Yetizen

Jay is a serial, parallel entrepreneur whose expertise in business startup, branding, corporate development, and business strategy have made him a key advisor to a number of game studios. Jay helped bootstrap GarageGames, a development tool and game publisher, as Evangelist and Business Development & Marketing Director. He was an equity partner in GarageGames, which sold in 2007 to IAC for a reported $70 million. He has served in a variety of executive roles as well as on boards for companies in and out of the gaming industry.

As Chairman & CEO, Will drives Casual Collective's overall strategy, product development and game design.

Prior to Casual Collective, he co-founded Affinity Labs, a company focused on building a global network of online communities. Post acquisition by Monster Worldwide (NYSE:MWW), he served as General Manager and led all operations for Affinity Labs and Monster's Education properties.

Previously, he was part of the team responsible for restarting Netscape Communications Corp. where he led product management for the Netscape Browser and was responsible for various patents in security and usability. Before Netscape, he co-founded MD Drinks, Inc (d/b/a Function Drinks) a maker of all natural physician developed functional beverages and currently available in over 50,000 retail outlets. He also co-founded Media1st, an e-learning provider responsible for numerous innovations in online education and video streaming, and served as Vice President of Research and Development. He has also held positions at Yahoo, Internet Security Systems, Radiant Systems and was the Entrepreneur in Residence with Trinity Ventures.

Will currently serves on the Board of Directors for MD Drinks (d/b/a Function Drinks) and is an advisor to Zinch, Flock, Triangulate, and JIBE. He graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University.

Asra Rasheed is CEO of RRKidz. RRKidz develops and publishes engaging, educational interactive content for today’s digital kids. Curated by Reading Rainbow’s LeVar Burton, RRKidz brings learning and skill based experiences to children within a safe social environment online and on handheld devices. Asra is an industry executive and accomplished entrepreneur. She possesses extensive experience in interactive media, entertainment, videogames, online and offline business strategies and operations. Recently, Asra was President of Thumb Media Group, a content publishing platform for mobile and tablet devices.

Previously, Asra was President and COO of Gottaplay Interactive, an online videogame rental service; aka: Netflix for games. Prior to that, she was Founder and Director of Interactive Media at Koyo Graphic International where she worked on creating online and interactive experiences for companies such as Bandai Entertainment, Warner Bros., Sanyo, and others.

Asra also serves as Business Advisor for Peanut Labs Media, Helios Interactive, and is an Advisor for The Los Angeles Film School Game Production Degree Program. She is also actively involved with Women in Games International (WIGI), where she is an executive board member of the organization and is also a member of the Award Jury for IndieCade 2010. Asra holds a B.A. in Finance from California State University-Fullerton.

Mark leads PlaySpan's Payments and Platform Product management team (acquired by Visa in March 2011). Mark joined PlaySpan after co-founding Spare Change - the first and largest micropayments solution on social networks (acquired by PlaySpan in April 2009). Mark has over 15 years experience in product management and consumer financial services including PayPal, E*TRADE, Yodlee and HedgeStreet. Mark is a consumer experience zealot, drives decision making from analytics, and loves inventing new user experiences.

Mark received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Davis and his MBA from the Sid Craig School of Business.

Margaret Wallace is an entrepreneur, gaming and media executive, with experience in creating both original IP and leveraging big brands in new ways. A recognized expert in the growing field gamification, she is CEO of Playmatics, a company dedicated to bringing rich user experiences to the Internet, in social media networks, and on a variety of connected platforms and products. She is also CEO of Shadow Government, Inc. -- a social mobile start-up which recently raised a $1 million angel investment round to create an entirely new form of social gaming based on the gamification of real countries, systems, and worldwide events. Prior to these companies, Margaret was also CEO of venture-backed Rebel Monkey and of Skunk Studios, one of the first-ever casual game companies and gaming portals.

Tony Parisi is an entrepreneur and career CTO/architect. He has developed international standards and protocols, created noteworthy software products, and started and sold technology companies. Tony's passion for innovating is exceeded only by his desire to bring coolness and fun to the broadest possible audience. Tony's first startup, Intervista Software (1995-1998), developed the first-ever real-time VRML plugin for Internet Explorer, which Microsoft bundled with millions of copies of their browser. His most recent company, Vivaty (2007-2010), created a novel end-toend virtual world system fully integrated with the web and serving up millions of virtual goods transactions.

Tony is perhaps best known for his work as a pioneer of 3D standards for the web. He is the co-creator of VRML and X3D, ISO standards for networked 3D graphics. He also co-developed SWMP, a real-time messaging protocol for multi-user virtual worlds. Tony continues to build community around innovations in 3D as the cochair of the WebGL Meetup (www.meetup.com/WebGLDevelopers-Meetup) and a founder of the Rest3D working group (http://www.rest3d.org/).

Today Tony is focused on developing social games, virtual worlds and location-based services as a consultant to San Francisco Bay Area startups. That is, until he starts his next company – which should be very soon now.

Chris Bergstresser, an industry veteran is responsible for driving the international growth of numerous top-selling and highly acclaimed video games. With more than 20 years experience directing strategy and driving revenue within games, online and new media, Bergstresser is a visionary leader with proven abilities and a highly successful track record.

