Jon Vlassopulos

Chief Executive Officer

Jon Vlassopulos is a digital media and advertising visionary having consistently created successful industry firsts throughout his career in the areas of mobile, Internet, television, music and gaming. As CEO, he oversees skyrockit’s business as a leading mobile entertainment agency and pioneering mobile music services company. Creators of the award winning Virtual Zippo lighter, skyrockit has also developed innovative mobile campaigns and products for companies like GAP, NBC, Symantec, Intel, 50 cent/vitaminwater and Kraft. The company also has long standing relationships with all the major US mobile operators, record labels and handset manufacturers helping to deliver current and next gen mobile music services to consumers. Prior to skyrockit, Vlassopulos was SVP, Digital Media & Branded Entertainment for Endemol, where he was responsible for building Endemol's worldwide digital business and growing the company into new areas such as casual gaming and branded entertainment. Before Endemol, he served as Senior Director, Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at AT&T Wireless, launching major media brands on AT&T services, directing the launch of the first wireless music service, and running major mobile marketing campaigns. Earlier, Vlassopulos was with BMG where he helped to create its global digital strategy and held multiple executive positions with BMG and other Bertelsmann divisions in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Vlassopulos received his undergraduate degree from Durham University in Chinese, Economics and Korean. He serves on the board of NATPE, the National Association of Television Program Executives and on the New Media Council board of the Producers Guild.

Wayne de Jager

VP Creative & Development

Driven, entrepreneurial, and focused, Wayne de Jager specializes in online and mobile marketing breakthroughs for world-class clients. Drawing on a strong branding background, Wayne blends user experience savvy and a seasoned design sensibility to truly build brands, rather than merely promoting them. Beyond spearheading digital initiatives for clients from non-profit organizations to Fortune 100 corporations, Wayne also co-founded iFilm, a successful community video site acquired by media giant Viacom. He has held roles at Landor Associates, where he launched countless digital service offerings, and Interbrand, where he delivered interactive services for North America.

Wayne’s former clients include The Weinstein Company, FedEx, HP, Epson, Seagate, Johnson & Johnson, Symantec, Agilent Technologies, and Ford Motors. He currently serves as VP of Creative and Development at skyrockit, where he engages with clients, manages teams, and shepherds mobile strategies from creation through fruition. Wayne’s time-tested knack for motivating his teams to overdeliver, and his ability to strategize and execute across multiple channels and disciplines, are key to driving revenue for both skyrockit and its clients.

Wayne is a world traveler, an avid sailor, pilot, scuba diver, Scrabble player, and skier. He hails from Africa, and loves his adopted home of San Francisco.

Thi Linh Wernau

VP of Business Development and Client Services

Thi Linh is an integrated marketing executive with expertise in the mobile industry. She is responsible for helping clients strategically integrate mobile solutions into multi-channel plans in order to drive both business and brand value.

Thi Linh has a proven track record of driving strategy, delivering operational excellence, and building trusted client relationships with both brands and agencies. Most recently, Thi Linh was VP of Sales and Account Management at mms (mobile messaging solutions), where she led business development efforts and key account management for clients such as Coca-Cola and Bell Mobility. Prior to mms, Thi Linh was a strategist with Nokia Interactive in the U.S. Before Nokia, she held leadership roles at agencies including Hill Holliday and Foote, Cone & Belding as well as at m-Qube (acquired by VeriSign), where she first entered the mobile industry. At Hill Holliday, Thi Linh was one of the first in the industry to integrate mobile marketing into a full-service agency environment. Here, she led the Boston Police Department “Text-a-Tip” program, which became the recipient of the 2007 MITX award for Best Use of Mobile.

In 2008, Thi Linh was named to the Boston Business Journal top “40 Under 40” list. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from the University of Notre Dame.

Kevin Britt

VP of Monetization

Kevin Britt is a technology and start-up veteran with over 20 years experience building and leading sales and business development teams. Most recently, Kevin was the Vice President of Sales & Business Development at Airborne Mobile for 5+ years, where he led carrier sales and brand licensing, culminating with the acquisition by Cellfish Media. Kevin has led sales organizations for young technology companies spanning Digital Media, Internet and Financial Services technology. Kevin was the first sales member of Spry Inc. an Internet Services pioneer that was acquired by CompuServe/AOL in a transaction valued at $102m.

