Virtual Goods Summit 2009

We’re continuing to add speakers, so watch this space—we’ll have some great additions to this list to announce shortly. Companies interested in speaking at the Virtual Goods Summit 2009 or VGS University should contact Charles Hudson via email at charles@vgsummit.com.

Brian Balfour, Co-Founder and VP Product Marketing, Viximo

Brian is a serial entrepreneur and pioneer in the social networking and virtual goods industry. Prior to founding Viximo, Brian managed new product initiatives at ZoomInfo, and was founder of multiple online community startups, including the first college specific social network in early 2003. In addition, as a founding member of Betahouse, a co-working space for technology entrepreneurs, and co-founder of PopSignal, one of Boston’s largest professional networking organizations, Brian is actively contributing to the growth of Boston’s technology startup scene. Brian holds Bachelor’s degrees in Sports Business, Economics, and Applied Statistics from the University of Michigan. Brian blogs at http://www.SocialDegree.com.

Lex Bayer, General Manager, Social Networking Monetization, PlaySpan

Lex Bayer is the General Manager of Social Networking Monetization at PlaySpan, and co-founder Spare Change Payments, the leading payment platform designed specifically for social networks. Currently available on Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace, Spare Change has processed millions of payment transactions since its launch in February 2008 and is utilized on over 700 third party applications as a means to monetize virtual goods through micropayments. Lex is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has led product development at a series of early stage high-tech startups across multiple industries. He received both an MS and BS degrees in engineering from Stanford University.

Ludovic Bodin, co-Founder and CEO, CMUNE

Ludovic Bodin is a serial entrepreneur in the internet and gaming industry with experiences in Europe, North & Latin America, and China. He is the CEO & co-founder of CMUNE (http://www.cmune.com), the leading next-gen social gaming company. CMUNE developed the CMUNE Platform that allows rapid deployment of multiple Casual MMO, Virtual World and Next-Gen Social Games, either with partners for parallel development or customers via licensing of its platform. CMUNE’s first product built on top of the CMUNE Platform, Paradise Paintball, is the first 3D Casual FPS on Facebook. Previously, Ludovic was the founding CEO of Macau.com, the leading online travel agency dedicated to Macau, the “Las Vegas of the East”. Prior to coming to China, Ludovic worked in Latin America in investment & modernization of public telecom operators and had successfully started and sold an internet venture in Europe back in the year 2000. Ludovic is also the co-founder of the Social Venture Forum, a foundation dedicated to social-problems-solving entrepreneurship and the upcoming TEDx conference in Beijing.

Randy Breen, COO, SGN

Randy Breen, a game industry veteran, has joined SGN as its Chief Operating Officer (COO), to provide leadership in all aspects of corporate operations, including game production, business development, strategy and executive management. Randy joined EA pre-IPO in 1986 when it was less than 100 people and where he spent fourteen years in production roles culminating in a five year term as Executive Producer and Creative Director. He created the multimillion unit selling Road Rash franchise and managed over two dozen titles for PC and console on all platforms and in Simulation, Sports, Action, Shooter, and RPG categories. After EA, Randy joined LucasArts Entertainment, a subsidiary of LucasFilm, as Vice President of Product Development. After five years at LucasArts Randy joined Emotiv Systems as the Chief Product Officer, responsible for the company’s research and development as well as its business development activities. Randy is a former non-commissioned officer who spent six years in the Navy, four years serving on a nuclear submarine. He is also an avid marathon runner and triathlete and rides a Ducati to SGN everyday. Randy’s extensive range of direct involvement includes business planning, market analysis, forecasting, P&L management, conceptualization, product design, interdisciplinary team building, organizational management, contract negotiation, business development and fund raising. He has managed and worked closely with marketing, sales, legal, and finance teams in each of these areas.

Melinda Byerley, General Manager, Marketplaces, Linden Lab

Melinda Byerley (Pink Linden) is the General Manager, Marketplaces at Linden Lab. Melinda oversees Resident-to-Resident ecommerce, consisting of Virtual Goods, Search & Classifieds, and the Lindex Currency Exchange for the virtual world of Second Life. Previously she has held ecommerce general management and marketing roles at eBay, PayPal, iWin, and Check Point Software. Melinda has an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Cornell University and a BFA in Theatre from Illinois Wesleyan University.

Adam Caplan, Vice President, Virtual Currency, Adknowledge, Inc.