Most recently Bergstresser co-founded and led Vector Entertainment, creators of Vector City Racers. In this role as CEO, he led product development, fun raising, sales and marketing activities as well as overall corporate strategy. Vector City Racers saw incredible growth under Bergstresser's leadership - over 500,000 registered users in 8 months.

Prior to Vector Entertainment, he was Senior Vice President of publishing and online entertainment at Atari, Inc. There he established, managed and executed comprehensive publishing, product and online strategies, as well as created the casual games group for the international publisher. He built and grew a dedicated and monetizeable online community from 500,000 unique visitors to more than 2 million in only six months. Revenue grew over 200%.

Prior to Atari, Bergstresser was the CEO of Gamer.TV, the leading producer of video game television shows for global syndication and online games. Under his direction, Gamer.TV's syndication grew to 375 million households from 300,000 within just two years, generating millions in revenue.

Chris has also held key positions at some of the world's top video game publishers including Konami, Climax (UK Games Development Studio) and Sega of America/Sega Channel.

He attended Warnborough College in Oxford, England and is a graduate of San Francisco State University. He currently lives in Northern California with his wife and daughter.

Joe brings twenty years of management expertise to E23. He's been responsible for new products, corporate strategy, turnrounds, team building, dialog design and buying the pizza.

He was instrumental in building Macromedia into a successful public company.

Joe has built and launched everything from one of the original casual gaming sites (shockwave.com) through high-end desktop software to tiny fileservers.

He enjoys firing up small teams of great people building hard new stuff.

Patrick joined GetJar in 2008 as chief marketing officer and member of the executive team. His primary role at GetJar is to develop the company's overall marketing, branding, content and communications strategy.

Patrick has been in the mobile content space since 2004 first at mobile games publisher I-play then subsequently at glu mobile. Prior to joining GetJar, Patrick was Marketing Director Europe at glu where he built up the company's marketing team and was a key part of the European management team that helped take the company public on the NASDAQ in March 2007.

With 15 years of marketing experience at leading companies such as PepsiCo and Diamondcluster, Patrick has worked in large multinationals and venture-backed start-ups in marketing, sales and general management.

Patrick holds on MBA from INSEAD and a BS from Georgetown University.

Coming Soon

Rizwan Virk (aka "Riz") possesses extensive experience as an entrepreneur, technologist, author, angel investor, and indie film producer. His areas of experience include social and mobile games, online publishing and advertising, venture capital, with a particular focus on innovative, early stage organizations.

Riz is currently CEO of Gameview Studios, which he cofounded. Gameview's mobile games have been used by over 30 million iphone and android smartphone users. Gameview was acquired by the leading Japanese mobile/social game company DeNA.

In addition, Riz has been an angel investor in many gaming and social/mobile companies, including Offerpal Media, Tapjoy, Apsalar, Pocket Gems, Telltale games, Funzio, Assured Labor, and others.

Prior to Gameview, Riz was a cofounder of a number of technology companies, including CambridgeDocs (sold to EMC), Service Metrics (sold to Exodus) and Brainstorm Technologies.

Riz studied Computer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, BS 1992) and studied Management at the Graduate School of Business (GSB) at Stanford University as a Sloan Fellow (MS 2009).

Riz frequently writes and lectures on mobile, social, gaming technologies, and entrepreneurship. Riz has also been a executive producer in a number of independent family and fantasy/sci-fi films. He has been featured in in periodicals ranging from the Boston Globe , Inc. Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Riz is also the author of Zen Entrepreneurship. Visit his blog at www.zenentrepreneur.com/blog

Kai Huang is a co-founder of RedOctane and has been the President and CEO since 1999. Publishers of the popular Guitar Hero franchise, RedOctane was acquired by Activision in June 2006. Prior to RedOctane, Mr. Huang was co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, a software company developing solutions for the server appliance market. Adux Software was sold in 1999. From July 1994 to August 1998, Mr. Huang was a consultant with Accenture where he worked with Fortune 500 clients in the area of supply chain management. Mr. Huang holds a BA in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

I am currently the CEO of Woophy, Inc. which is now part of the Hot Shot Media group. Woophy.com is a community of global photographers whose passion for imagery has evolved into an international network of creativity and discovery.

Before shifting my energies towards Woophy, I was CEO and co-founder of Hot Shot Media, Inc. At Hot Shot Media, we are conquering new ground as one of the first companies of its kind. We are staking our claim in the world of Social Photography, melding the value propositions of Casual Gaming, Digital Photography and Social Networks, together.

Before Hot Shot Media, I represented ExitReality in the US as SVP of BD. ExitReality has a portfolio of technologies and applications (vSide) intent on transforming the internet to 3d.

Previously I was VP, Privacy and Corporate Development for Adzilla, an ISP based behavioral analytics company. Adzilla leveraged clickstream data derived from within ISPs to deliver highly targeted online ads.

Formerly, I was GM of Ventures and COO for MCC:O2. MCC:O2 provided funding and operational support for early stage companies. As GM of ventures, I managed the operations of our client companies from the US and Europe, drove business development and fund raising initiatives.

Damon Grow is CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdMob Inc., a mobile social startup that builds geolocation games for the masses.

