Management, Directors & Advisors
Management
JIM M. MILLER – FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN / CEO:
Mr. Miller is an experienced entrepreneur who has successfully raised over $100 million dollars and started several consumer-focused venture backed companies over the past 17 years. He is CEO of Moxie Ventures, Inc. a Holding Company and majority shareholder of Afiniti Ventures, Inc. (d.b.a. uTANGOTM). Mr. Miller has spent the past six years thoroughly researching the loyalty marketing industry in anticipation of launching uTANGO. He is a proven leader of operations, business development, sales, marketing and product development for technology and communication services companies.
Prior to launching uTANGO, Mr. Miller was an Executive in Residence (EIR) with Ignition Partners a $900 million dollar venture fund. While at Ignition Mr. Miller worked with Vayusa, Inc. to establish a “go to market” strategy for enabling mobile phones with a Mobile Wallet application to facilitate mobile loyalty, mobile marketing and mobile payments leveraging Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID chips embedded within the mobile phone for contactless credit card payments at MasterCard PayPass® or AmericanExpress ExpressPay® enabled terminals.
Over his 17 year career, Mr. Miller has helped lead the creation and development of ADAPTIX, Cometa Networks, ReFlex Communications, Advanced Radio Telecom and the @Hospital Network. Prior to founding uTANGO, he was Executive Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing & Business Development for ADAPTIX, Inc. a global leader in 802.16e Mobile WiMAX technologies. He also served as Vice President of Business Development for Cometa Networks, Inc. and was the Founding President and Chief Operating Officer of ReFlex Communications, where raised $100 million dollars and built the company into an industry-leading, broadband wireless CLEC and ISP serving 16 major U.S. markets. He also served as an Executive in Residence with Frazier & Co., a $500 million private equity firm.
STEVE MARKOWITZ - CHIEF LOYALTY STRATEGIST:
Mr. Markowitz is currently Managing General Partner of Stockton Funds, L.L.C. a private investment management company based in Honolulu , Hawaii . Prior to Stockton Funds, Mr. Markowitz was the founding Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MyPoints.com, Inc., a leading provider of Internet direct marketing and membership loyalty marketing services. Under Mr. Markowitz, the Company grew annual revenue from Zero in 1996 to $64 million in 2000; it grew membership to more than 16 million consumers, or roughly 15% of all consumers online.
Mr. Markowitz led the Company through the acquisition and integration of three competitors and spearheaded the Company's entry into foreign markets, launching successful joint ventures in Europe, Japan and Latin America . Mr. Markowitz orchestrated the Company's successful $50 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) in August 1999 and $210 million secondary offering in February 2000. MyPoints.com ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top 20 performing IPOs of 1999, and was subsequently acquired by United Airlines for $117 million in cash. Prior to MyPoints.com, Mr. Markowitz served as a securities analyst for Fidelity Investments and as a financial journalist for Dow Jones & Co., both in Tokyo , Japan . Mr. Markowitz holds an A.B. in East Asian languages from the University of California Berkeley (high honors) and an MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley . Mr. Markowitz is an active philanthropist. He is also fluent in Japanese.
SEAN O'NEILL – SVP of PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT:
Mr. O'Neill has twelve years of business experience, the past seven at Amazon.com in a variety of strategic ecommerce roles across software product management, retail management, operations, vendor relations, and consumer trust.
At Amazon.com Mr.O'Neill drove consumer behavior and sell-through using pricing, incentives, analytics, and user interfaces on a global scale. He redefined and launched several core services for seller reputation systems and buyer guarantees, impacting nearly every merchant transaction across Amazon's global platform. Mr. O'Neill is adept at leveraging primary and secondary research to understand customer needs and to build data-driven systems to meet those needs in a scalable fashion. Over his time at Amazon.com he managed or participated in over 50 cross-functional projects and software releases that delivered well over $20 million in free cash flow.
During his time at Amazon.com, Mr. O'Neill co-authored two patents (patent pending) in the areas of dynamic-pricing mechanisms and vendor-performance algorithms, and became a certified Operational Excellence Six Sigma Green Belt. Mr. O'Neill holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA double major with honors in Business Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara . Mr. O'Neill is a dual citizen of the United States and United Kingdom .