Adam is a renowned Internet/digital media executive with extensive operational experience in the online advertising and social gaming sectors. He is currently the Vice President, Virtual Currency at Adknowledge Inc., a diversified online advertising business which recently acquired Super Rewards, the leading monetization technology for social network applications, casual gaming sites, MMORPGs, virtual worlds and other websites using virtual currencies. Prior to joining Super Rewards as President in early 2008, Adam was the Founder & CEO of a social gaming start-up. Prior to that, he was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley for eleven years, where he headed the emerging Internet/new media banking team in New York. Adam has significant experience providing public and private financing and M&A advice to companies across the internet and media sectors. He is a regular speaker at online advertising, virtual goods and social gaming related conferences.

Robin Chan, Founder and CEO, XPD Media

Robin is the Founder and CEO of XPD Media Inc. Venture backed with offices in Beijing and Silicon Valley, XPD is building next generation entertainment platforms. Previously, Robin was Director of Social Media at Verizon, where he was responsible for multiplatform strategy and business unit expansion. He led business development partnerships for video, social networks, gaming, and virtual worlds. He began his career in the Corporate Strategy group at Time Warner. Robin earned his B.A. in economics from Columbia University, where he was on the heavyweight crew team.

Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners

Tim brings a combination of operational, technical and international business experience to Norwest Venture Partners. Tim focuses on investments in mobile, gaming, digital media, and also leads NVP’s investment practice in China and Asia-Pacific. Tim led NVP’s investments in and joined the boards of directors of ngmoco, Lumos Labs, Brite Semiconductor and 3jam. He also led NVP’s investment in PCH International, a turnkey global supply chain services firm based in Shenzhen. Tim is a board observer working closely with Borqs, deCarta, Double Fusion and Veveo.
Prior to joining NVP in 2006, Tim was a principal at Gabriel Venture Partners where he was actively involved in over a dozen wireless-related deals. Prior to joining Gabriel, Tim spent more than five years working in Japan at Gateway Inc. and as a development engineer for General Motors. As a tri-lingual engineer based in Tokyo, Tim led project teams in China, Korea and Japan in the development, testing and sales of advanced chassis control systems for clients such as Toyota and Daewoo.
Tim began his career in venture capital in 1999 during his time at Stanford Business School as part of the founding team of CTR Ventures K.K., a venture accelerator in Tokyo focused on seed and early-stage mobile consumer applications for the Japanese market. Tim holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in electrical engineering/system engineering as well as a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Siqi Chen, Founder, Serious Business

Siqi is founder of Serious Business, a YCombinator and Lightspeed Venture Partners-funded startup in the Facebook space, and a top ranked developer on the Facebook platform. He was previously a product manager at video sharing site Veoh and a software engineer at the semantic search startup Powerset.

 

Jason Citron, Founder and CEO, AuroraFeint

Jason Citron is Founder and CEO of Aurora Feint Inc., developer of OpenFeint, the leading social gaming platform for the iPhone with over 200 games live in the AppStore, 500 more in development, and 2500 registered application developers. OpenFeint has become the de-facto choice for many game developers and publishers entering the social gaming space on the iPhone. OpenFeint combines the kind of capabilities that the Facebook application platform offers social game developers, with the kind of capabilities that Xbox® Live offers to console game developers in a simple, easily integrated open source client connected to a proven, scalable cloud based service. In addition to leaderboards, achievements, lobbies and a friend network including Facebook and Twitter integration, developers also get access to cross promotion and social discovery capabilities.

M. Lee Clancy, Jr., Vice President of Product Management and General Manager of Direct Revenue, IMVU

Lee joined IMVU in September 2008 from Yahoo!, where he was Senior Director for Community Products. At Yahoo!, Lee also led product management for Yahoo! Groups, a global community of 110 million users, and Yahoo! Personals, the most visited destination in the dating market. Prior to Yahoo!, Lee co-founded a music-focused social networking startup. Lee also worked at Broadband Office in business development and at PricewaterhouseCoopers in strategy consulting advising entertainment and media clients. Lee earned a B.A. in Spanish Literature from Amherst College, an M.B.A. from Cornell University, and an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Geoff Cook, CEO, myYearbook

Geoff is now the CEO of his third multi-million dollar Internet enterprise, all grown from zero traffic and zero revenue to significant market-leading properties. In 1997, at age 19, Geoff founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a Harvard dorm room. Each property dominated their respective niches: admissions essay and resume writing help. He then sold his companies to The Thomson Corporation where he led the Consumer Market Group for a Thomson Learning division, departing Thomson in 2005. Geoff has been featured in Wired, Rolling Stone, ABC News, CNBC, and USA Today. In 2005, Geoff became the CEO of myYearbook, joining forces with his siblings. Geoff was instrumental in raising $20+ million in angel financing, venture capital, and venture debt to build the young company into the largest US social media site. Geoff has an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University and lives in New Jersey with his wife Kerri and daughter Madeline.

