Board & Advisors

Linda Bernardi

Linda Bernardi, Board of Directors

In 2008 Linda Bernardi founded StraTerra Partners, a technology strategy consulting firm based out of Seattle and San Francisco. As CEO and chief strategist, Linda and her partners are involved with large enterprises, technology providers and system’s integrators in defining the standards and architecture for the emerging Enterprise Cloud Computing ecosystem and in helping clients adopt cloud computing architecture.

Prior to StraTerra Partners, Linda held the VP of Strategy position at Capgemini. Immediately prior, in 2001 Linda founded ConnecTerra, Inc. in Cambridge Mass, where as CEO along with a highly talented group of architects and engineers, ConnecTerra became the leading software company, to connect RFID with Enterprise IT. ConnecTerra was successfully acquired by BEA Systems in 2005 and now part of the Oracle’s product line. Linda spent the first 14 years of her career at BBN, in Cambridge Mass, where for the last 3 years, she served as VP of operations for the software division, managing operations in the US, Europe and the Far East.

In 2009 Linda launched her leadership institute, Bernardi Leadership Institute. Linda holds committee chair positions and serves on the boards of the SETI Institute, The International Museum of Women and Emeritus Board Member at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and an advisor to a number of organizations including Astia. Linda is a member of Alliance of Angels, a highly active Seattle based Angel investment consortium.

 

Ben Straley

Ben Straley, Co-Founder & CEO

Ben Straley has spent over 15 years of his career managing and leading marketing teams and business for venture-backed startups and large, publicly traded companies. As CEO and Co-Founder of Meteor Solutions, he sets the vision for the company, leads strategic sales and business development, and manages day-to-day operations. Meteor’s customers include Microsoft, MTV, AT&T as well as many other global brands.

Ben began his online marketing career in 1997 as a producer at Starwave, where he worked on online advertising and marketing promotions on ESPN.com and ABCNews.com for major brands including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Gatorade, and Pizza Hut. In 1998, Ben moved from the creative services team to spearhead the development of ESPN.com’s online marketing and e-commerce systems and lead product management of Disney’s Go Network registration and billing web services platform. In 2001, Ben joined Santa Clara-based Sanctum Corporation to oversee Product Marketing of AppScan, the company’s leading suite of Web application security assessment and monitoring tools. In the spring of 2003, Ben was recruited to lead eCommerce and Internet Business Development for the Salton Corporation, a $1.3B global kitchen and housewares company. In this role, Ben led an ecommerce team, oversaw B2B and B2C ecommerce operations and fulfillment, coordinated the expansion of the company’s online presence and ecommerce operations in the UK and Australia, and signed partnerships with leading online retail companies including Amazon and Target. In the summer of 2005, Ben returned to his native Seattle to lead marketing for venture-backed Judy’s Book, a site where community members around the country shared advice and recommendations about local businesses and activities.  In late 2006, Ben co-founded Spring Creek Group, a leading social media strategy and digital marketing agency.

Ben was selected by Seattle Business Magazine as one of the Innovators of the Year and was recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40” top business leaders in the Puget Sound region.  He is a frequent speaker at conferences including SMX, OMMA, WOMMA, and Digital Hollywood and he has written articles for a variety of publications including Mashable, Adotas, and Digiday.

Ben holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, a BA with distinction from Colorado College, is the curriculum developer and lead instructor at the UW Extension’s Advanced Interactive Marketing program, and is the past-Chair of the Board of Directors at the Seattle Children’s Home, Washington State’s oldest children’s charity.

 

Pete Parsons

Pete Parsons, Co-Founder

Pete’s past 10-year experience in the video game industry, which included being the Studio Manager of Bungie Studios where he oversaw the development of Halo 2 and Halo 3, helped to create two of Meteor Solutions’ main components – the Meteor Tracker and Meteor Ignite. Before joining Bungie, Pete was Director of Marketing and Advertising for Microsoft’s Xbox first-party games, where he handpicked the team that oversaw one of the most successful software launches in video game console history. Before video games, Pete was VP of Marketing and Product Development with Weider Nutrition.

 

Jordan Weisman

Jordan Weisman, Co-Founder

A creative visionary in the entertainment and media world for the past twenty-five years, Jordan was the creative motivating force behind the founding and success of FASA (acquired by MSFT) where he led the design and creation of successful game lines. Jordan founded VWE, and built the world’s first virtual reality entertainment venue, The BattleTech Center. In 1992, members of the Disney family acquired a majority stake in VWE. In 2000, Jordan and Dawne Weisman founded WizKids (acquired by Topps), creating collectable miniatures games.

Jordan has served as Creative Director of Microsoft’s Entertainment Division and currently as Creative Director at 42 Entertainment, a company he co-founded.

Jordan has won more than one hundred awards during his career, including election to the Game Designer’s Hall of Fame by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, and selection as Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year for 2003 by Ernst & Young.