DAVID REPP - CO-FOUNDER & CIO:
Mr. Repp is President of Incapa Systems, a Seattle-based technical services firm. With nearly 10 years of experience in the technology industry, Mr. Repp has design-level knowledge of hardware and software systems and integration solutions. At Incapa, Mr. Repp guided implementation of e-commerce solutions, database systems, and a variety of back-office solutions. Incapa serves clients in a range of industries, including retail, manufacturing, professional services, real estate, and high technology.
Prior to Incapa, he served as Chief Technology Officer for LandSpot, Inc., an Internet-based real estate transaction management company. Previously, Mr. Repp served as Director of IT for Scatter Creek Holdings, and consulted with the Kimberly-Clark Corporation and the United States Navy. Mr. Repp holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.
Board of Directors
JIM M. MILLER – FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN / CEO
JOAN NEVINS– DIRECTOR
Joan Nevins is currently Chief Financial Officer for Kalido an enterprise software company that provides data warehousing and master data management solutions for Global 2000 companies.
Nevins has over 20 years of executive level financial and general management experience. She has achieved significant growth in high technology companies throughout various stages of the corporate lifecycle - from venture-backed companies and initial public offerings to $500 million dollar companies. She also has a wealth of experience in raising and managing capital.
Prior to Kalido, Nevins spent four years as the CFO for Upromise, Inc., the country's largest non-governmental loyalty rewards program helping over 8 million Americans save for college with $10 Billion in rewards assets under management.
Before her tenure at Upromise, Inc., Nevins held a number of CFO and other senior level positions in high technology companies, including Arbortext, Inc., WolfData, Inc. and most notably PictureTel Corporation. At PictureTel she raised over $150 million dollars to fund corporate growth through venture capital financings and three secondary offerings.
Nevins has MBA in finance from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; an MS degree in accounting from Bentley College; and a BA in economics from Bates College.
Board of Advisors
JACK F. KEMP (Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development):
Jack Kemp is Chairman Emeritus of Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. His work in defense of the information sector of our economy is based on the premise that government's role in a thriving new enterprise should be very limited at most, leaving the free market to sort things out whenever possible. Throughout his career Kemp has also been one of the nation's leading advocates for strong economic growth, free markets, free trade, and tax simplification and lower tax rates on both work and investment. He is also the first and strongest advocate for revitalizing our cities by establishing Enterprise Zones to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation in urban America and of expanding homeownership among low income people through resident management and ownership of public housing. Mr. Kemp serves on the Boards of several technology companies including Oracle and Proxicom.
In 1996, Jack Kemp gained even further prominence in the national spotlight when Senator Bob Dole named him as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate. The nomination was testimony to Mr. Kemp's impact on the tax and economic debate for the '96 campaign through his role as chairman of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform - a group appointed to study how major restructuring of our tax code can help unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans, expand the economy without inflation, and create opportunity for people to escape poverty.
Prior to founding Empower America , Mr. Kemp served for four years as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and proved to be one of our nation's most innovative leaders in that role. Before his appointment to the Cabinet, Mr. Kemp represented the Buffalo area and Western New York for 18 years in the United States House of Representatives. Mr. Kemp spent 13 years in professional football, playing quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills. He led the Buffalo Bills to the American Football League championship in 1964 and 1965 when he was named the League's most valuable player. He also co-founded the AFL Players Association and was elected president for five terms. He is on the Board of Habitat for Humanity and Chairman of Habitat's National Campaign for Rebuilding our Communities. Mr. Kemp and his wife Joanne have been blessed with 4 children and 12 grandchildren.
TERRY DRAYTON:
CEO of Count Me In ( www.countmein.com ), co-founder of RAMP Technology Group ( www.rampgroup.com ) and the former co-founder and CEO of HomeGrocer.com.
Terry is a successful entrepreneur, having incubated and launched seven start-ups. Prior to founding Count Me In, Terry co-founded HomeGrocer.com. He served as president and director of HomeGrocer, from its inception in the fall of 1996 to its sale in June of 2000 to Webvan.com for $1.1B. During this time, Terry and company raised more than $440 million in capital from Amazon.com , Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and former Netscape chief executive Jim Barksdale ; including an IPO lead managed by Morgan Stanley for $280 million in March of 2000.