Renata Dionello, Director, Consumer Business Development, PayPal

Renata leads PayPal’s efforts in business development on the consumer side of the business. She is currently involved in developing PayPal’s strategy in the micropayments and social media space. Renata has over 10 years of experience in business development, strategy, product management and marketing. Prior to PayPal, she ran marketing and product management at Pictage, the leading online services provider for professional photographers. Renata’s experience also includes heading up strategy at Rent.com, corporate strategy at Disney, project management at Universal Music and strategy consulting at the Boston Consulting Group. Renata holds a BA and MEng from the University of Oxford (England) and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

John Earner, Vice President of Product Management, Playfish

John Earner brings extensive expertise in online gaming to his role as vice president of product management at Playfish, where he oversees the daily service operation of the company’s growing portfolio of live popular social games. Prior to Playfish, John was with Sony Computer Entertainment America where he designed the micro-transaction business model for PlayStation Home, Sony’s free-to-play virtual community, which he also helped launch. John also was a project leader at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a leading strategy consulting firm, where his role focused on online gaming. Before BCG, John was an officer in the United States Navy. John earned a MBA from University of California at Berkeley and holds a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University.

Eric Eldon, Inside Network

Eric Eldon is the Co-Editor at Inside Network, which publishes Inside Facebook, Inside Social Games, as well as industry analyses and data services. He got into tech blogging when he started as the first employee at VentureBeat, a leading Silicon Valley technology publication, back in 2007. There, he became an editor, and the beat writer for social networking. The move back to journalism followed the failure of a writing software startup he had cofounded a couple year earlier, called WriteWith. During college, he reported and edited news for The Stanford Daily, and for a year-long gig ran its business side. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in International Relations in 2005.

Hill Ferguson, VP Product Management and Marketing, Zong (Echovox, Inc.)

Hill is responsible for product strategy and marketing. A payments veteran, Hill spent the last decade developing and managing new payment services in Silicon Valley. As General Manager for Yodlee’s Personal Finance Products, Hill led the development and distribution efforts for several new and innovative payments products currently being used by top banks and web portals. At Yahoo! Hill produced and managed several consumer products, including a consumer bill payment product and a peer-to-peer payment service. In his spare time he manages LoanBack, a “friends and family” loan management service he co-founded in 2005. Hill earned a BS and an MBA, both from Vanderbilt University.

Michael Frasier, Director of Business Development, InComm

Michael has spent the past two years at InComm as Director of Business Development. Over the past two years he has been instrumental to InComm’s growth in product partner acquisitions and subsequent successful retail launches; specifically as it relates to prepaid card monetization strategies and understanding retailer partner marketing. Prior to his service at InComm, Frasier spent three years at a Panasonic, where he managed Product Lines for DVD RAM Vendor / Retail Channel plus managed Nintendo’s Gaming Packaging Partners for Gamecube and launch of the mega hit Wii.

Robert Goldberg, SVP Business Operations, Zynga

Robert Goldberg is Zynga’s senior VP of Business Operations, which includes revenue management, sales, marketing, business and corporate development, partner management and studio services. He brings over 25 years of senior management experience at industry leading media, e-commerce, enterprise software companies and venture capital firms, including Idealab and NBCi.

Steven Goh, Co-founder and Executive Vice President, mig33

Steven is well experienced in developing and delivering successful Internet services for consumers, having first founded Australia’s first online stock brokerage company Sanford Securities Limited, prior to co-founding mig33. Steven was previously the principal founder and CEO of Sanford Securities Limited. From a start-up business in 1996, Steven grew Sanford to 160,000 customers with $66 million in sales over six years and 33.4 billion in customer assets, prior to its acquisition by financial services company IWL Limited in 2003. Steven is recognized as an authority on contemporary IT issues. Steven was awarded an inaugural Western Australia Business News “40 under 40″ Award in 2002, and he was a finalist in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Australia’s Western Region. Steven has extensive private and public board experience, has served as a keynote speaker and panelist at Internet, financial services industry, and mobile technology conferences in Australia and Asia, and has appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. Steven received both a Bachelor of Commerce and an MBA from the University of Western Australia.

