PVC,
I just don't see that; look at the recent additions to the company; all of these people chose to sell their companies to NEOM and become part of this super company - owners of 12snap, Gavitec, Mobot, BSD (public), Sponge, (soon HipCricket). They all did their DD before agreeing to the definitive merger agreement, and were privy to confidential information, per non-disclosure agreements.
Edited to add: from a past post
A list of now current employees..
Chaz Fritz-founder of physical world to internet marketing (IBM)
Jim Hood-former EVP of Young and Rubicam..Harvard MBA
Martin Copus-Former Vice Chairman Interpublic group
Wes Bray-Direcor of Marketing at Pepsi;Senior Brand manager at Kraft Foods...Harvard MBA
John Block- Started many marketing companies
Ivan Braiker-Recognized as Billboard Magazine's "Trend Setter of the Year"...He has also been president of seven broadcast companies and established the first radio network using Satellites in the US
Graham Knoles- 20 years marketing specialist in the radio and TV business around the world
Lain Simms- Brings skills and experience from 3 continents to the US marketplace...seasoned wireless pro....9 years IT Industry experience with backgrounds in mobile marketing/media and finance
Richard Dysinger,16 years in the business of creating interactive programs that link consumers and brands...first as Creative Director of Phone Programs during the heyday of Wire Line Interactive Voice Response...then as a Senior Account Person at Sprint FonPromotions...brings valuable carrier insights to the business: "I have seen the future and it is wireless!"...
Audra Chmiel-17 years of marketing experience, both on the agency and client sides of the business...strong brand and promotion background (Heineken, Unilever, Polaroid, Seagram Beverage, Miller Brewing)...thrives on hard work and exceeding customer expectations
Russel Gocht-founder of Mobot..Russell led the creation of the Xevo product suite, an enterprise class software platform sold to carriers such as British Telecom, Bell Canada, and Qwest. As Vice President of Engineering, he was instrumental in raising three rounds of venture capital investment in the company totaling $41 million, and built a world class engineering team from 1 to 42, in 19 months.Russell holds a BS degree from the University of Connecticut and an MS degree from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, both in electrical and computer engineering. Russell has several granted and pending patents. And he serves as a member of the board of directors of the Titus Foundation
Kevin Wells...variety of media focused technology firms. Most recently he served as the Vice President, Business Development at BzzAgent Inc, a highly successful new media marketing agency with clients such as Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Ralph LAUREN, Estee Lauder, DuPont, Kellogg’s, Broadcom, and others. BzzAgent was recently profiled by Forbes, WWD, and Fast Company.Earlier in his career, Kevin was a founding partner, and Vice President, Business Development for OneZero Media. OneZero was the exclusive producer of the AltaVista.com entertainment channel and produced a nationally televised program about the Internet called “WildWildWeb.” CBS successfully syndicated the TV program for three seasons
Mobot is led by a world-class management team with entrepreneurial and executive expertise in mobile technology, visual recognition, internet content and services, advertising, marketing and media.
Russell Gocht, Founder and CEO
Russell Gocht founded Mobot in September 2003 to pursue the application of recent advances in image processing to the market opportunity represented by the rapid adoption of camera phones in the consumer marketplace. He recognized early on that wirelessly enabled image capture capability in the hands of 100s of millions of consumers could be harnessed to create new applications and solve critical usability constraints inherent to mobile devices. Russell conceived the vision for Mobot while on staff at Atlas Venture as Entrepreneur in Residence in 2002 and 2003.
Prior to joining Atlas Venture, Russell led the creation of the Xevo product suite, an enterprise class software platform sold to carriers such as British Telecom, Bell Canada, and Qwest. As Vice President of Engineering, he was instrumental in raising three rounds of venture capital investment in the company totaling $41 million, and built a world class engineering team from 1 to 42, in 19 months. At Shiva Corporation he was responsible for the creation of a technology licensing and OEM relationship with IBM which led to a successful IPO in 1994, and market capitalization of $2.6B. As Vice President of Software Engineering, he led an international development team which delivered the market leading Shiva LanRover remote access product line. He was also responsible for propagating Shiva technology through Windows95, Windows NT, and Netscape, increasing the distribution of Shiva technology to reach 100s of millions of users. Earlier in his career Russell led innovations in communications products at both Microcom and Motorola.