Damon has been a top serial entrepreneur and game designer for social games. He previously founded Shattered Reality Interactive (now Rocket Ninja), a venture funded social gaming company and 2008 TechCrunch 50 finalist. He has formerly served as Creative Director of Lolapps where he built their X-Wars games, Yakuza Lords, Diva Life and Band of Heroes. Prior to Lolapps, Damon was Co-Founder and Head of Games at ROFLplay, which was acquired by Lolapps.

A lifelong gamer, Damon has designed games for multiple platforms and genres, from immediate social experiences to large-scale massively multiplayer online games. His depth of knowledge in gaming and ability to spot emerging market trends within the social gaming space has earned him a top spot as one of the most respected social game designers.

I have been involved in the gaming arena through traditional models first ( www.eposent.com) in board and card games.I got involved in video games in 2006 in regards to their integration within larger products with GSA. I have these last two years worked in integration of products with mobile, mmo, and traditional browser based games (www.gameshirtz.com). Most recently in coordinating the joint venture of AA global industries with Code monkeys in creating the story and base architecture to an existing IP (www.2bcb.com). In my past work I have experience in the tech worlds as well as fortune 100 companies as a digital strategist. I have also done work in startups, for brick and mortar companies and .coms. Also I have taught and executed a wide range ofexperiences in Social Media and in configuring it to best suit a spectrum of companies and Industries as an integrated whole into their existing marketing programs.

Katy Haddix is a Senior Partner at VonChurch Inc, the Bay Area's most successful Digital Entertainment Staffing Firm. Katy joined VonChurch in 2009, and within months created the highly successful Social Games Division. Her team has been responsible for staffing some of the Silicon Valley's most thriving startups in the social space. VonChurch is now widely recognized as global leaders within this exciting and fast-pace niche.

Katy loves how quickly the social space moves and how everything is constantly changing. "You have to keep up with trends on a daily basis or your might miss something. I like being part of an industry that is changing the way people look at gaming."

Katy has an amazing track record of success. Prior to VonChurch, she was a leading Account Manager at Kforce's San Francisco office and the #2 Rookie Nationwide.

Katy holds her BA degree in History from the University of California, Davis.

Mike Ayer is a veteran of the games business, having managed sales and business development teams at GameSpy, Crispy Gamer, Xfire and MTV Games. He's been a featured presenter at professional forums such as the OMMA Gaming Conference, Bay Area Interactive Group, iMedia and others, and was an early member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Games Committee. Mike has served as an advisor to several games startups including Wild Pockets and Greystripe. Currently, he's the Founder and CEO of Broccoli Ice Cream.

Nate joined ThinkEquity in 2010 to cover Internet and Gaming in the Investment Banking Division. Prior to joining ThinkEquity, Nate was the Co-Founder of NationalBLS, a real estate website listing home buyers instead of properties. NationalBLS was the first buyer-focused listing service enabling Realtors and sellers to make "reverse offers" to buyers.

Previously, Nate was an Associate at Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, the venture capital arm of Lehman Brothers' private equity group. Prior to Lehman, Nate was an Associate at Gabriel Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, where he covered Internet, Gaming, and Mobile.

Nate joined Gabriel from Seven Hills Partners LLC, a boutique investment bank serving technology and healthcare companies. Prior to joining Seven Hills, Nate served as Director of the Stanford Directory, an advertising service for businesses reaching the Stanford community. Previously, Nate worked as a Market Analyst for Altera Corporation and as a Research Assistant for Hewlett-Packard Labs.

Nate graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and a Minor in Economics. Nate currently holds FINRA Series 79 and 63 licenses.

Sushma Malhotra has more than two decades of operational and management experience managing Facilities and Real Estate around the world. Sushma currently works as Executive Vice President at CRESA Partners and helps companies of all sizes develop strategy for real estate, find the appropriate office space and negotiate at significant discounts from Bay area to San Francisco. Sushma takes pride in her negotiation skills. Her clients include Venture Capital firms for their portfolio companies and Serial-Entrepreneurs. Sushma was recognized as "Women of Distinction" Honoree by Business Journal a few years ago and top 100 "Women of Influence" Silicon Valley this year.

Sushma is also a Managing Partners at Base77, a leading company in mobile game development. Base77 provides 3d art & content development services to leading game publishers/developers and independent studios for their game title projects on Sony (PS3), Nintendo (GameCube) and Microsoft (XBOX) consoles and PC platforms. Services include Low-polygon & Character Modeling, 3D graphics, Art-work and mobile game porting.

Sushma is very active in the community and is a charter member of TiE; Board member South West YMCA, Member FWE, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives.

Sushma completed her high school in the U.S., received her M.S. Environmental Sciences from J.N.U. University, New Delhi, India and B.S. from Delhi University, Delhi, India.

Saji is a serial entrepreneur and senior executive bringing 13 plus years credentials and experience to the digital media, mobile, social, and emerging media space. His experiences spans across all areas of digital and emerging media. Recently he was instrumental in the sale of AdLocal, a Japanese based startup focusing on location based advertising to Yahoo JP and Weatherista, a mobile weather and fashion platform to Kalpa IP. Additional exits include gBox, social and mobile media gifting solution to Omnicom, SkyWorld to Blackstone Private Equity, Fiabra to Amstor Global Pvt., and numerous others.