Bill Grosso, CTO and SVP of Product, Live Gamer

As CTO and SVP of Product for Live Gamer, Mr. Grosso is responsible for the efforts of the technology and product teams,tailoring product offerings to customers’ needs and delivering the right solutions to Live Gamer’s global customer base. Previously, Mr. Grosso served as CTO for virtual economy platform provider Twofish, which was recently acquired by Live Gamer, where he headed the Twofish Elements product roadmap, platform development and engineering organizations. As an active participant in the software development community, Mr. Grosso has published two books and more than 20 journal articles. He also served as a long-time board member for SDForum, and has held various chief architect and executive engineering roles at companies including Engage, Echopass and Hipbone. He received his Masters of Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Vikas Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, Jambool

Vikas Gupta is co-founder and CEO of Jambool, Inc. Jambool operates Social Gold, a leading virtual currency and payments platform for social games and applications. The platform enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an unparalleled, in-app payments experience to their users, and to optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. Prior to Jambool, Vikas led both the Payments and the Web Services groups at Amazon.com. He also was lead inventor for Amazon’s Flexible Payments Service. Vikas co-founded Jambool in 2006 and built several popular applications on the Facebook platform – all of which employed virtual economy elements that became the foundation for Social Gold.

Nils-Holger Henning, CCO, Bigpoint GmbH

After graduating with “Diplom-Kaufmann”, “Master of Laws” (LL.M.) and working in companies like AOL Time Warner and Whirlpool Nils-Holger joined Bigpoint in 2005. Since then Bigpoint became the leading developer and publisher of browser-based multiplayer games, and grew from 20 to more than 220 employees in 2008. Combining deep internet distribution with games industry knowledge, Nils-Holger has successfully built up a commercial department as Bigpoint’s CCO with a strategy focussing on media partnerships and internationalisation. He co-initiated the financial buyout by NBC Universal’s (NYSE: GE) Peacock Equity Fund together with GMT Communications Partners. In Bigpoint he established co-operations with media partners including NBC Universal, Viacom (MTV Europe), Pro7/ SBS, Bertelsmann (RTL, M6), Orange, Telefonica, etc.

Ron Hirson, Co-founder, SVP Product and Marketing, BOKU

Ron brings over fourteen years experience in product and general management in the consumer Internet space to the BOKU team. Most recently, Ron served as VP of Product at AT&T Interactive, which he joined through the acquisition of service marketplace and performance advertising company Ingenio. Ron spent 6 years at Ingenio, where he served as VP of Product Management. Prior to Ingenio, Ron was co-founder and CEO of The Digs Network, an early social network focused on Gen Y, which was bought by iDrive. He started his career as a Management Consultant for Price Waterhouse focused on technology integrations. In addition to his role at BOKU, Ron served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Khosla Ventures and actively advises several companies in the consumer Internet space.

Jameson Hsu, Co-Founder and Chief Mochi, Mochi Media

Jameson Hsu is Chief Mochi and co-founder of Mochi Media. Prior to founding Mochi Media, Jameson co-founded the award winning interactive design firm WDDG where he led partnerships with major brands such as Kraft, HP, Burger King and many more. Jameson has been focused on gaming and interactive advertising for over 10 years, working closely with Flash developers, industry leading artists, advertising agencies, and Fortune 500 clients to develop innovative marketing and communication solutions.

David Jesse, Vice President Product Management & Business Analytics, Gaia Online

Since 2007, David has led the product roadmap planning, feature definition and business metrics analysis for Gaia Online. Prior to joining Gaia, David was at eBay, Inc. for seven years in a variety of roles. He was general manager and launched the localized website for eBay Ireland. Earlier, David led the product team for eBay UK and oversaw the development of eBay’s global seller tools. From 1994-1998, David worked in corporate finance and technology equity research for NationsBanc Montgomery Securities, now part of Bank of America. David graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and also holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Benjamin Joffe, CEO, +8*