Ari Volcoff

VP of Technology and Operations

Ari Volcoff is responsible for research ,development , innovation and operations of the skyrockit products and services.

Ari was formerly managing a global engineering team at Verint, a leading provider of Actionable Intelligence® solutions and services for enterprise workforce optimization and security intelligence. He also founded Volcari, where he managed development of over 20 mobile apps.

Ari has been working in software development organizations for over a decade and has co-authored several innovative patents.

Ari has an MBA from the University of Manchester and a BA in mathematics and computer science from the University of Haifa.

Jon Vlassopulos

Chief Executive Officer

Jon Vlassopulos is a digital media and advertising visionary having consistently created successful industry firsts throughout his career in the areas of mobile, Internet, television, music and gaming. As CEO, he oversees skyrockit’s business as a leading mobile entertainment agency and pioneering mobile music services company. Creators of the award winning Virtual Zippo lighter, skyrockit has also developed innovative mobile campaigns and products for companies like GAP, NBC, Symantec, Intel, 50 cent/vitaminwater and Kraft. The company also has long standing relationships with all the major US mobile operators, record labels and handset manufacturers helping to deliver current and next gen mobile music services to consumers. Prior to skyrockit, Vlassopulos was SVP, Digital Media & Branded Entertainment for Endemol, where he was responsible for building Endemol's worldwide digital business and growing the company into new areas such as casual gaming and branded entertainment. Before Endemol, he served as Senior Director, Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at AT&T Wireless, launching major media brands on AT&T services, directing the launch of the first wireless music service, and running major mobile marketing campaigns. Earlier, Vlassopulos was with BMG where he helped to create its global digital strategy and held multiple executive positions with BMG and other Bertelsmann divisions in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Vlassopulos received his undergraduate degree from Durham University in Chinese, Economics and Korean. He serves on the board of NATPE, the National Association of Television Program Executives and on the New Media Council board of the Producers Guild.

Marc Yi

Managing Director, Intel Capital

Marc is a Managing Director of Intel Capital responsible for its Digital Home and Digital Media sector. He is also a member of Intel Capital’s investment committee. He joined Intel Capital’s M&A team in 2000 and later joined the Digital Home sector in 2005. Marc has made investments in more than 30 companies with several successful exits. He currently serves as board observer for Caring, Inc, Openpeak, Skyrockit, Transgaming, UIEvolution, Verismo Networks, and YuMe. And his team has invested in companies such as Digital Chocolate, Kabam, and iControl. Prior to joining Intel Capital, Marc was an associate at IFC (World Bank) where he made private equity investments in Emerging Markets. In addition, Marc worked at AT&T’s global strategy and alliance team and Deutsche Bank. Marc attended ICADE in Spain and holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania. And he is fluent in Korean and is proficient in Spanish.

Toshihiro Toyoshima

CEO, Asuka DBJ Partners

Toshihiro Toyoshima joined DBJ in 1985 where he has led a number of innovative projects at Electric Office, Project Finance Department, Planning Dept for Investment Banking including pioneering project finance deals and real-estate securitization deals in Japan as well as introduced PFI and　turnaround management. He also worked at the World Bank as a senior deputy director in charge of the private sector and was responsible for the privatization of state-owned enterprises in African nations. He joined ADP in 2005 while leading the Growth Cross-Border Investment Group at DBJ supervising all the growth sector investment. He was elected CEO of ADP in October 2008. Toshihiro graduated from the University of Tokyo with a bachelor’s degree in law and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in real estate studies and urban planning.

Mark Kingdon

Ex CEO, Organic and Linden Lab

Mark served as CEO and President of Linden Lab (developer of Second Life – the online virtual world) from May 2008 to July 2010. Mark recruited a new management team, restructured the organization, improved the user experience, stabilized the platform, increased uptime, reignited user growth, grew revenue and acquired two companies to build a new web-based virtual goods business and add social tools to the platform.

Mark served as Organic’s CEO from January 2001 to May 2008. Organic is a leading web development and digital marketing firm focused on major consumer brands.

Prior to joining Organic, Mark was as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Idealab from January 2000 to December 2000 where he helped build, rationalize and refocus several of Idealab’s consumer internet companies (e.g. Scan.com, Ice.com and Shop.com) -- providing strategic guidance and operational support.

