We are fortunate to be joined by the following entrepreneurs and executives in the online advertising and SaaS industries.
Gokul Rajaram is Product Director, Ads at Facebook. In this role, he drives the product roadmap and execution for Facebook’s advertising products.
Before Facebook, Gokul was Co-Founder and CEO of Chai Labs, a semantic technology startup he grew to profitability and a multi-million dollar annual revenue run-rate before its acquisition by Facebook.
Earlier in his career, Gokul was Product Management Director for Google AdSense. He helped conceive and crystallize the product in early 2003, and played a key role in its launch and growth from 2003 onwards into a multi-billion dollar product line. Gokul was also product lead for a number of acquisitions for Google, including DoubleClick (display advertising/ad serving), AdScape (in-game advertising) and dMarc (Radio advertising).
Previously, Gokul worked as a software engineer and technical lead at Juno Online, an early free e-mail provider ISP in New York (later merged with NetZero to form United Online), where he developed the back-end advertising system that drove much of Juno’s revenues and helped it go public in 1999.
Gokul has an MBA from MIT Sloan, a MS in CS from UT Austin, and a B. Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur where he received the President’s Gold Medal for being Class Valedictorian.
Hiten Shah is a co-founder and CEO of KISSmetrics.
Hiten started on the Internet by founding a Internet marketing consultancy, ACS. He then went on to create Crazy Egg, an analytics tool that visualizes the user experience on a website. Now with KISSmetrics he is building a data driven solution to help online businesses make better business decisions. Hiten is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs and startup people.
Anne Raimondi has served in a wide range of senior and entrepreneurial roles within leading consumer and retail companies. She is currently the Vice President of Marketing for SurveyMonkey, a leading provider of web-based survey solutions for individuals and organizations. Ms. Raimondi leads the company’s community and marketing initiatives.
Ms. Raimondi began her career as a consultant in the San Francisco office of Bain & Company. She went on to work as a senior analyst at The Gymboree Corporation. Ms. Raimondi later became a member of the founding team at Blue Nile, where she ran product management and visual merchandising. Ms. Raimondi then joined eBay, where she helped launch eBay Stores, managed the team that developed products and features for eBay Sellers, as well as ran product marketing and management for eBay’s international expansion efforts. Ms. Raimondi most recently served in executive positions with two Silicon Valley start-ups, Zazzle and Insider Pages. As VP of Marketing and Product for Insider Pages, she helped to build a leading consumer-generated content and reviews site that was sold to Citysearch, an IAC company, in 2007.
Ms. Raimondi is on the Board of Directors of both thredUP, a start-up company, and OneMillionLights.org, a non-profit organization.
She holds a BA in Economics and Sociology and an MBA from Stanford University and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Amir Ayalon is a successful serial entrepreneur living in Tokyo, Japan. Born in Israel and raised in Sydney, Australia Amir arrived in Japan in 1994 to study the martial art, Aikido.
Having been directly involved in multiple successful start-ups, he knows 1st hand, exactly what it takes to go from a new venture to a well structured corporation and through to a successful exit.
In 2003, Amir founded Sozon Inc launching Japan’s first SEO software solution (SeoSpy™). Amir grew the company from 3 people to 40 people in under 2 years by combining his expertise of both technology and marketing. 24 months after launching the business, Sozon was acquired by ValueCommerce, a Yahoo Japan subsidiary
In 2007, Amir founded Zenlok Corporation with the mission of becoming the world’s standard solution for email encryption and using as a platform to reduce the global waste of paper, and better the environment. Since its launch, Zenlok has received massive media exposure and its launch was featured on the prime time news, covering the “World’s Most Famous (former) Hacker – Kevin Mitnick” and his first ever visit to Japan. Zenlok has filed multiple international patents in both the USA and Japan and is both a leader and innovator in the fields of security, authentication and encryption.
Amir currently serves on the board of multiple ventures and related organizations.
Jerry Neumann is the former Managing Director of Communicade, the venture capital arm of Omnicom Group. Seed funded early internet marketing pioneers, including Razorfish, Agency.com, Organic and Oyster Interactive, and early stage investor in other leading digital media firms like Spray AB, Healthology, eMedicine, Taleo and Think New Ideas. Co-founder of Root Markets.