Benjamin Joffe is a renowned expert on Asia’s digital scene, where he has been part during the past 9 years of Japan’s mobile revolution, Korea’s Internet boom as well as China’s mobile crash and web 2.0 revival. He is the CEO of the digital strategy consultancy +8* (www.plus8star.com), partner of the next-generation social gaming company Cmune (www.cmune.com) and founder of the Mobile Monday forum in Beijing. Plus8Star’s clients include Microsoft, IMVU, Deutsche Telekom, the European Commission, Adidas and leading media companies as well as investment firms worldwide. Benjamin is a regular keynote in tech and media events and was selected among China’s Top 100 Mobile Industry Influencers in 2007 and 2008. Benjamin speaks fluent English, French and Japanese with working knowledge of Korean, Chinese and Spanish.

Jinen Kamdar, Group Product Manager, Ning

Jinen Kamdar is the group product manager at Ning, Inc., the social platform for the world’s passions and interests. Jinen is responsible for driving the strategic product direction for Ning. Prior to joining Ning, Jinen was a product manager at Oracle overseeing the next generation of the Oracle Collaboration Suite. Previously, Jinen managed direct counsel for telecom, healthcare and legal clients while at Deloitte Consulting. Jinen holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Cornell University.

Amy Jo Kim, CEO, Shufflebrain

Amy Jo is an internationally-known designer of social games and online communities. Her clients include AOL, BBC, Digital Chocolate, Disney, Electronic Arts, eBay, MTV, Nokia, Square/Enix and Yahoo! She’s also the author of Community Building on the Web, a design handbook for networked communities that’s available in 7 languages (English, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese) and has become required reading in game design studios and universities around the globe. Amy Jo holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington, and a BS in Experimental Psych from UC San Diego. She is also an adjunct professor in the USC Film School, where she teaches Game Design.

Min Kim, Vice President of Marketing, Nexon America

As Vice President of Nexon America, Min is responsible for business development initiatives and game operations of Nexon published titles in the U.S. His current professional and personal goal is the successful introduction and adoption of the microtransaction business model in the US. Prior to joining Nexon America, Min operated the successful launch of the Global Edition of MapleStory as the Vice President of Global Business Development at Wizet Corp. Today, MapleStory remains one of world’s top online games supported by a microtransaction business model. Min started his career in video games as a senior associate of business development at Nexon Corporation pursuing new business opportunities such as a social networking service, a board game business, and online game licensing. Before joining the online games space, Min was an investment banking analyst in the media group of Salomon Smith Barney in New York. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics-Statistics from Columbia College.

Andrew Lacy, Co-Founder and COO, Tapulous

Andrew Lacy is the co-founder and COO of Tapulous. Lead by the success of its hit music game, Tap Tap Revenge, Tapulous applications have been downloaded tens of millions of times on iPhone and iPod touches. As an entrepreneur, Andrew has helped steer Tapulous through investment rounds, successive product launches, building a team and the achieving of profitability. As a key participant in the iPhone ecosystem and one of the largest sellers of virtual goods on the platform, Andrew provides a valuable perspective of how the ecosystem will evolve. Andrew Lacy holds an MBA from Stanford Business School and degrees in Law and Economics from University of Melbourne.

Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Jeremy Liew is a Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. He invests primarily in the Internet and mobile sectors, with a particular interest in social media, commerce, gaming and methods for increasing monetization. He joined Lightspeed in early 2006.
Previously, Jeremy was with AOL, first as SVP of Corporate Development and Chief of Staff to the CEO and then as General Manager of Netscape. Jeremy joined AOL from InterActiveCorp (originally USA Networks), where he was VP of Strategic Planning. While there, he was responsible for acquisitions, divestitures and investments in TV Networks, consumer Internet companies and online travel companies.
Jeremy started working in the consumer Internet industry as an early employee of CitySearch in 1996, where he held a variety of sales management, operational and business development roles. He was also a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. Jeremy holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA/BSc from the Australian National University in Linguistics and Pure Mathematics. Jeremy is a frequent contributor to the Lightspeed blog at http://lsvp.wordpress.com.