Before Idealab Mark was a Partner with the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP where he held a variety of senior roles during his twelve-year tenure from 1988 to 2000.

Mark received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business (1988), and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from UCLA (1986). Mark was one of two people accepted into the 1988 MBA program directly out of college.

As an angel investor, Mark has helped five start-ups including Twitter, Say Media (fka VideoEgg where he has been on the Board since the company was founded in 2005), Kidzui, Fab.com and 140 Proof. Mark brings strategy, management and operating experience across the entire company lifecycle from start-up, through rapid growth.

Kazumi Shimoyama

COO, Bellrock Media

At Bellrock Media Japan, Kazumi oversees multiple functions including sales, business development, investor relations, and fund management.

Before joining Bellrock in 2005, he played multi-task roles at several start-ups in Tokyo and San Francisco Bay Area, all of which provided completely new services to corporations. During his six-year carrier at Maxager Technology, Kazumi, based in California, played a sole liason between US Headquarter and Japan and took care of everything from software localization management to sales presentation to Japanese prospects.

Prior to that, he started his career at Bain & Company in Tokyo and served for Japanese domestic and international clients, and then joined Advantage Partners and became start-up members of two new businesses.

Kazumi received his undergraduate degree from University of Tokyo in Law and his MBA from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Drew Ianni

Drew Ianni is the Founder, President and Event Chairman of APPNATION, the leading independent, global conference and expo focusing on the burgeoning app economy. Drew will also serve as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of appnationonline.com, the leading daily, editorial publication covering the app economy which will be launched in April 2011.

Prior to launching APPNATION, Drew was the Chairman, Senior Global Analyst, Event Master of Ceremonies, and Chair of the North American Advisory Board for ad:tech Expositions (www.ad-tech.com). As Chairman, Drew helped produce twenty worldwide ad:tech events in seven cities across three continents. In addition to helping drive record attendance and revenues to ad:tech’s national events in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, Drew also launched and helped build several international shows including ad:tech Sydney, ad:tech Shanghai, ad:tech Singapore, and ad:tech Miami (US Hispanic and Latin America).

Drew has acquired over fifteen years of agency, analyst and management experience in the digital advertising, media and marketing industries. Prior to ad:tech, Drew previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of atmosphere.BBDO (www.atomspherebbdo.com), the digital marketing services division of BBDO North America, a division of Omnicom. In his role at BBDO, Drew worked with clients such as Cingular Wireless (now AT&T Wireless), Wrigley, General Electric, Visa, Frito Lay, and others and served on the Board of Directors of BBDO North America.

Prior to BBDO, Drew worked as a sell-side equity research analyst (interactive services) at Lazard, Freres & Co. LLC (www.lazard.com), a prominent boutique investment bank. Drew found his way to Wall Street from a position at Jupiter Communications (now a unit of Forrester Research) in New York, where he served as an online advertising analyst and then regional research director for the Asia Pacific region. At Jupiter, Drew produced original, qualitative market research and consulted with leading Jupiter clients such as Procter & Gamble, General Motors, PepsiCo , CBS, and others. At Jupiter, Drew’s expertise was sought and quoted by leading domestic and international media.

Before Jupiter, Drew began his interactive career in 1995 as an account manager at CKS Partners, a pioneering, Silicon-Valley based interactive agency.

A native of Silicon Valley, Drew attended Santa Clara University and graduated with a degree in Political Science and a General Business minor. Drew played baseball Santa Clara and was a three-time NCAA Division I Academic Achievement Award Winner. He currently resides in midtown Manhattan.

Katherine Styponias

Katherine Styponias joined the Media & Entertainment Group as General Manager in June 2007 where she leads the Strategic Relationships & Business Strategy team working with major content suppliers on behalf of Microsoft's consumer-oriented product groups and platforms. Additionally, Ms. Styponias works closely with senior management to advise on strategy as it relates to entertainment products and services.

She joined Microsoft from Prudential Equity Group, LLC where she served as senior vice president and the senior cable, entertainment and satellite equity analyst from 1995 to 2007.

Ms. Styponias was widely recognized as an expert in analyzing media industry trends and companies. She was named in the Wall Street Journal's Best on the Street poll for earnings estimate accuracy and stock picking in the entertainment category. She was also recognized in Institutional Investor's All-America Research poll and was named the number one earnings estimator for the media sector in the Forbes.com/StarMine Analysts Awards for 2004.