Saji has held key positions as CEO/Board of Weatherista (decision engine and weather/fashion platform, CEO/Board of AdLocal (location based advertising startup sold to Yahoo JP), Advising COO to Liiv (startup focusing on natural and holistic online and mobile health), CEO/Board of CopaCast (hyper-targeting based ad network), SVP Business & Corporate Development of gBox (social and mobile media gifting provider), SVP of International and Industry Development of PlayPhone (global mobile content dilevery platform), COO/President of SkyWorld (interactive platform focusing on online and mobile engagements, sold to a PE firm), various other startups as an executive: m-Qube (sold to Verisign $280MM), Fiabra (CRM startup sold to Amstor Global).

Saji also is an investor under Anicca Ventures and holds several board member and advisory roles.

I'm a coach and advisor to early stage companies, helping founder/ceo's develop good user experience and product management capabilities.

After 15 years in the Valley, I've seen a lot -- bubbles, busts, and fantastic acts of collaboration that have transformed literally billions of lives. And that's what starting a company is -- a radically optimistic collaboration between founders, funders, and customers to make the world better, more efficient, and more interesting.

My proudest success is Adaptive Path, a leading product design firm. I was a founder and served as the company's first CEO. During my tenure, the company tripled in staff and revenues, developed and sold a product to Google, coined the term Ajax, and transformed from a lifestyle partnership to a leading firm.

My proudest failure is EmmetLabs.com, which was incubated at Kapor Enterprises. This open wiki project is (still) mapping the social network of the past, despite its lack of viability as a high-growth startup.

Over the years, I've raised capital, founded both successful and failed startups, and consulted to large and small enterprises. I now focus on early-stage companies, preferring to work directly with entrepreneurs to untangle the inevitable thicket of great ideas, and clear a path toward execution.

In my public life, I'm a teacher rather than a pundit. I'm a guest lecturer at Haas, Stanford, and the Presido Graduate School of Management. I previously taught interaction design as faculty at SFSU. During several years on the conference circuit, I was a featured speaker at nearly every web design conference, from the Nielsen/Norman world tour to SXSW.

And though Time magazine once called me a "grizzled and cynical veteran" of the dot-com era, I remain an idealistic champion of experience-driven product strategy.

Benjamin Joffe is a renowned expert on Asia's digital scene. During the past 11 years, he has been part of Japan's mobile revolution, Korea's Internet boom and the rise of China as a digital superpower.

As CEO of the strategy consultancy +8* he brings the best practices from Asia's digital scene to clients worldwide (e.g. Microsoft, IMVU, Kabam, Citibank, China Mobile, Harvard Business School…).

Bridging technology, sociology and anthropology, his research covers virtual economies, digital third places, artificial artificial intelligence (AAI) and online social dynamics.

Benjamin shared insights in over 100 talks across 17 countries, and was selected among China's Top 100 Mobile Industry Influencers in 2007 and 2008 as founder of Mobile Monday in Beijing.

Last, he is an angel investor in Asia-based startups, including Cmune, leader of 3D social games on Facebook and Mac App Store with its FPS Uberstrike, and MyGengo, a global human translation platform.

Mike Sullivan is a partner at the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman law firm, focusing on the representation of startups and their investors.  Mike has a particular focus on the representation of emerging companies in the social media and game spaces, and on the investor side, his clients include Lightspeed Ventures, Walden Venture Capital, IDG Ventures, Blumberg Capital and The Roda Group.  He has handled hundreds of angel and venture capital financings and over 50 public offerings, including eBay's $1.3 billion public offering, and the first-ever Internet IPO (NetCom, 1994). He has also handled numerous M&A transactions, including Google’s acquisition of Urchin Software Corporation (now Google Analytics).    Mike is a member of Pillsbury's Social Media, Entertainment and Technology group, which focuses on the business models of companies in the game and social media spaces.

Blake single-handedly pioneered the social gaming space with his creation of the iconic and super-viral Facebook games Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves & Slayers which acquired over 45 million users. He then went on to cofound Ohai with part of the team from Everquest. Prior to that, he led the development of Causes on Facebook, cofounded CareBadges (acquired by Causes), Mogad (acquired by iSkoot) and BuildForge (acquired by IBM). He's also held senior engineering positions at Plaxo and Infraworks.

David is Yammer's Vice President of Product Management. Prior to joining Yammer, David served as Senior Director of Product at Playdom, which was acquired by The Walt Disney Company, where he focused on virality and user acquisition for social applications. Before working at Playdom he was the Product Marketing lead for YouTube's Platforms and Partnerships, and before that the Business Marketing lead Google's Commerce team, which includes Google Analytics, Checkout, and Product Search. Prior to Google he was a strategic consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. David holds a B.A. and M.B.A. from Yale University.

Eric Chan is President of Mobileslate and brings over 13 years of experience of building and selling enterprise and mobile technology. He is a recognized thought leader in the Mobile and Wireless Technology industry frequently speaking at Conferences and Industry Events and has been quoted and contributed in the media including: BusinessWeek, Forbes.com, Fox News, GigaOM, Huffington Post, Media Magazine, and Wireless Week. Since 2007, he has helped small and large organizations deploy mobile software and services. Some of his clients include: Intel, Lexar, Nokia Siemens Networks, Tanla Mobile, TouchType, Wells Fargo Bank, and Xerox PARC.