Russell holds a BS degree from the University of Connecticut and an MS degree from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, both in electrical and computer engineering. Russell has several granted and pending patents. And he serves as a member of the board of directors of the Titus Foundation.
Kevin Wells, Vice President of Business Development
For the past 15 years, Kevin Wells has been in key management roles in a variety of media focused technology firms. Most recently he served as the Vice President, Business Development at BzzAgent Inc, a highly successful new media marketing agency with clients such as Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Ralph LAUREN, Estee Lauder, DuPont, Kellogg’s, Broadcom, and others. BzzAgent was recently profiled by Forbes, WWD, and Fast Company.
Prior to BzzAgent, Kevin co-founded Mitigo, Inc, a mobile software development company delivering visual symbol reading solutions for wireless devices to mobile telephone and PDA OEMs. The company marketed mobile software to Asian and European handset manufacturers, and on the PDA platform, through strategic relationships with HP/Compaq, Casio, and Sharp.
Earlier in his career, Kevin was a founding partner, and Vice President, Business Development for OneZero Media. OneZero was the exclusive producer of the AltaVista.com entertainment channel and produced a nationally televised program about the Internet called “WildWildWeb.” CBS successfully syndicated the TV program for three seasons. He was principally responsible for channel sales and marketing efforts, e-commerce and advertising, and created more than 200 content partner business relationships. OneZero Media, Inc., was acquired by GT Interactive Software (Nasdaq:GTIS) in 1998.
Prior to OneZero, Kevin served in a variety of roles with Ziff-Davis Publishing. As a founding Director of ZDNet.com, the leading technology web portal, he was a principal business architect of computershopper.com. He also led the ZDNet advertising consultancy for key clients such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, Gateway, and others.
LAUREN Bigelow-
LAUREN brings to Mobot a successful record of envisioning and producing wireless and web products. Most recently as Vice President and GM of Product Management at Lycos, LAUREN was responsible for new product initiatives and managed community, blogging, and networking products including Tripod.com and Angelfire.com.Earlier, as Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for SkyGo (bought by Enpocket), she led the development of the SkyGo Mobile Advertising Platform™ and pioneered the use of wireless marketing, taking SkyGo from its concept stage through groundbreaking market trials in the US, Japan and Hong Kong, to its status as a leading wireless advertising company with customers including Vodaphone kk in Japan as well as MTV, Chevy Trucks, ESPN, Visa, Procter & Gamble, KFC, and Subway in the US
Mark Bees-A wireless industry veteran, Mark brings over twenty years of wireless consumer sales and marketing experience to Mobot. Mark has held leadership positions with major US wireless carriers including Cingular Wireless where he ran the Southern New England region as Vice President and General Manger. At Cingular, Mark lead 650 employees, managed all functional area directors including multi-channel sales, marketing, network, customer care and had P&L responsibility of $1Billion. Under his direction he helped launch Cingular Wireless - the combination of thirteen disparate regional wireless companies forming one nationwide brand. Prior to Cingular, Mark was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Cellular One Boston, an SBC company where Mark managed all aspects of sales and marketing for the region
Eric Hedman-As founder and CTO of NextRadio, Eric created the first interactive audio "jukebox" on the Web, and has more than seven years of experience in the online music business. Eric was responsible for all of NextRadio’s architecture decisions, and provided strategic guidance on next-generation product functionality.