 

Joe Doran

Joe Doran, Board of Directors

Joe is a seasoned and accomplished senior executive with 15 years of experience managing interactive media, advertising and social media solutions in high growth companies such as Microsoft, General Mills and Media6Degrees.  Joe is a sought after expert in interactive advertising, advertising technology and social media.

Joe is currently the Founder and CEO of Tout Inc., a real-time marketing platform creating actionable insights out of the social web. Joe is also currently the founder and principal of Whidbey Venture Group. Whidbey Venture Group invests, advises and creates leading companies in the advertising and interactive media space.  He has helped incubate and launch next generation interactive start-ups such as Tout, Inc, BrightTag, Inc and Legolas Media, Inc.

Prior to Whidbey Venture Group, Joe was the founding CEO of Media6Degrees, Inc., a New York based advertising technology start up that provides major brand marketers with custom audiences using the power of social graph data.  Under Joe’s leadership, Media6Degrees was able to move from a prototype to having over 90 advertising customers, 40 social insight partnerships and 3 strategic partnerships while raising $12.5M in venture capital.

Prior to Media6Degrees, Joe spent 9 years at Microsoft in a variety of senior roles including Chief of Staff at MSN and, from 2003 to 2008, General Manager of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. In this position Joe was responsible for product management for all advertising products and technologies at Microsoft (including Microsoft AdCenter, Microsoft PubCenter, the Display Ad Platform, Massive, and AdECN, among others) as well as serving as the lead spokesperson for advertising technology and solutions at Microsoft. As General Manager, Joe set the broad strategic direction for the advertising business and also led Microsoft’s acquisition and integration strategy for the many advertising based businesses purchased by Microsoft including Massive, ScreenTonic, DeepMetrix, AdECN and aQuantive.

Joe honed his marketing skills at General Mills as a Brand Group Manager stewarding world-class brands such as Cheerios, Trix, Cocoa Puffs & Betty Crocker.  Prior work experiences include a technical sales manager & an Infantry Captain in the US Army.  Joe has an MBA from Harvard Business School & a BS in Chemistry from United States Military Academy.

 

Larry Kelly

Larry Kelly, Board of Directors

Since starting his first company during his college days, Larry has been involved in starting or managing more than 40 businesses. From working at Hewlett Packard, where he was involved in both the marketing and software development of calculators as well as running HP’s personal computer R&D program, to serving as Vice President of R&D at GRiD Systems, developer of the first laptop computer, Larry has worked in almost all aspects of the computer and information industry.

Larry is currently a Managing Partner of Kelly Ventures, a private investment company started in 1984, and is a member of both the Band of Angels and the Harvard Angels. He is on the selection committee for both angel groups and co-chairs the Clean Tech/Energy Special Interest Group for the Band. Cutting edge technology and related development are primary investment interests. With a passion in helping to build portfolio companies, Larry also serves as CEO of Ergodex, which develops innovative computer input technology.

Larry holds Mechanical and Nuclear Science Engineering degrees from MIT and a MBA from Harvard.

Aside from professional activities, Larry also supports a myriad of educational endeavors. He is a founding member of the Montclaire Education Foundation, which raises money for a public elementary school in Los Altos, serves as a Trustee for Castilleja School in Palo Alto, and serves as a Regent for Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose.

Young-Bean Song

Young-Bean Song, Advisory Board Member

Young-Bean Song is the Founder and Principle of AnalyticsDNA, a Seattle based strategy and analytics consultancy. His digital marketing career began in 1998 and spanned agency, technology, and publisher sides of the industry at Aquantive (acquired by Microsoft in 2007). As the VP of Analytics at Atlas, he played a major role in product development, marketing, sales and corporate strategy. Young-Bean pioneered the industry’s first conversion tracking technology, behavior-based media planning and targeting, ROI attribution methodologies (a.k.a. Engagement Mapping), and traditional media metrics for online. Young-Bean founded the Atlas Institute which published over 50 research studies on ad effectiveness and measurement and continues to presents at major industry events.

Young-Bean Song is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and worked as a management consultant at ZS Associates.

 

Jessica Michaels

Jessica Michaels, Advisory Board Member

Jessica Michaels is the Founder and Lead Strategist at breadNbutter Digital, a Seattle based social & emerging media strategy consultancy. Prior to launching breadNbutter, Jessica was Senior Partner, Group Media Director at WPP’s, MEC, responsible for the creation and development of their Social Media practice in the North America. She has written cutting edge integrated digital strategy for many of the worlds Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, LVMH, AT&T, Citibank, Blackrock and Activision Blizzard.

Jessica is a passionate advocate and ongoing pioneer in the social and emerging media space writing The Microsoft Social Media Playbook that continues to be leveraged by their B2B and B2C marketers worldwide. She won the Internationalist Magazine 2009 Innovator of the Year award, regularly speaks at key industry events and writes numerous thought provoking articles on the impact Social Media is having on the enterprise today.

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