Prior to Mobileslate, he founded Caboodle Networks, where he filed two patents in semantic search technology; the company was eventually sold to Mobile Content Networks. He has held Technology Marketing and Business Development roles at Inktomi, Keynote Systems, Pixo, Sun Microsystems and Wells Fargo Bank.

Feisal Maroof is an Executive Producer at SilverTree Media. He has shipped titles on PC, console, handheld, and mobile; most recently "Cordy" (Android).

Feisal graduated from Columbia (MBA) and Brown (BS). If he can help you, or introduce you to someone who can, please contact him via LinkedIn.

YuChiang Cheng has a history of taking compelling proprietary content and building them into growth businesses. Co-founding World Golf Tour (WGT) in 2006, he serves as CEO for the company. YuChiang has successfully grown WGT from a dream in a garage to a community of millions of online players and one of the largest golf sites in the world. The game's proprietary 3D HD web technology has earned a reputation for being one of the most sophisticated on the web today and crushed the barrier of bringing console quality graphics to browsers. WGT is one of the first sports games in the US to pioneer the virtual item transaction model merged with an in-game advertising platform. WGT has been able to forge partnerships with over 12 top tier golf courses, the USGA, R&A;, ESPN, NBC Sports and top brand sponsors.

Prior to joining WGT, YuChiang served on the executive team at WagerWorks as the vice president of business development and product marketing. As the tenth employee of the company, YuChiang spearheaded the company's business development and product initiatives. Directly responsible for product marketing, business development and customer management, YuChiang led the strategic product direction for the WagerWorks gaming platform and was instrumental in securing international business clients such as Virgin Games, MGM-MIRAGE, World Poker Tour and BskyB. During his tenure, WagerWorks was acquired by IGT for $90 million in 2005. Prior, YuChiang spent time at Youbet.com as a product manager and practiced his surgical techniques that the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center working on a NIH Cancer grant.

I started Gameview Studios in April 2010 with my good friend and long-time business partner Riz Virk. Gameview is best known for its Tap Fish mobile social game on iPhone and Android and has been downloaded more than 10 million times. The company was acquired in September 2010 by DeNA, one of the largest social gaming companies in the world with $1.3 Billion in revenues.

Prior, I co-founded Offerpal Media (now known as Tapjoy) which pioneered social media and virtual currency monetization on Facebook and mobile platforms on iOS and Android.

Before that I spent some time at Adteractive, a pay-for-performance CPA lead gen company and a startup at the time called salesforce.com.

I got a BS in Computer Science Engineering from MIT (course VI-3 for those MIT alums out there), and a MBA from Stanford GSB. Now married with a wonderful wife and two kids, my daughter is 3 and my son is 5. I'm an active angel investor in the Bay area and advisor to a number of startups.

As co-founder and CEO, Jai drives DrivenTide's overall vision, sales initiatives and client advertising strategy.

A seasoned strategic business development and marketing media executive, with over 12 years of experience, he has worked in San Francisco, New York and London, focusing on strategic advertising delivery within Gaming, Mobile, Internet, Search and iTV technologies with clear business goals in mind.

Jai has developed new business for global sales and marketing with closed sales over $10M USD, expertise in strategic partnerships and management of content technology projects with extensive national and international experience in the fields of gaming, finance, B2B, youth, ad serving, interactive, media, technology, and sports.

Prior to co-founding DrivenTide, Jai served as Head of Digital Media Strategies for e-Storm international by providing strategic vision of paid advertising (SEM, mobile, display and analytics) and development strategies for e-Storm's clients here in San Francisco. In New York, he was Partner, Group Search Director of Ogilvy & Mather where he oversaw clients such as Kodak, SAP and IBM

The founder of DDM, Jeff is widely recognized as one of the industry's leading agents, with over 19 years of business development and management experience. Since his first client, Virgin Interactive, Jeff has secured deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. Jeff's experience spans initiating new properties, working with some of the largest existing entertainment IP's, transitioning in-progress games out of troubled situations and assisting publishers in portfolio rebalancing. Jeff helped to structure one of the very first bank and bonded deals in the industry and has an uncanny ability to uncover mutually beneficial opportunities where others see roadblocks. Jeff mentors the DDM agents and works continuously to bring greater opportunities to DDM's entire client base.

I am a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur who has founded and led 3 IT-focused companies over the last 12 years: two enterprise software companies and a management consultancy. I very much enjoy working with entrepreneurs and fast-paced high-tech companies in either a consulting or operational capacity.

As a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur I have significant experience in the areas of mobile/wireless solutions, Web 2.0/3.0, online/mobile video gaming, enterprise software, networking, medical software/devices, Ajax/RIA technologies, and globalization.

In addition to technology and startups, I am passionate about environmental protection, sustainability, and clean technologies. I worked as an environmental consultant between 1993-95 in Hong Kong providing significant input to some of the first large-scale EIAs in the Territory.

I'm also an earlier adopter of clean technologies, powering my home with solar since 2002, driving a hybrid car since 2004, and using offsets to maintain a zero carbon footprint since 2004.