Owen Mahoney, CEO, Outspark

Owen is one of the most experienced and accomplished executives in interactive entertainment and digital media. As Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Electronic Arts, he was responsible for worldwide mergers and acquisitions and business development, and led all acquisitions from November 2000 to March 2009. This required that he review virtually every significant company or transaction in the industry.
Owen also has substantial operating experience in Asia. Prior to joining EA, Owen oversaw business development for domestic and international operations of consumer technology company Xenote, was responsible for establishing and managing the Japanese joint venture of Internet pioneer PointCast Inc., and managed channel development for the Asia/Pacific region for Apple’s software subsidiary, Claris Corp. Owen also held a variety of management posts with other technology companies including Radius, Inc, and Ray Dream, Inc. (now MetaCreations), where he oversaw sales and marketing for the Asia Pacific Region.
Owen graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and studied Japanese law and political science at the University of Tokyo graduate department of law. He is fluent in Japanese and lived in Japan from 1990 to 1995.

Steve Meretzky, VP Game Design, Playdom

It’s hard to have a serious conversation about gaming without mention of Steve. It’s also hard to have a humorous conversation about gaming without mention of him. Steve’s contributions to the industry began in 1981 at the legendary adventure game company Infocom, where his titles included Planetfall, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a collaboration with Douglas Adams), Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork Zero. Prior to joining Playdom, Steve co-founded Boffo Games and held senior creative posts at Blue Fang Games, Floodgate Entertainment and WorldWinner.com. Over his prolific career, Steve also consulted with teams at Activision, Blizzard, Disney, EA, Harmonix, Hasbro and Legend, to name a few. A former board member of IGDA, Steve is co-organizer of the annual Casual Games Summit at the GDC and the annual Game Designers Workshop. Steve holds a BS in construction project management from MIT, but otherwise assures us that he did not waste his four years there.

Will O’Brien, GM of Social and Casual Games, TrialPay

Will O’Brien is the GM of Social and Casual Games for TrialPay, the industry leader in innovative payment and promotion solutions. Will oversees strategy, product marketing and key partnerships for monetization of virtual currency and digital goods in the games space. During his career, Will has helped early-stage companies develop and implement successful e-commerce strategies, including a startup he founded in the lead-generation space. Will holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard University and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Keith Rabois, Vice President, Strategy & Business Development, Slide

Keith is Vice President, Strategy & Business Development at Slide, where he is responsible for Slide’s corporate strategy and partnerships. Under his leadership, Slide has become the leading application developer on Facebook with more active users than any other developer. Before joining Slide, Keith served as Vice President of Business & Corporate Development at LinkedIn, where he was responsible for generating new revenue streams. Prior to LinkedIn, Keith served as Executive Vice President at PayPal, directing the company’s competitive strategy and business development initiatives. After leaving PayPal, Keith was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Clarium Capital Management, the global hedge fund lead by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Keith currently serves on the Board of Directors of Yelp, Vendio, Xoom and FanIQ. He is also an early investor in YouTube and several other high profile early stage start-ups. Keith holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Cary Rosenzweig, President and Chief Executive Officer, IMVU

Cary began serving as the President and CEO of IMVU in November 2007. Previously, he served as either CEO or Chief Marketing Officer at four other technology startups, including mySimon.com (acquired by CNET) and Autoweb.com (acquired by Autobytel). Cary was VP and General Manager at Intuit, responsible for QuickBooks Payroll, which he grew from $100 million to $200 million over a three-year period (2003-2006). Cary began his career in marketing and brand management at Procter and Gamble, where he was Tide Brand Manager. He then went to Clorox, where he rose up the marketing ranks before becoming General Manager of the Clorox Pet Products Company. Cary earned an A.B. in International Relations from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Anu Shukla, Founder and CEO, Offerpal Media

Anu Shukla founded Offerpal Media in June, 2007, with the vision of providing social application developers and other social publishers with a viable way to monetize their traffic. She has since grown Offerpal Media into the leading social advertising network on the Web, generating significant revenue for social publishers while driving high quality leads and high value customers to online advertisers. A serial entrepreneur, Anu is also the founder and CEO of Mybuys Inc., the leading provider of personalized product recommendations for online retailers. Prior to Mybuys, Anu pioneered the category of Internet Marketing Automation as founder and CEO of Rubric, Inc. Rubric was acquired in 2000 for $366 million. Prior to Rubric, Anu held a variety of executive roles including the VP of Marketing and Product Strategy at Versata (VATA), and Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Product Management at Compuware/Uniface Corporation (CPWR).