From commercial launch on May 28, 1998, HomeGrocer grew to more than 2,500 staff operating across the nation from eight facilities, and delivering from more than 400 specialized delivery vehicles. More than 100,000 customers used the service with sales in 2000 (stand-alone) of approximately $150 million and annualized sales of more than $400 million. HomeGrocer created what is still consistently viewed as the best and largest online grocery company in the world which entailed the design and completion of a world-class technology platform that handled all phases of e-business.
Terry is often referred to as a "serial entrepreneur." After completing Bachelor of Commerce and MBA degrees, Terry spent three years working in the venture capital and investment-banking arena before starting his first new business in 1986. Greatly enjoying both the art and science of start-ups, Terry is a founding member of the University of Washington 's Center for Technology Entrepreneurship and teaches a course on creating new ventures. In 1999, Terry won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Pacific Northwest , and now serves on the panel of judges.
GAIL COTTLE:
Known as an expert merchant with a keen understanding of the customer, she currently consults and speaks on topics such as branding, merchandising and leadership focusing her attention around people and organizations that have a shared set of values around the customer. ( www.gailcottle.com ) She is best known for her role as president of Nordstrom Product Group, a division of Nordstrom she helped create and which she led until her retirement in 2002, designing, developing and importing the company's private brands.
In her 33-year career, Gail Cottle has established herself as one of the retail industry's most trusted leaders. As president of Nordstrom Product Group, she helped redefine the brands found in Nordstrom department stores and negotiated license agreements with world-renowned designers and manufacturers. She formed the U.S. subsidiary, Nordstrom Product International, to manage all aspects of Nordstrom's overseas business (including Asia, Europe and South America ). She also created partnerships with Japanese department stores to wholesale two exclusive Nordstrom private labels.
In 2000, Gail led Nordstrom Inc. in the acquisition of the French luxury brand; Faconnable S.A. Gail oversaw purchase negotiations and subsequently served as the president of the board of directors of Faconnable, which became a subsidiary of Nordstrom Inc.
DR. PEPPER SCHWARTZ:
Dr. Schwartz is Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington . She received her B.A. in Sociology from Washington University in St. Louis and her Masters in Philosophy and Ph.D. from Yale University . She is the past President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, past President of the Pacific Sociological Association and a fellow of the International Academy of Sex Research. She is the author or co-author of over 50 research articles and 15 books, including American Couples, Money, Work and Sex, Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works, The Gender of Sexuality, Everything You Know About Love and Sex is Wrong, Ten Talks Parents Must Have With Children About Sex and Character and Finding Your Perfect Match.
She was the Glamour Health and Sex Columnist for nine years, and American Baby Magazine columnist for 8 years. She has written for the Parent and Child column for the New York Times, and has been profiled in USA Today, People Magazine, New York Times, Time, 20/20, Oprah, Today Show and other main stream media. In 2005 she was the recipient of the American Sociological Association's award for Public Understanding of Sociology. She is currently the relationship expert at Perfectmatch.com and the creator of their matching system, Duet.
MARTIN TOBIAS:
Martin is an Ignition Venture Partner. He works on Ignition's infrastructure software investments. Martin represents Ignition as director on the boards of Cloudmark and IP Fabrics . Martin is also the Chairman / CEO of Imperium Renewables .
Prior to Ignition, Martin spent more than 15 years in operating roles in technology companies, including four years at Loudeye Technologies and six years with Microsoft.
Martin was the CEO of Loudeye Technologies Inc , which he founded in 1997 and took public in March of 2000. Through his leadership, the company grew to be one of the largest providers of audio and video enabling solutions for the Internet. Martin developed many strategic partnerships and customers including Microsoft, Real Networks, NBC, CBS, AOL, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros. and EMI.
Prior to founding Loudeye, Martin spent six years with Microsoft where he played a key role in the launch of Select 3.0 (the volume licensing program for corporations) and developed the company's channel policies to allow electronic software distribution (ESD). He also led operational projects critical to Microsoft International's worldwide expansion, particularly in Europe, Scandinavia and Australia .
Prior to his time at Microsoft, Martin was with Andersen Consulting (Accenture). Martin is an active investor in high tech companies and participates on a number of boards.