Prior to her joining Prudential, Ms. Styponias worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988 from Queens College, City University of New York and received her MBA from Columbia Business School at Columbia University.

Ms. Styponias is a board member of the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) as well as a member of the International Emmys. She is fluent in Greek, enjoys traveling and is an admitted TV junkie and nascent gamer.

Robert Tercek

Robert Tercek is one of the world’s most prolific creators of interactive content. He has created breakthrough entertainment experiences on every digital platform, including satellite television, game consoles, broadband Internet, interactive television and mobile networks. His expertise spans television, telecommunications and software.

In 2009, he was named one of the “25 Executives to Watch” by Digital Media Wire. Variety has named him one of the “Digital Dozen” most influential players in new media. The Industry Standard dubbed him a “TV Anarchist”.

His 22-year career is marked by achievements which include several milestones: the first multichannel television service in Asia (STAR TV in 1991); the first multiplayer Java games on the Web (Sony, 1997); the first interactive game shows on US Television (Sony, 1999); the world’s first streaming video service on mobile phones (PacketVideo and NTT DoCoMo’s V-Live, 2001); the largest audience for live interactive video events on the web (Oprah Winfrey’s 2009 web casts); the most popular free book download in history (Suze Orman on Oprah.com, 2009).

Tercek has served in executive leadership roles at major media companies, most recently as President of Digital Media at OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, and previously as Senior Vice President of Digital Media at Sony Pictures Entertainment and earlier as Creative Director at MTV: Music Television. He also co-founded five startup ventures, including 7th Level, Inc which went public in 1993.

Mr Tercek has provided strategic insight and advice to many companies seeking to enter the networked entertainment market, including: Nokia, Motorola, AMD, MSN, Sony Computer Entertainment, Taito, Bandai Networks, Siegel and Gale, CMP Media Group, VNU Media Group, and The Anthony Robbins Companies. He has served as an advisor to several successful startups, including BrightCove, Sulake Labs/Habbo Hotel, M.Metrics (acquired by Comscore), MediaCode/Muse.net (acquired by Yahoo) and NevenVision (acquired by Google).

He has supervised new media strategy and the creation of online programs for many of the world’s leading motivational speakers and authors, including Anthony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Suze Orman, Dr Mehmet Oz, Elizabeth Lesser, Jean Chatsky, David Bach, Marcus Buckingham, Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and Martha Beck.

His entertainment credits include some of the most successful interactive titles on digital platforms, including Oprah Winfrey’s Live Your Best Life live web casts, Jeopardy Online and Wheel of Fortune Online, the bestselling Monty Python CD ROM series, and award-winning mobile content based on media brands from CBS Sports, World Poker Tour, Marvel Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Hasbro, Activision and many more.

To design interactive products, Mr Tercek draws upon his broad experience as a television director, game designer, artist, and educator.

An enthusiastic advocate of the future of media and entertainment, Mr Tercek is a highly in-demand speaker. He has been a featured speaker at NAB, CES, GDC, MIPTV, MILIA, E3 Expo, Sundance Film Festival, South By Southwest, X Media Lab, 5D New Television, Tokyo Game Fair, the Austin Game Conference, 3GSM, KidScreen Summit, MIT’s Future of Entertainment summit, CTIA, The Future of Television Summit, The Mobile Games Seminar, The New York Games and Mobile Conference, and many private corporate events. In 2001 he founded the Game Developer Conference’s Mobile Symposium.

He serves as an adjunct professor and lecturer at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television, where he introduced the curriculum for interactive media, and served on the faculty of the Peter Stark Producers program. He has been a guest lecturer at several universities and colleges in the US and abroad. In 1985 he was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship in Kiel, Germany.

In 2008, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in recognition of his achievements in social media for the benefit of society.

He is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and contributed to the founding of the Interactive Media Peer Group at ATAS.