Pam Lipson, Image Scientist
Pamela Lipson is a founder of Imagen Incorporated. Imagen creates computer vision software packages that allow computers to intelligently analyze images, recognize objects and perform object validation assessments that may be too challenging for human inspectors. Imagen's technology was borne out of research in biological and machine vision done by Pamela and several colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.Pamela received her B.A from Harvard University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where her doctoral research was honored with the George M. Sprowls Award for exception research
Eric Healy-As a senior member of Arnold Worldwide’s advertising team, Eric brings a wide array of brand building and multi-channel marketing skills to the agency’s Integrated Solutions Group. In his role as Vice President / Director, Eric is responsible for Arnold clients including Vonage, Volkswagen, Fidelity Investments, Royal Caribbean, and Brown-Forman Corporation.Prior to his employment at Arnold, Eric served as Vice President, Strategy Group at Digitas, where he led the company’s Boston-based, retail practice. Clients included Neiman Marcus, L.L. Bean, Ann Taylor, Williams-Sonoma, Best Buy, Xerox, General Motors and American Express. Eric served as founding Director of eCommerce and Global Direct Marketing at Reebok International Limited, across the company’s portfolio brands including Reebok, Rockport, Greg Norman, Polo Sport and Ralph LAUREN Footwear. Eric holds dual Master of Science degrees in Management and Marketing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, Association of Internet Professionals and Association of Interactive Media.
John Puopolo, Technical Advisor
John serves as the Director of Technology Alliances for FAST, a successful enterprise search platform software company. While at FAST, he has integrated FAST InStream into OEM client products including EMC's Centera, Computer Associates' Cleverpath and Documentum's Content Server. Prior to joining FAST, John served as Vice President of Engineering at International Wireless, Inc., where he delivered mobile applications for PDAs and handsets across a variety of operating systems and platforms – in less than 6 months, the core product ran across 3 operating systems, in 2 languages and integrated seamlessly with a variety of off-the-shelf components
Dr Michael Birkal..founder of 12SNAP...former senior consultant at Mckinsey & CO
Bernd Muehlfriedel-co-founder 12SNAP..CFO in charge of strategic development..former senior consultant of McKinsey & Co
Morits Winter...handset application specialist...history in the movie busness in LA
Erma Cotton..country manager for 12SNAPUK..worked for Renault..worked at the Euopean Parliment
Martin Edwall-Managing director 12SNAP Scandinavia..founder of Lokomobil
DR Kart Pall...Managing Director 12SNAP Eastern Europe...former senior executive at Coca-Cola.PHD in commications from the university of Vienna
Ulrich Pietsch-managing director 12Snap Germany..developed corporate strategies for the world's largest tour operator TUI.
Daniela Rena-country manager 12Snap Italy...former Vice President and managing director of Ogilvyone worldwide.Founded her own agency before selling to Ogilvy.
Nathaniel Brochin-managing director 12snap USA...founding member of Rare Medium Group growing it to a market cap of $4.5 billion.As chief creative officer at Rare,worked with Nestle, Lucent, HBO and General Mills. Holds an MBA from the London School of Economics
Guy Fietz, President/Founder of Triton
Mr Fietz-founder of Triton... had the vision to see a gap in Telco billing services and strategically developed a system that addressed this market need. He was instrumental in bringing together a team of qualified engineers to develop advanced processing technologies and a sophisticated software/hardware approach specifically for telecommunications billing systems. Since launching Triton over 7 years ago, he has managed operations and lead a successful and sustainable growth initiative
Robin Legg, Vice President Business Development of Triton
Robin has over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and has acquired extensive expertise in team leadership, business development and strategic planning. Robin’s responsibilities include overall responsibility for implementing and positioning Triton’s new service offerings in the marketplace.Robin’s previous work experience includes
Executive Vice President Business Development BELL CANADA INTERNATIONAL (U.S.)
A.V.P. NORTEL NETWORKS
Regional Director NORTEL NETWORKS (Western Canada
Gordon F. MacLeod, Vice President Sales and Marketing
Mr. Macleod is the ex- Manager of National Accounts for Time iCR, an Ottawa based speech recognition application hosting and service provider and has 10 years of direct experience within the telecommunication sector. Gordon has an Honors degree in Business Administration from the University of Guelph
AI
