Events

Ethan Anderson Co-Founder & CEO, RedBeacon

Lukas Biewald CEO, CrowdFlower

Ethan Bloch Co-Founder & CEO, Flowtown

Dan Finnigan President and CEO, JobVite

Christa Foley Recruiting Manager, Zappos.com

Burton Goldfield President and CEO, TriNet

Lori Goler Vice President of Human Resources and Recruiting, Facebook

Julia Hartz Co-Founder and President, Eventbrite

Auren Hoffman CEO, Rapleaf

Pete Kazanjy Founder, Honestly.com

Paraag Marathe COO, 49ers

Rick Marini Founder, CEO and Chief Connector, BranchOut

Michael Morell Managing Partner, Riviera Partners

Rotem Perelmuter Founder and CEO, TopProspect

Victoria Ransom Founder & CEO, Wildfire

Gary Swart CEO, oDesk

Gregory Tenhoff Partner, Cooley LLP

Matt Van Horn Vice President of Business Development, Path

Ethan Anderson; Co-Founder & CEO, RedBeacon

Ethan is Cofounder & CEO of Redbeacon, a website enabling consumers to get price quotes and book appointments for local services. Redbeacon won the grand prize at both the TechCrunch50 competition and Silicon Alley Insider’s Startup 2010. Prior to Redbeacon, Ethan was a Product Manager at Google where he was responsible for launching and managing the Google Video product internationally. He was also Google’s first Product Manager for the fast growing Southeast Asian emerging markets, and a Product Manager on Google Image Search, the top image search product in the world. Before joining Google, Ethan worked in a number of internet strategy and marketing roles at The Clorox Company, Buy.com, and McKinsey & Company. He graduated with Honors from Harvard Business School and Magna Cum Laude from Duke University, where he earned a BA in Economics and Public Policy Studies. Ethan was recently named to the Silicon Valley 100 and 16 Up-and-Coming Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs You Need to Meet.

Ethan Beard; Director of Platform Partnerships, Facebook

Ethan Beard serves as Director of Platform Partnerships for Facebook, where he oversees worldwide partner relations companies building on Facebook Platform including apps on Facebook and Facebook Connect for mobile and web. He previously served as Director of Business Development at Facebook and led the team responsible for creating and managing strategic partnerships. Ethan joined Facebook from Google, where he served as Director of Social Media and Director of New Business Development. Prior to Google, he spent several years as Director of Business Development for MTV Online. Earlier in his career, Ethan co-founded Big Internet Group, LLC and spent time structuring derivatives at Bank of America. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and an MBA from NYU Stern. Originally from New England, Ethan now residesin San Francisco with his wife and two children.

Lukas Biewald; CEO, Crowdflower

Prior to co-founding CrowdFlower, Lukas was a Senior Scientist and Manager within the Ranking and Management Team at Powerset, Inc., a natural language search technology company later acquired by Microsoft. Lukas has also led the Search Relevance Team for Yahoo! Japan. He graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Computer Science. Lukas is also an expert-level Go player.

Dan Finnigan; CEO, Jobvite

Dan has spent his career launching and growing Internet businesses with a focus on the recruitment market. Previously, Dan served as Senior Vice President of Yahoo! and General Manager of Yahoo! HotJobs, doubling revenue between 2002 and 2007. At Yahoo, Dan established Yahoo and HotJobs’ partnership with a consortium of over 700 newspapers, today representing 41 percent of total Sunday circulation in the U.S.

Prior to Yahoo!, he led the creation of Knight Ridder Digital, the Internet company of the world’s second largest newspaper publisher, serving as President and CEO. For Knight Ridder, Dan led its joint acquisition of CareerBuilder with Tribune, serving on CareerBuilder’s Board for three years. Prior, to joining Knight Ridder, Dan helped launch, and eventually led as CEO, Smartpages.com (now Yellowpages.com) for SBC/ATT. Dan holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Christa Foley; Recruiting Manager, Zappos.com

Christa joined Zappos in 2004 and currently leads the Recruiting Team within Human Resources. In this role, she and her team scour the planet for people that are “fun and a little weird.” Since culture is the #1 priority at Zappos, the main focus of the Recruiting Team is to help protect and preserve the Zappos culture by hiring people who are both a technical fit and a culture fit. Prior to Zappos, Christa spent over 8 years in the staffing industry.