Justin Smith, Founder and Editor, Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games

Justin Smith is the founder and editor of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games, the original and leading sources for news, analysis, and insight on the social gaming industry. From 2007 to 2009, Justin served as Head of Product for Watercooler, a venture-backed startup and one of the leading developers of applications on Facebook and other major social platforms. Prior to Inside Facebook, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006. Prior to Xfire, Justin earned a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University. Justin is also the author of the Facebook Marketing Bible, the most widely referenced book on Facebook marketing today.

Shinichi (Shin) Takamiya, Senior Associate, Globis Capital Partners

Shin leads gaming, mobile, and web services investments at Globis Capital Partners. Shin takes an hands-on approach to his portfolio companies initiating strategy development, technology management, and global expansion. He is an active board member of Q Entertainment (packaged games, and MMO on PC, Playstation, and mobile), and Indisoftware (cross platform ad games, and social apps) etc.
Prior to Globis, Shin lead management consulting projects at Arthur D. Little where he developed corporate strategy, new business strategy and innovation strategy for leading IT service providers and software companies. Shin received BA in Economics from University of Tokyo (graduation thesis with Honor), and MBA from Harvard Business School (Second Year Honor).
Shin enjoys his life as a VC integrating his personal interests in games, web, innovation and entrepreneurship! Globis is a leading Tokyo based VC focusing on IT, Core Tech and Service industry. Past investments include Gree, and ngi group (incubator of mixi) etc.

Akio Tanaka, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Infinity Venture Partners

Akio Tanaka was formerly the head of venture investment program for Adobe in Asia and was responsible for Adobe’s corporate venture investment in Greater China, Japan, and India. Previous to Adobe, Mr. Tanaka held the position of CTO for Macromedia Japan working as part of the local management team as well as the position of Technology Advisor to the CEO for Macromedia Inc. at the US headquarters advising the CEO on investment and M&A strategies in Asia. Akio Tanaka holds a Master’s degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada and received the Governor General’s Gold Medal for graduating at the head of his class.

Shanna Tellerman, Founder and CEO, Wildpockets

Shanna Tellerman is the Founder and CEO of Sim Ops Studios, Inc., a spin-off company from Carnegie Mellon University. Sim Ops is developing the comprehensive independent game development solution, Wild Pockets; a free web-based 3D game engine with a built-in transaction system and distribution network. Shanna has overseen operations, development, fund raising, and strategic relationships since the formation of Sim Ops. She has over seven years of experience working in the video game and emerging serious games industry with a focus on breaking down the barriers for creative development in 3D environments. Graduating with a Masters degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2005, she was hired by the University to continue development and to investigate commercialization opportunities for the technology that formed the foundation of Sim Ops Studios. Shanna has experience in a variety of roles including her initial involvement as visionary, product manager and designer, focused on user-centered design and research in game development, through to her current role as CEO focused on all levels execution in the company from the product roadmap to business development. In 2004, Ms. Tellerman had the opportunity to work for Electronic Arts on The Sims 2, the sequel to the best-selling PC game ever. She has also researched and co-authored the paper titled “Emergent Stories in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Using Improvisational Techniques to Design for Emotional Impact,” (International Conference on Entertainment Computing, 2004). She received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a Minor in Multi-Media Production from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003.

Dai Watanabe, President, DeNA Global, Inc.

Dai Watanabe, President of DeNA Global, has been responsible for DeNA’s global expansion strategy and execution for four years. He opened DeNA’s first overseas market by establishing DeNA Beijing in 2006. Then in 2008 he founded the U.S. subsidiary and launched MobaMingle, English version of DeNA’s most successful mobile portal. Prior to his international assignments, Dai spent five years at DeNA in various management positions in business development, marketing, product and planning, covering the mobile auction, Web-commerce and Internet advertisement products. Dai began his career in Sumitomo Mitsui Bank right after graduation from Kyoto University with a bachelor degree of Archaeology.

Roger Wood, Chairman & CEO, ORCA

Mr. Wood joined ORCA after nearly 20 years of offline, online and mobile marketing experience. Mr. Wood is internationally recognized in the interactive marketing and wireless industries. Mr. Wood was a key player in the launch of GSM wireless in North America as a member of the start-up management teams for iDEN/Nextel and the T-mobile USA predecessor company Omnipoint. Mr. Wood was also marketing leader for Reebok International, and pioneered many interactive advertising and e-commerce innovations in the apparel and footwear industry. Mr. Wood then served as COO of the Media Entertainment & Technology practice at Willis Group. Most recently, he was head of the Americas Region for Amobee Media Systems, a leader in interactive advertising for mobile systems operators.

