Leadership
Bill brings more than 25 years of hands-on experience building and leading high-growth organizations in digital media, advertising and mobility. He most recently served as CEO of Audience Science, a pioneer in behavioral targeting and online audience monetization. Bill is an Executive in Residence with MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, and has held roles in several MDV portfolio companies, including CEO of Sabrix, CFO of nLight, and Strategic Advisor to Quake Technologies, acquired by AMCC.
Bill serves on the boards of Audience Science and Pelago, and is a personal investor and advisor to several new media companies, including iLike, RealSelf and Kickball Labs.
Previously, Bill co-founded @mobile, a wireless Internet software and services company, where he served as COO and CFO, and later engineered the company's $400 million merger with Software.com (Openwave Systems). Prior to @mobile he served in management and technical positions at Lucent, AT&T Wireless, Hughes and Northrop.
Bill holds 13 patents and has a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, a Master of Science degree from MIT, and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
Ramu Yalamanchi is founder and Chief Product Officer of hi5 Networks, Inc. In that role, he oversees product strategy and development, focusing on the company's social entertainment business. After launching hi5 in 2003, Ramu led the company to profitability within the first year of operation, and continues to drive the vision for what has become one of the world's largest consumer entertainment services.
Prior to starting hi5, Ramu played a key role in technology companies that have advanced online advertising and the progression of Internet communities. He was an early contributor serving in product management, business development, and sales at eGroups (acquired by Yahoo!) and AdKnowledge (acquired by CMGI). In his final year of college, Ramu helped launch Sponsornet - the Web's first advertising network. Prior to these experiences, Ramu learned about company building and business leadership from his entrepreneurial father, who established and managed more than a half dozen companies as Ramu was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.
Ramu holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois – Urbana, Champaign.
Akash Garg co-founded hi5 Networks, Inc., and is the company’s chief technology officer. Akash oversees hi5’s technology infrastructure and software development, and originally developed the core product concepts and underlying technology that has helped to fuel the rapid growth of the service. To support one of the most-trafficked sites in the world, Akash has guided the design and implementation of a highly scalable, highly available platform using a combination of open source and homegrown technologies on low-cost Linux machines.
Prior to hi5, Akash was at Reactivity, assisting early-stage startups with technology strategy and direction, as well as architecting and implementing key portions of Reactivity’s flagship product. His interest in computers and technology began at a very young age. His family had purchased one of the early IBM PCs, and Akash’s initial interest in PC gaming led to an exploration and passion in programming.
He later graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University.
Jeff Stephens is the chief financial officer of hi5 Networks, Inc. Jeff oversees the finance, accounting, human resources and administration functions of the company.
Prior to hi5, Jeff was the senior vice president finance and administration and corporate controller at QuinStreet, Inc., a leading online marketing and media company. At QuinStreet, Jeff built the financial and control infrastructure that allowed the company to scale effectively. During his tenure, QuinStreet experienced substantial growth in revenue, profits and headcount. Jeff has also served as corporate controller at Sonnet Financial, and started a software company while in college.
Jeff holds a B.S. in finance from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
As Chief Advertising Officer, Peter leads hi5’s direct sales organization, ad operations and global network of advertising partners.
Prior to hi5, Peter oversaw all revenue generation and sales operations at Kosmix, a categorized search start-up. Previously, he was SVP of Sales at Photobucket – a division of Fox Interactive Media and leading photo sharing site with 46 million monthly users – where he grew revenue by 300% over two years. Peter also served as SVP Ad Sales for one of the world’s largest advertising networks, ValueClick Media, where he led a team that generated annual revenues of over $150 million. Earlier, Peter spent six years at MaxOnline (later acquired by Ask.com), where he was vice president of West Coast sales and the company's top salesperson from 2000 to 2002.
Peter graduated with honors from Kenyon College.
Mike heads up hi5's global marketing organization, including corporate marketing, product marketing, international marketing and communications.
Prior to hi5, Mike was co-founder and vice president of marketing at Truviso, a real-time data processing company specializing in web analytics. Previously, he was vice president of marketing and interim CEO of Spoke, a professional social networking site. Mike was also vice president of corporate and product marketing at Epiphany, a leading provider of marketing analytics and web personalization (now Infor). As an early employee of Octane Software, he led product management prior to the company's $3.2 billion acquisition by Epiphany in 2000. Mike has also held marketing and products positions at 3Com and MCI.
Mike has his B.A. from Northwestern University and M.B.A from the University of California at Berkeley.
Ram leads hi5's product development and engineering organization. Since joining hi5 in 2004, Ram has been instrumental in developing one of the world's most scalable web sites and building out a world-class engineering team.
Ram was one of the original architects of the company’s initial web site. As lead engineer at hi5, he managed the infrastructure team, ensuring the site could scale to support massive user growth. Prior to hi5, Ram held engineering positions at Mixonic, a new media duplication, printing and fulfillment service.
Ram has his B.S. in computer engineering from the University of Illinois – Urbana, Champaign.
Anil Dharni is the VP of products and UED at hi5 Networks, Inc., where he drives the product roadmap and key product initiatives. Anil works closely with hi5’s engineering team to deliver new features and services from concept to launch for hi5’s members globally.
Most recently, Anil was co-founder of an Internet based knowledge-sharing community for college students, where he led a pilot of his company’s offering at 10 universities. Previously, he served in product management roles at Yahoo! and held consulting and engineering roles at Wipro, Ariba, and Engineering Animation. Shortly after completing his undergraduate in engineering, Anil founded and sold a Company that provided a collaborative workflow management software tool.
Anil holds a B.E. in aeronautical engineering from Punjab University and an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management (where he was co-president of both the MIT Venture Capital Club and MIT Innovation Club).
Karthik is responsible for hi5's strategic transactions and legal matters. Since joining hi5 in 2005 Karthik has played a key role in hi5's revenue and venture financing activities. In addition, Karthik has been responsible for hi5's financial and administrative functions.
Prior to hi5, Karthik was an associate at Cooley Godward LLP where he advised and represented technology companies throughout their business lifecycle. Furthermore, Karthik has been a regular speaker on start-up company matters at events organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
Karthik holds a B.B.A. in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from Stanford Law School where he was a member of the law review.
Dan heads up global technical operations, including site serving, systems administration, network administration, data centers, infrastructure architecture, and information security, for one of the top 20 most heavily-trafficked sites in the world.
Dan brings nearly 20 years of technical operations experience at some of the world's largest web sites. Prior to hi5, Dan was VP of Technical Operations at LookSmart, a premier search advertising network. He was previously Director of Operations for NextTag.com, a leading comparison shopping engine. Dan also spent five years at Wal-Mart.com as Senior Director of Site Operations & Infrastructure. He started his career at Apple for 10 years, in various project management, developer support and IT positions.
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