Zappos was established in 1999 and has since quickly become a leader in online apparel and footwear sales by striving to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection. In 2008, the company’s gross merchandise sales exceeded $1 billion. Zappos.com currently stocks millions of products from over 1000 clothing and shoe brands. Zappos.com was recognized in 2009 by Fortune Magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer for the 2009 list.

Burton Goldfield; President & CEO, Trinet

Burton Goldfield is an accomplished, goal-driven leader who has more than 25 years experience in sales operational leadership and technology management positions. He is known for driving product innovation, mergers and acquisition and process optimization around global teams. He has successfully directed corporate strategy and operations for leading software companies such as Hyperion, IBM, Rational and Ketera, and is currently President and CEO of TriNet, a privately held $200M company.

His focus since joining TriNet almost three years ago has been on building an enduring company that produces long-term value for its clients, shareholders and colleagues. Prior to TriNet, Burton was CEO of Ketera Technologies, Santa Clara-based SaaS provider to FORTUNE 2000 companies. Burton received his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Syracuse University, and his MBA from Villanova University.

Lori Goler; VP of Human Resources and Recruiting, Facebook

Lori Goler is the Vice President of Human Resources and Recruiting and is responsible for all aspects of Facebook’s people strategy including growing, developing and retaining the Facebook team. Lori joined Facebook following five years at eBay, where she led consumer marketing with responsibility for marketing strategy, brand management, advertising, and consumer promotions. While there, she also served as General Manager of the eBay Stores business. Lori was a founding member of the executive team at babystyle.com where she led operations and merchandising. In that role, she led the roll-out of babystyle.com which became a leading online retailer in the category. Lori started her career at The Walt Disney Company focused on strategy and business planning for the consumer products businesses. Lori holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School and a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government.

Julia Hartz; Co-Founder & President, Eventbrite

Julia serves as Co-Founder & President of Eventbrite and is responsible for the overall vision and strategy of the company.

Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of Hollywood. During her tenure in the television industry, Julia was a creative executive at FX Networks and helped supervise The Shield, Nascar Drivers: 360, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me and It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia.

Prior to FX Networks, Julia worked in creative development at MTV Networks where she was fortunate enough to work on several prolific shows such as Jackass. Julia brings the creativity and energy of the entertainment business to Eventbrite, leading the company with innovative thinking and a keen sense of the consumer audience.

Auren Hoffman; CEO, RapLeaf

Auren is CEO of Rapleaf. Rapleaf helps companies in real time safely personalize experiences for their customers.

Auren is also a non-employee cofounder of BrightRoll.

Former Chm of Stonebrick Group. Former Chair ConnectorGroup, an influence marketing company. He was previously CEO of BridgePath, enterprise software to staffing firms (sold in 2002). Auren also founded Kyber Systems, an Intranet development firm (sold in 1997) and co-founded GetRelevant (sold in 2002). He is the founder of the Silicon Forum. Auren holds a B.S.E. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the UC Berkeley.

Pete Kazanjy; Cofounder, Honestly.com

Pete is the co-founder of Honestly.com, a professional reputation and peer review site. Pete and his team founded Honestly.com to help bring the kind of reputational transparency to the professional world that review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List, and others have brought to other markets for more than a decade. Ultimately, Honestly.com exists as a resource to help professionals get credit for the great work they do, and help people make better judgments about who to work with, work for, and hire.

Paraag Marathe; COO, 49ers

Paraag Marathe is in his 11th year with the 49ers, and his first as the team’s Chief Operating Officer. Marathe was elevated to his current role in February of 2011, after spending a year as the 49ers Executive Vice President of Football and Business Operations. Primarily focused on the organization’s business operations since that time, the 49ers have seen a substantial growth in business partnerships, announced new and engaging ways to enhance the fan experience throughout the entire calendar year, launched new fan development programs and improved customer service.

