOL Ventures he focuses on investing in the consumer internet space and works closely with portfolio companies betaworks, 20×200, bit.ly, Movie Pass, gdgt, Soundtracking, Sailthru, Metamarkets, Impermium, Spree Commerce and Solve Media. In addition to his activities at AOL Ventures, Mr. Brown is an angel investor in a variety of seed stage companies including Qwiki, Voxy, Codecademy, Social Amp and Moat. In a prior life, Mr. Brown worked for the investment arm and incubator of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and helped create new Virgin businesses and invest capital in early stage startups on behalf of the British entrepreneur. Earlier he co-founded the largest healthy vending company in the US (www.healthyvending.com) and began his career at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Brown serves on the boards of the National Forest Foundation and the Conflux Festival and graduated with a B.A. in International Relations from Columbia University. @MikeBrownJr


Suzanne Tosolini

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Suzanne Tosolini has 22+ years experience as a Brand Strategist – 18 years at P&G and 4 years as a consultant. For 18 years she led big global brands for P&G in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and North America. Now she works as a Brand Strategy Consultant with clients across the apparel, food, publishing, finance, automotive, sports, beauty, fashion and CPG industries.

Suzanne made her mark at P&G as a thought leader in all things related to Brand Strategy and Communication. As Director of Integrated Communications and Corporate Marketing she developed and deployed many of P&G’s best practices including those for Digital Marketing. As a consultant Suzanne enjoys working with Brands and Companies to identify their unique and purposeful positioning in the marketplace. She primarily does this work with large Fortune 500 companies but has also played a significant role as advisor and active member of some start-ups.

Suzanne holds a Masters degree in Business and Social Studies from The University of Dublin, Trinity College in Ireland.



Bob Gilbreath

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Bob Gilbreath is Chief Marketing Strategist at Bridge Worldwide, one of the nation’s largest digital advertising agencies and part of WPP. Bob leads the Strategic Planning team within the agency, advising clients such as Procter & Gamble, ConAgra Foods, Kroger, Luxottica, and Abbott. He is the author of The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with your Customers by Marketing with Meaning and his writing has been featured in Brandweek and Entrepreneur. Bob joined Bridge Worldwide after driving a dramatic turnaround of the Mr. Clean brand at Procter & Gamble. He successfully launched innovative products including the Magic Eraser, which was featured in Harvard Business Review. This innovation helped nearly triple the business in one year. Bob was recognized by Advertising Age as one of the Top 50 marketers of 2004. He received his MBA in marketing from the NYU/Stern School of Business and his BA in Economics from Duke University. @mktgwithmeaning


Adam Symson

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Adam Symson is The E.W. Scripps Company’s chief digital officer, responsible for developing the products and services for digital-platform consumers and advertisers in more than 26 Scripps newspaper and television markets (as well as for consumers of a myriad of other digital services that are not market specific). He previously was responsible for the operation, content and revenue for the TV division’s interactive businesses, including community news and information websites, micro-sites and mobile businesses in nine local TV markets across the country. Before that assignment, he spent a year as the director of content and marketing for the Scripps interactive media division (which was spun off into Scripps Networks Interactive in 2008). Symson joined Scripps corporate in 2002 as the director of investigations and special projects for the television stations group. Shortly thereafter, he was named director of news strategy and operations, with responsibilities for the station’s 9 NBC and ABC affiliated stations. Symson first joined The E.W. Scripps Company as the executive producer of investigations and special projects for KNXV TV, the Scripps-owned television station in Phoenix, Arizona. Prior to his work in Phoenix, Symson worked as an investigative journalist for CBS stations, WBBM TV in Chicago, and KCBS TV in Los Angeles, and served tours of duty in newsrooms across Los Angeles, including KNBC TV, KCAL TV and KGIL AM 1260. Mr. Symson has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Los Angeles. He lives with his wife Sherri, and daughters Logan and Hannah, in Cincinnati, Ohio.