Joshua represents an extraordinary fusion of creativity and passion for community development and interaction. A seasoned Web Designer/Developer with formal training in the Games Development pipeline. He has also been called on as a revenue-driven business strategist and entrepreneur.

As a freelancer Joshua offered full-service, interactive solutions & comprehensive strategic consulting, Planned and executed web design & development for a diverse client roster spanning a wide spectrum of industries and has executed over 100 projects since 1995. Formerly Interactive Art Director at Taylor Johnson Associates in Chicago and Lead Interactive Designer at Rhea & Kaiser in Naperville, IL.

Kevin Heidorn is currently the Founder/CEO of sCommerce Solutions, which is a social/mobile monetization and distribution platform. Kevin also currently manages business development for CrowdMob, which is a social/mobile application development company.

Prior to sCommerce Solutions, Kevin managed Publisher Development for EpicSocial and was formerly the SVP Business Development for Social Suitcase, which was acquired by Traffic Marketplace in March 2010. Kevin was responsible for managing the publisher network to optimize the integration of the EpicSocial monetization platform within virtual economy environments.

Prior to Social Suitcase, Kevin managed publisher development at TapJoy (formerly Offerpal Media), which saw a +1,000% revenue growth from early 2008 till his departure in late 2009.

Before his social media career, Kevin led business development at Owner's Pass, which was an exclusive luxury assets management company.

Kevin currently resides in San Francisco and enjoys playing sports, photography, entertaining friends and supporting his family's non-profit (No Barriers) which is a community access program for developmentally disabled adults.

Ian McGee advises startups and consults at the intersection of games, fitness and social.

As co-founder and Software VP of Expresso Fitness, he drew on his long experience in console, PC and online casual games to bring a rich virtual world experience to high-end commercial stationary bikes. Ghost rides, achievements, asynchronous play and later Facebook/Twitter integration provided much-needed motivation to people trapped in the typical 80's-tech gym. Ian helped Expresso raise $40m in venture capital over 7 years.

Previously Ian has worked at multiple startups. He started & ran Malibu Interactive UK developing original and licensed IP on console. Next he joined Sony internal development for the launch of the original Sony Playstation in 1995. At AndNow in Half Moon Bay he used development talent from Moscow Russia and Budapest Hungary to develop original console & PC titles. Also at AndNow he helped create the online casual game SmallBall in 2001.

Benjamin Wiles is a member of Pillsbury's Corporate & Securities practice in the San Francisco office. His practice focuses on corporate and securities law matters related to emerging companies, venture capital transactions, public and private offerings, mergers and acquisitions, securities law compliance, corporate governance and SEC disclosure and reporting. Benjamin has represented companies from a wide range of industries, including internet media and Web 2.0, telecommunications, energy services, video games and virtual worlds, financial institutions, hedge funds, management consulting and health care services.

In the emerging companies and venture capital area, Benjamin has represented emerging growth companies and their investors, from pre-incorporation counseling to general corporate representation, through angel and venture capital financings, to M&A and IPO liquidity events and public company representation. In connection with the Entrepreneur Roundtable, Wiles hosts a monthly meetup for Bay Area entrepreneurs.

Benjamin advises both U.S. and non-U.S. clients on investment fund formation and maintenance and represents domestic and international fund sponsors, general partners and fund managers in structuring, organizing and negotiating the terms of private equity, venture capital, mezzanine debt and real estate funds.

Benjamin has represented major U.S. financial institutions in connection with mergers and acquisitions, securities regulation and state and federal banking law. Wiles advised financial institutions and vendors that do business with the State of California regarding California's use of registered warrants, or IOUs, during the 2009 California budget crisis, and launched Pillsbury's web portal dedicated to registered warrants.

Benjamin has been involved with the San Francisco Bar Association's Mock Trial Program as a coach of the Balboa High School mock trial team.

Serial entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, restauranteur, and carpenter. Most recently, Dean co-founded the first virtual currency, Zeevex, which was acquired by InComm 8 months after product launch. He has invested in RubyCoins, Gamify, Voxy, ScribbleBoards, and the Un-Taco Truck.

James Schermerhorn, Vice President Business Development for Aaxis Group is responsible for driving new opportunities that leverage emerging trends in commerce like social and mobile for both new existing Aaxis Group clients.

He began his professional career in finance and retail for companies such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Nordstrom; eventually moving into sales, management and corporate development roles for technology companies like Yahoo!, Oracle and ATG. He brings innovative and fresh experience in the social and mobile commerce space, helping found a mobile games company, Flying Wisdom Studios, which launched several popular titles with brands like Star Wars and Lady Gaga for top publishers. He holds a degree from U C Davis in international Relations and lives in San Francisco with his wife and three children.

Scott Foe is an award-winning leader in interactive entertainment; he is passionate about driving new technology, marketing, and methodology for the games industry.

In 1999, Foe joined Sega as a member of the DreamCast product development team – the world’s first online games console. In 2003, Nokia acquired the games platform technology he helped to develop at Sega, and he went on to join the N-Gage product development team – the world’s first online games handheld.

