Stanley Holt has been building online marketplaces for 14 years. As the VP of Publishing at his last two companies, Internet Brands and eHarmony, he managed more than 50 automotive, home, wedding and parenting sites. Those sites utilize content, tools and community to connect users and businesses. Stan helped IB expand from a single ecommerce site, CarsDirect.com, into the world's largest network of automotive shopping and enthusiast sites, bringing together more than 12M monthly unique visitors and advertisers ranging from small vendors to the leading car and accessory manufacturers. At eHarmony, two of company's sites, ProjectWedding.com and Weddingbee.com, became the third-largest wedding network on the strength of organic traffic growth, matching more than a million users with 11,000 vendors. Prior to that, Stan was the general manager of the Los Angeles Times' calendarlive.com. Stan has an M.B.A. from UCLA and holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He also has a B.A. in urban affairs from Haverford College.
A serial entrepreneur with the mindset of a management consultant, Nikhil has helped his clients succeed through careful planning, analysis and execution. Nikhil has held the position of COO in a business advisory and management consulting firm where he advised clients in various industries such as hospitality, renewable energy, real estate, healthcare, financial services, nutrition and social networking and helped with funding requirements, private placements, business process redesign, business planning, devising marketing, business development and go-to-market strategies, mentoring entrepreneurs, structuring MBO's and LBO's and consulting to executive management. Nikhil has consulted to various Fortune 500 clients in industries such as retail, utilities, manufacturing, healthcare and helped with implementing multi-million dollar projects and advising on mergers and acquisitions. Nikhil is a member of the California Green Workforce Coalition, a SouthBay Workforce Investment Board initiative. He is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Artilient Labs.
This summer, Nikhil will be initiating his "Idea-2-Implementation" log to give entrepreneurs an insight into Artilient Labs and how ideas are grown into companies which achieve the triple bottom line using the philosohpy of smart execution, frugality and community-driven synergies.
Nikhil currently sits on the Mentoring Committee of the Los Angeles Business Technology Center, the Board of Advisors of the California Lutheran University's Entrepreneur Roundtable and the Executive Committee of the Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum. Nikhil has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in Finance from USC's Marshall School of Business.
Patrick is currently VP of Marketing and Business Development for Clean Green Guy.
Patrick has been the President and CEO of Vdrive since 2001 after establishing a strategic alliance with Microsoft. Patrick worked has worked with MSFT for over 12 years in several capacities. He is an intuitive leader with the ability to capitalize on an organization’s existing strengths while facilitating change to take it to the next level. He also has a keen sense for identifying and seizing new opportunities to create explosive demand and willingly shares his expertise to develop the talents of future leaders.
From 1994 to 1997, Patrick was the co-founder of WCI Telecom / Pangea-comm.com, where he built two successful telephone companies and was one of the fastest growing 100 companies in Seattle as noted by Pacific Business Journal. The Company was also described as one of the fastest growing private companies by Inc. Magazine. Both WCI and Pangea continue to thrive.
Patrick is a graduate of Washington State University, Pullman with a BA. He is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp Reserves.
Kyle brings over 20 years of repeated success building and investing in customer-centric companies. He has worked with numerous companies and brands from start-ups to Global 1000 firms including Virgin, Apple, Haier, and Ariba. Kyle built and ran the largest global marketing firm HQ'd in New England during the 90's. Most recently, he helped launch two venture funded companies leading them to profitability. Kyle earned his MBA from Pepperdine University and is currently working on his doctoral degree from the University of Manchester. He also is a part-time professor of strategy at the Graziadio School of Business & Management at Pepperdine University.
Oliver Starr
Oliver Starr is a serial entrepreneur and technologist specializing in mobile technologies, social media, product and company evangelism, community development, biotechnology, and venture capital.
Oliver is also one of the leading thinkers on social media and mobile technology and how the combination of social media and a well-known expert on social media, blogger relations, corporate blogging and word of mouth marketing.
The founding editor of MobileCrunch, the first TechCrunch Network expansion blog, Oliver has profiled over 400 different mobile applications in the last four years making him by far, the leading expert in the mobile application space.
Currently, Oliver is a General Partner at Blue Marble Ventures (http://bluemarbleventures.com) as well as the Chief Evangelist for http://cleangreenguy.com .
Immediately prior to his current position, Oliver was engaged by Microsoft to help them develop their four-year strategy for their new mobile search engine, Bing! Prior to that Oliver spent a year working with the David Allen Company to head up their social media efforts and to launch and curate GTDtimes, a community hub for all things GTD. Oliver was also responsible for David Allen finally joining the ranks of Twitter users – which, due to the success of GTDtimes as well as David’s best-selling books resulted in David accumulating nearly 900,000 followers in less than four months.
Oliver's prior positions include: Global Editor of Mobile Content for Blognation, Ltd., SVP of Business Development and Chief Mobility Officer for Foldera, a publicly traded company, and also CTO for Hello Communications, Inc., one of the nation’s premier providers of payphone management services and inmate telephony systems. Oliver has also founded two start-ups himself, successfully leading both companies through from initial concept to exit (both by acquisition).
In addition, Oliver has consulted for a number of top technology start-ups including, Mobifusion and bluepulse. He was also the Senior Mobile Analyst for Guidewire Group, the organization that puts on the bi-annual DEMO conference. Oliver is a frequent contributor to many publications including London’s Financial Times, The Register and MobileMessaging 2.0, The Web 2.0 Workgroup and other print and digital periodicals.
When pressed, Oliver will also admit to a brief stint as an Analyst and Associate Venture Partner with Angel Strategies a $300 million fund based in Orange County, CA.
An insomniac workaholic with a penchant for high risk sports, highly caffeinated beverages and small shiny toys, he's an avowed web addict, former professional road and mountain bike racer, a big wave surfer, extreme skier and reasonably competent chess player. Nicknamed "Stitch" after the small blue alien cartoon character, Oliver does his best to temper his risk taking tendencies by channeling all that energy into his work.