Christina Cacioppo

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Christina Cacioppo is part of the investment team at Union Square Ventures, a New York City venture capital firm, where she splits her time between evaluating potential new investments and working with existing portfolio companies. Union Square Ventures focuses on investments in mobile and web-based networks and marketplaces and counts Etsy, Twitter, Zynga, Kickstarter, and Foursquare as early investments. Previously, Christina conducted design research at Deutsche Telekom in Berlin, Germany. She’s also spent time living and researching in Kigali, Rwanda, Kampala, Uganda, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Bangkok, Thailand. Christina graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and an MS in Design. She speaks French, some German and Kinyarwanda, and has studied Spanish and Swahili. @christinacaci


Reggie Bradford

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Reggie Bradford brings nearly two decades of technology leadership and experience to Vitrue, the company he founded in 2006. Bradford’s leadership experience spans 18 years in the consumer packaged goods, Internet and television industries. Prior to Vitrue, he was president and board member with TANDBERG Television, an organization of more than 400 employees and over $100 million in revenues. In his 14-month tenure, he led the company to a 40 percent annual growth rate, successfully integrated two major acquisitions and led the global repositioning of the brand. Bradford also served as the president and CEO of N2 Broadband, the leading provider of open-platform, on-demand entertainment solutions. During his tenure, N2 Broadband grew annual revenues from less than $1 million to more than $35 million in just under five years. Prior to joining N2 Broadband, Bradford served as Chief Marketing Officer at WebMD from 1998 to 2000. During his tenure there, the company grew from 40 to 4,000 employees and received more than $2 billion in funding. While at WebMD, Reggie was instrumental in defining interactivity on the web as an early pioneer of social communities. He previously held various marketing and management positions with Miller Brewing Company, a subsidiary of Phillip Morris. @ReggieBradford


Phin Barnes

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Phin is a Principal at First Round Capital, a leading seed stage venture capital firm. Before joining First Round Capital, Phin founded an independent videogame company that developed and published Yourself!Fitness, the first fitness game for Xbox and PlayStation2. While managing the marketing and distribution of Yourself!Fitness from 2003-2006, Phin secured retail partnerships with Nordstrom and Best Buy as well as promotional partnerships with Proctor & Gamble and McDonald’s. One of the earliest employees at AND 1 Basketball, Phin spent six years helping to grow the company from revenues of $15 million to over $225 million. While at AND 1 Phin led product direction, managed relationships with national retail accounts and created the initial concept for the signature AND 1 marketing property—the AND 1 Mix Tape. Phin also has consulted with several companies, including MTV Networks, where he focused on non-traditional games and the growth of the MTV Games division. @phineasb


Peter Flint

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Peter Flint is a general partner at Polaris Ventures in Boston. He brings over 25 years of experience as an operating executive in the consumer media industry combined with building senior management teams for early stage venture backed companies. Prior to joining Polaris, Peter was a managing director with Ramsey Beirne Associates, the leading provider of executive searches to high growth, leading edge information technology companies. Peter has enjoyed a successful 15-year sales and marketing career in the cable television industry, initially with Showtime Entertainment and MTV Networks. He also worked with the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins to develop and launch the New England Sports Network. In addition, as VP of Sales and Marketing for QVC Network, Peter directed a team to secure long-term distribution agreements with the nation’s largest cable companies, which was instrumental in the successful initial public offering. Peter was an early entrant in the interactive television marketplace asVP of Video Jukebox Network, the company that built out the first nationally distributed, on-demand TV network. @pflint


Sonny Jandial

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Sonny has 12 years of experience with Procter & Gamble and is currently a Brand Manager within P&G FutureWorks, the business unit that works across many of P&G’s businesses to develop and incubate new corporate growth ventures. Sonny has most recently focused on vetting, developing, and implementing new business models and external partnerships within Futureworks ranging from health care to new mobile/digital business models being tested for P&G. Sonny recently moved to Silicon Valley to work on a Venture Capital backed start-up within the mobile space as part of P&G Futureworks innovation portfolio. Sonny is the single point of contact between P&G and the Venture Capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Sonny has worked across multiple functions within P&G including manufacturing, sales, and marketing and multiple categories from home care and coffee to health care services to his most recent work focused on innovating within the mobile space. Sonny has led innovations both in marketing with the launch of Swiffer Dusters and new business model ventures within health care. Sonny has managed external partnerships with major retailers like Safeway while also leading relationships with renowned health care thought leading organizations.