In 2004, Foe launched the Game of the Year Award-winning Pocket Kingdom, the world’s first global massively multiplayer mobile game – touted as “the ultimate online game” by GameSpy. In 2008, he shipped Game of the Year Award-winning Reset Generation - called "one of the most-important handheld games of the past five years" by Pocket Gamer. Reset Generation was both cross-platform and multiplatform; players could play together from mobile devices or from the web. In 2009, Reset Generation was nominated for an Interactive Achievement Award by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Currently, Foe serves as a production, design and execution consultant for numerous pre-funding and early-stage gaming startups, primarily in the social and mobile gaming spaces. Foe also serves as an advisor to Cerca Trova Advisors, a boutique investment bank which boasts a combined team experience representing over 100 deals and over USD 20B-worth of business.

Deepika has a strong background in social mobile gaming in both developing and implementing strategies for monetization of both freemium and premium mobile games. She enjoys working with fun, energetic and innovative teams passionate about figuring out opportunities to improve engagement, virality, and customer lifetime value. She is committed to the possibility of creating blockbuster games that are best in class and the success of the teams building them.

Michael has over 10 years of experience in the behavioral targeting industry. A serial entrepreneur, Michael founded his first company, Kefta, a SaaS provider of behavioral targeting services for large web entities. Eventually selling the company in 2007 to Acxiom Corp., Michael is now leveraging his deep knowledge of analytics and behavioral targeting and applying them to the mobile app ecosystem. He is currently CEO and co-founder of Apsalar, a behavioral targeting, optimization and analytics platform for mobile apps.

After earning his MBA from Harvard to complement his MS in Engineering from École Centrale Lyon in France, Michael was the managing director of GiSMo, a mobile payment startup owned by Millicom International Cellular and a consultant with Altis, a consulting firm now owned by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Paris, France.

Neil Haldar's first-hand experience managing internal and external teams across for various mobile and online platforms and his work with gigantic international properties like James Bond, Rocky, and Unreal Tournament brings terrific bench strength to the team at Rocket Ninja. An 18-year videogame industry veteran, Haldar has participated in the production of over 80 games, resulting in nearly USD $3B in consumer spending worldwide. Haldar has experience with all major facets of the games business, including production, publishing, business development and marketing. Previously, Haldar served as VP of Content Programming and Strategy at upstart mobile game publisher SkyZone Entertainment, and as VP of Production and Business Development at MGM Interactive, a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

James Portnow received his masters from Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, went on to work for Activision as a designer on the Call of Duty series before raising funds to start his own company, Divide by Zero Games. Recently he's opened Rainmaker Games a design and narrative consulting firm that has worked with partners from Warner Bros. to Zynga.

James Portnow has written for every major trade publication including Gamasutra, The Escapist, Edge &c.; He is currently the writer on the hit consumer facing series about game design: Extra Credits. He is known for his theories on socially positive design and has been asked to speak at universities and companies around the world. He is the co-author of a book on Invented Languages being published by Oxford University Press to be released this fall.

Markus Weichselbaum is the founder and CEO of TheBroth, a social application developer from Australia, now headquartered in San Francisco. After a PhD in Neuroscience, Markus left academic research in 2003 and formed a company focused on performance based affiliate marketing. With his focus on monetization on the internet, Markus recognized the potential of social networks as an application platform and began to develop social games. TheBroth's most successful game is Barn Buddy, a farming game played by 2 million daily active users.

Matthew is leading the charge for appbackr when it comes to connecting with developers and finding great apps to invest in. For the past year he can be seen at most app conferences in the U.S. and soon will be taking the show over seas. Currently Matthew is also helping run one the 'Largest and Longest Running' tech events in the U.S.- SF New Tech. Since 2005 Matthew has been helping startups grow in the area's of business development, customer acquisition and marketing. Companies in the valley include: Zvents, Outright, Enquisite, Hypertable, BizTechDay. Before that he ran a consulting company Think Meedia from his home town in Bakersfield, Ca and was the founder of the award winning "Bakersfield Marketing Symposium" and a web based print publication Webirectory. Matthew lives the entrepreneurial lifestyle and believes good ideas should have the resources to thrive.

Coming Soon

Evan and his wife launched a full scale coffeehouse while studying business at Eastern Illinois University. Evan furthered his education with an MBA while continuing to run the business. Five years after starting the store they joined an international humanitarian organization and later began social entrepreneurship training. The journey from there to now, has included community development planning, teaching upper level business at a university, building a dome house, and providing strategic consulting to local county government officials.

Evan is currently working with Professionals International to provide business training and coaching services to missionaries and humanitarian workers alike. Evan's work has taken him to Mexico, Cambodia, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Haiti, Morocco, & Burkina Faso. While he and his family of three boys live and provide training in the US they are focused on ending poverty holistically in North Africa, the Middle East, & Asia. Evan's greatest asset is having a Yeti in is his extended family.

I enjoy working with creative teams to develop market-chaning consumer products, and take them from concept to market. I have been developing interactive entertainment since 1993. My current company, Kidlandia, is an opportunity to engage and delight children and their family both offline and online.