Rick Marini; Founder & CEO, BranchOut

Rick Marini has been a pioneer in online social media for over a decade. Rick is the Founder & CEO of BranchOut – the leading career networking service on Facebook. Members can search the database to quickly find all of their professional contacts for the ultimate inside connections for great opportunities including jobs, leads and career networking. BranchOut also operates the largest job board on Facebook with over 3 million jobs and 20,000 internships.

Prior to founding BranchOut, Rick was the Founder & CEO of SuperFan, a profitable social entertainment site that produced social games for world-class companies in the TV, film and music industries.

Prior to SuperFan, Rick was the Co-Founder, CFO & Chief Strategist for Tickle.com. Tickle was one of the largest social media sites on the Internet. Under his leadership, Tickle operated as a pro?table company with close to $40 million of annual revenue. In 2002, Tickle won the “Rising Star” Webby Award as the fastest growing site on the Web and became a top 20 global Internet site with 200 million registered users. In 2004, Tickle was acquired by Monster Worldwide for over $100 million.

Rick currently serves on the Advisory Boards of Fwix, Lumos Labs, Founder’s Den, Stipple, FIGHTER, HR.com and Friendster (acquired by MOL).

Rick received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at the University of New Hampshire, magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.

Michael A. Morell; Founder & Co-Founder/Managing Partner, Riviera Partners

He has over 14 years of experience in recruiting, technology sales and management, and has long been passionate about building teams. He focuses exclusively on recruiting VP and C Level Talent in the area of Engineering and Product Management. Michael also has operational responsibility for Riviera’s Contingency Practice, which focuses on engineering team build outs. Michael is a former Military Officer and began his career selling for Altera and LSI Logic He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from The Ohio State University and a Masters of Science in Information Systems from University of Southern California. He and his wife Dina and their son Cesare reside in Noe Valley. Michael is a private pilot, avid motorcyclist and enjoys fly-fishing, cycling, Rugby, Formula One and college football.

Rotem Perelmuter; Founder & CEO, Top Prospect

Rotem Perelmuter is the founder and CEO of Top Prospect, a social recruiting company that rewards people for helping their friends find great jobs. Previously, Rotem founded Imagine Radio, the Internet’s first customizable radio site, which had over 1 million active listeners. BusinessWeek named Imagine Radio one of its seven Best Web Sites in 1998 (other winners included eBay and eTrade). Rotem served as Imagine Radio’s CEO until he successfully sold the company to MTV in 1999 in an all cash transaction and joined MTV as Vice President overseeing MTV’s online strategy. Rotem also founded Imagine Capital, a hedge fund with over $70 million under management.

Victoria Ransom; Founder & CEO, Wildfire

Victoria has been an entrepreneur since her early twenties and has developed three companies. As founder & CEO of Wildfire, Victoria has led the company to profitability in just one year and has built a client list that includes major brands and agencies including Facebook, Pepsi, Unilever, Sony, AT&T, Ogilvy, Publicis and Digitas. Wildfire is a two-time winner of the fbFund; investors include Summit, Facebook, Accel Partners and the Founder’s Fund. Victoria has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. She was recently named one of the ’25 Women to Watch in Tech’ for 2010 and she has spoken at numerous conferences including SXSW, OMMA, AlwaysOn, Ad:tech and Web 2.0

Gary Swart; CEO, oDesk

Gary brings to oDesk a passion for helping small businesses succeed and more than 17 years of experience in the enterprise software market. Before oDesk, as the VP of Worldwide Sales for Intellibank, he was responsible for building the sales organization, but Gary’s enthusiasm for small businesses was born during his tenure as a Business Unit Executive for IBM’s Rational Software Product Group, where he led Small and Medium Business sales for the Americas. Gary came to Rational through its merger with Pure Software, where he held sales, management and leadership positions.Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.