He has lived and worked throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Satoshi Nakajima

Satoshi Nakajima is Founding Partner of Ignition Partners. Mr. Nakajima serves as Corporate Executive of Square Enix Co Ltd. He served as Corporate Officer of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. He served as Chief Executive Officer and President of UIEvolution, Inc. Mr. Nkajima founded UIEvolution, Inc. in 2000. Before founding UIEvolution, he co-founded Ignition, LLC, a Bellevue, Washington venture capital firm that focuses on next-generation wireless technologies. Mr. Nakajima evaluated technologies for prospective investments and became the resident i-Mode and WAP expert. Before joining Ignition, he spent 14 years at Microsoft, most recently as Lead Software Architect for the Windows shell and Internet Explorer teams. Mr. Nakajima was responsible for several key technological innovations at Microsoft, such as Internet Explorer's componentization and its integration with both Microsoft Office and Windows. Prior to Microsoft, he worked as a researcher for NTT Labs in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Nakajima serves as a Director of UIEvolution, Inc. Mr. Nakajima received a Master of Electrical Engineering degree from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

Avi Savar

Avi Savar is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a pure-play social media agency designed for the needs of large brands. Since 2004, Big Fuel has helped brands navigate and manage social media across the enterprise.

Big Fuel is one part marketing company, building brands through consumer insight; one part entertainment company, creating engaging content people love; one part distribution company: delivering content to targeted audiences. Big Fuel's Clients include: General Motors, Microsoft, Gore-Tex, Clorox, Children’s Place, InBev, Philips and T-Mobile.

Prior to founding Big Fuel, Avi Savar was a television producer -- creating and developing breakthrough entertainment programming for MTV, VH1, ABC, Showtime, Fox, USA, and more.

Avi Savar was born in Israel, raised in LA and have lived all over the world. Avi Savar is a BU alum who loves music, movies, golf, travel and photography. He currently lives in NYC with his beautiful wife Leigh and amazing daughter Evie.

Josh Morris

Josh Morris is a pioneer in the interactive entertainment industry, where he has bridged the gap between videogames and the film and television industries for over 15 years. Now the CEO and partner of Content House, a production/management company specializing in cross-media franchises and intellectual property, Morris is currently producing the feature film version of Dan Simmons' bestselling novel, The Crook Factory, for Warner Bros., written by Nicolas Meyer and starring Johnny Depp. He is also in active development on numerous projects for the Cartoon Network, TNT, and Sony Television, as well as mobile applications for some of the world's leading web comics, such as Explosm.net.

As a manager, Morris represents numerous intellectual property rights holders; New York Times bestselling authors; screenwriters; legendary comic book creators; leading web-comic sites; and game producers. One of the first properties that Content House closed in multiple forms of media was John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, starring Kurt Russell, with Japanese videogame publisher Namco Hometek. As part of this four-game, multimillion dollar venture, Morris negotiated separate deals for the property as an animated feature with renowned anime company, Production I.G.; a series of novels with Tor/Forge Publishing; a comic book series published by Crossgen Comics; and a Special Edition DVD with MGM for the film, "Escape From New York."

Morris previously worked in business development and acted as a producer of film, television and videogame projects for Maverick Entertainment, Madonna and Guy Oseary's film production company. Prior to that, he founded the Interactive division at ACME Talent & Literary, where he represented a multitude of top-tier properties and franchises, such as William Forstchen's nine book science fiction series The Lost Regiment optioned to Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures.

Earlier in his career Morris was a Partner and Vice President of Ethos Entertainment, where he worked on movie and licensing deals for the videogame DOOM by id Software and Rune by Human Head Studios. Prior to that, he was Vice President, producer and creator of Digital Access Productions, where he created and produced Digital Access, a television newsmagazine and streaming video website for the videogame industry. He also created the company's web portal and e-commerce site, thevideogamestore.com, powered by Electro Source, LLC, one of the leading distributors of videogame software and hardware in the United States.

Morris cut his teeth in game production, working on a variety of titles for Activision Studios, including Mechwarrior 2, Interstate 76, Pitfall and Heavy Gear.

Since the early 1990s, Morris has been a major player in the virtual reality and emerging technology fields. In 1993, he founded 4DI, Inc., a sales and distribution company dedicated to the virtual reality and the interactive entertainment market. While at 4DI, he formed strategic partnerships with Silicon Graphics, 3DO, Barco, Kodak and The MicroDisplay Corporation, a manufacturer of low cost, high-resolution VLSI-LCD screens, owned and operated by the founder of the VLSI laboratory at M.I.T. Morris also was the co-producer and co-designer of Virtual Roulette, the world's first virtual reality gambling system.