Kevin Xu, Co-Founder and COO, IGG, Inc.

Kevin Xu is Co-founder and COO of IGG, one of the largest and fastest growing Free2Play MMORPG companies in US. Kevin brings a wealth of operational experience to IGG and is responsible for the vision of the company. Kevin leads operations in IGG’s US office where he drives global marketing, monetization and business development. Prior to IGG, Kevin was a super smart nano-technology scientist. Kevin graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering.

Zhan Ye, Founder and President, GameVision

Zhan Ye is a veteran game developer and entrepreneur. As one of China’s first-generation hardcore game developers, Zhan began creating PC games in 1995 and his thinking and writings have inspired many of today’s Chinese game developers. Zhan established China’s first game developers magazine in 2005 and served as its editorial director. He is the founder and president of GameVision, a business consulting and outsourcing management firm. GameVision’s clients include global game publishers and developers, Venture Capital firms, technology vendors, and media companies.

Eugene Yoo, Vice President, Globespan Capital Partners

As Vice President of Globespan, Eugene focuses on investments in Communications, Internet/Infrastructure, and Systems and Peripherals. Based in Palo Alto, he also leads the firm’s effort to help portfolio companies expand their businesses into Korea. Eugene is board member of Challenge Games, Nurien Software, Strata8 and Wirefree Partners. He is also currently a board observer of Amalfi, Analogix, Hatteras Networks, Quartics, and Sonics. Prior to joining Globespan, Eugene was in the Corporate Development Group at Cisco Systems where he focused on venture investments and acquisitions in the video, consumer, wireless and optics markets. Eugene also worked on strategic planning for emerging businesses within Cisco and as a product manager in the Metro Ethernet business unit. Prior to Cisco, Eugene worked for Mercer Management Consulting and spent time at a number of Internet start-ups. At the start of his career, Eugene worked for US Cellular as a Network Engineer. Eugene earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematical and Computational Science, with honors, from Stanford University and holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He serves as the Vice President of the Korean IT Network (KIN). Eugene is striving to play bogey golf and for semi-proficiency in foreign languages.

Neil Young, CEO and founder, ngmoco

Neil Young is the CEO and Founder of ngmoco, creator and publisher of games exclusively for iPhone and iPod touch.
Prior to founding ngmoco, Neil held various positions at Electronic Arts, most recently as the Group General Manager of the EA|Blueprint Studio group that included Maxis (creators of Spore™ & The Sims™) and EA’s collaborative partnership with Steven Spielberg. Neil joined Electronic Arts in 1997 as the General Manager of EA’s Origin Systems subsidiary, where he supervised the launch of the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing game, UltimaOnline™.
Prior to EA/Blueprint, Neil served both as Vice President and General Manager of EA Los Angeles (EALA) and EA Maxis, where he oversaw all aspects of the studios responsible for the blockbuster franchises Medal of Honor™, Command &Conquer™, The Lord of the Rings™ & The Sims™. In 2002 and 2003, Young also led the development of the first The Lord of the Rings games at EA Redwood Shores – The Lord of the Rings™: The Two Towers™ and The Lord of the Rings™: The Return of the King™.
In addition to his other producing and management credits, he was also the creator and driving force behind Majestic™, the first Alternate Reality Game (ARG) and a pioneering internet experience that blurred the line between fiction and reality by engaging players through non-traditional gaming media.

Philip Yun, CEO, NHN USA

Philip Yun joined ijji.com in December 2004 and has since been an integral part of the company’s successful launch into North America, including establishing the popular game portal, which is focused on providing quality, hardcore gaming content in a free-to-play model. In 2008, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the company. As a veteran in the gaming, online entertainment and software development industries with a decade of experience, Philip continues to find new and exciting ways to deliver compelling and engaging entertainment to the public.
Prior to ijji.com, Philip turned his passion for gaming into a career with Sony Computer Entertainment Korea where he managed the PlayStation business, marketing and publishing. Before that he was a project leader and software engineer for ISIS Korea Inc., a subsidiary of IBM Korea.
Philip earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Seoul National University. He’s a borderline addicted gamer, but always makes time to be with his lovely wife Soo Kim, with whom he has two adorable twin girls, Isabelle and Helen.