Dave is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University where he received a Masters Degree in English and received the Winnie Davis Neely award and also graduated from The Academy of Art University where he received a Masters Degree in Film. He has written several screenplays and won Best Artistic Talent at the Silicon Valley Film Festival in 2010 for his short film, The Girl in The Grass. He recently completed production on a short, Nobody's Laughing starring Jeffrey Weissman, from Back to the Future II and III, which won at the 2011 Epidemic Film Festival. Dave is a former college professor in English and lends his expertise in writing and teaching to his team. He has an amazing imagination, along with an innate instinct for filmmaking.

Joseph is currently the managing partner and co-founder of VisionNexus, an online marketing and monetization firm focused on search marketing and content development.

Prior to VisionNexus, he was the co-founder and former COO of Sometrics. Sometrics was venture backed by The Mailroom Fund, Greycroft Parters, and Steamboat Ventures, raising a total amount of $5.5M.

Joseph studied Computer Science with an emphasis of Entrepreneurship form the University of Southern California.

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of 15Five, a software company focused on producing transparency and alignment in organizations through structured, efficient and effective communication practices.

He recently served as President of the San Francisco chapter of Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO, http://www.eonetwork.org), an International network of entrepreneurs who each have businesses with annual revenues in excess of $1mil, and has been named The Most Connected Man You Don't Know in Silicon Valley by Forbes.

In 2004, he co-founded Kite Adventures, an adventure travel company offering guided downwind tours and pro-coached kiteboarding camps in northeast Brazil. http://www.kiteadventures.com.

He is also co-founder of Endai Worldwide, a NYC-based Internet marketing and services firm founded in 1999, and served as the company's CTO through 2006. Endai has been recognized on the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America. http://www.endai.com.

David holds a BSCPE in Computer Engineering from Tufts University, resides in San Francisco, and is an avid kiteboarder and skier. In his spare time, he likes to help entrepreneurs and their executive teams discover their company's most effective strategy to achieve their mission. http://discoveryourstrategy.com

Randy is a seasoned consumer technology exec specializing in producing games, interface technology and mobile and social media. Most recently as CEO for SGN, the company develops and publishes social and mobile games and was among the first in the market to transition mobile games to Free-to-Play. The company was recently acquired by Mindjolt.

Prior to joining SGN, as Chief Product Officer, Randy led Emotiv Systems to create a low-cost, wireless EEG hardware device, coupled with an SDK, allowing developers to integrate the HCI device via an API. The system classifies brainwave activity; detecting facial expressions, emotions, and thought patterns in real-time.

Prior to Emotiv, Randy served as VP of Product Development at LucasArts. During this period, LucasArts developed over two-dozen titles for PC and consoles including; Knights of the Old Republic, which won Game of the Year, original and critically acclaimed titles such as Mercenaries and Gladius, release of the company’s first MMO with Galaxies Online, and online title Star Wars Battlefront.

Randy began his game industry career at Electronic Arts prior to its IPO, culminating in a 5-year term as Executive Producer and Creative Director. Randy created and managed the Road Rash franchise, originally developed for the Sega Genesis. The property was sequelled several times and went on to span three generations of platforms over a 10-year period. Other acclaimed products produced include; Strike Fleet, 688 Attack Sub, Indy 500: the Simulation, Kasparov’s Gambit, Delphine’s Fade to Black, Adeline’s Little Big Adventure and EA’s Nuclear Strike, and Creative Direction of the movie title 007: The World Is Not Enough.

Carter Lipscomb is best know for his Marketing, Sales and Business Development experience in the gaming industry, where he’s been a fixture since 1990. Carter Lipscomb directed AOL’s Video Games strategic direction and growth. As the former Director of Sales and Marketing for BAM Entertainment, Director of Sales and Marketing for Microprose/Hasbro, and Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Xatrix Entertainment/Virgin, his insight into interactive business and video game sales and marketing provides valuable gaming industry perspective.

Carter has directly managed sales and marketing organizations with staffs greater than 25 and has been responsible for the release of more than one-hundred game titles (resulting in sales of over a billion dollars in revenue). Carter maintains a great relationship with the media and continues to leverage his skills and an articulate and entertaining industry spokesperson on-line and on air! Carter was also credited with having the best office bar in Silicon Valley which was funded by a craps game he ran after hours during the dot com bomb. Currently Carter works at Sony Computer Entertainment America leading the Special Markets Group focusing on alternative channels and business models for any and all first party PlayStation hardware, software and peripherals.

As EVP of Billing Revolution, Greg is responsible for leading the company’s business development, marketing and account management efforts.

Greg is an experienced entrepreneur and advisor who for the past 15 years has worked as a founder and advisor incubating and scaling early stage technology companies with a focus on mobile and gaming. During this time he has helped early stage companies raise over $90MM in financing and served in operating or advisory roles focusing on strategy, business development and market expansion. Greg has worked extensively with a number of Silicon Valley based private equity and venture capital firms including USVP, SV Angels, Mohr Davidow, SK Telecom Ventures, Google Ventures, Doll Capital, Index Ventures, Deep Fork Capital and Motorola Ventures. Greg’s client and partnering experience includes working with companies such as Disney, Motorola, Omnicom, Zynga, Sulake, HP, IBM, MTV Networks, Yahoo!, Nokia, EA, France Telecom, MySpace, CAA, Google, and Playdom.

Greg received his BA in Economics from University of California at Santa Barbara and lives in San Francisco with his wife and twin boys.