Board of Advisors
Thomas Bliley
Mr. Bliley is a Senior Advisor with the Government Relations and Public Policy Practice Group at Kelley Drye Collier Shannon and represented Virginia''s Seventh District (Richmond, VA) in the United States House of Representatives for 20 consecutive years. During his last six years in office, he served as Chair of the House Committee on Commerce, the oldest Committee in the House and the one with the broadest jurisdiction. Mr. Bliley was a principal architect of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Robert DeSena
Mr. DeSena is the CEO of Engagement Marketing Group, a “new marketing” practice of senior executives. In 2002, Mr. DeSena joined Masterfoods USA as Director of Relationship Marketing and a member of the CRM Global Steering Committee. In 2005, he created and was appointed Managing Director of Mars Direct, the business unit responsible for accelerating brand growth in non traditional channels. Previously, Mr. DeSena held senior executive positions with Wunderman and as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Draft Worldwide. Earlier, he held a number of senior management positions within Time Warner, including Senior Vice President, Marketing with Time Life Books and Senior Vice President, Marketing with Time Warner Direct. He has also served as Vice President, New Media at Time, Inc., at which he created the Marketing Applications Group, a specialized marketing services unit designed to assist Time Warner’s largest worldwide clients, including General Motors and Procter & Gamble.
Dr. Phil Neches
Dr. Neches is a world-renowned authority in databases and is the founder and Chief Scientist of Teradata, a leading database vendor for which he helped pioneer the application of parallel processing to commercial applications. Mr. Neches began his career as Manager, Systems Evaluation Group, at Transaction Technology Inc. (a Citicorp subsidiary) and led analysis of consumer banking networks, including the first large-scale deployment of automated teller machines (ATMs) in the US. As Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist, NCR Corp., he led both the repositioning of their computer product family and the product plan for a merger with AT&T.
Martin Nisenholtz
Mr. Nisenholtz was named Senior Vice President, Digital Operations for The New York Times Company in February 2005. He is responsible for strategy development, operations and management of The New York Times Company’s digital properties, including About.com. Previously, Mr. Nisenholtz was Chief Executive Officer of New York Times Digital, and earlier, he was President of The New York Times Electronic Media Company. In that role, he was the founding leader of NYTimes.com. Prior to joining the Times Company, Mr. Nisenholtz was Director of Content Strategy for Ameritech Corporation, at which he was responsible for guiding development of new video programming opportunities, interactive information and advertising services. From 1983 to 1994, Mr. Nisenholtz served as a Senior Vice President and member of the operating committee at Ogilvy & Mather Direct. In 1983, he founded the Interactive Marketing Group (IMG), the first full service unit at a major U.S. advertising agency devoted specifically to interactive communication. Mr. Nisenholtz is an active leader in the advertising and publishing industry and participates in a variety of professional organizations, including the Online Publishers Association (OPA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Ad Council.
Nancy Peretsman
Ms. Peretsman is Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Allen & Company Incorporated, a closely-held investment banking firm founded in 1922. The firm serves as an advisor to a long list of America’s largest corporations. Prior to joining Allen & Company, Ms. Peretsman headed the worldwide media investment banking practice at Salomon Brothers. For more than 20 years, she has specialized in the media and communications industry. Ms. Peretsman has received recognition from a number of sources, including FORTUNE’s “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business,” Money’s “50 Smartest Women in the Money Business,” and the Financial Women’s Association’s “Woman of the Year, 2001.”
Bob Young
Mr. Young is the co-founder and former Chairman of Red Hat and the founder of The Center for the Public Domain, a non-profit foundation that supports the growth of a healthy and robust public domain of knowledge and the arts. The Red Hat organization has become the largest and most recognized organization dedicated to Open Source software. Red Hat is a market leader in the development, deployment, and management of Linux and Open Source solutions for Internet infrastructure, ranging from embedded devices to secure Web servers. Mr. Young is also the Chief Executive Officer of Lulu Enterprises, Inc., a self-publishing technology company. He also owns the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Sean Finnegan
Mr. Finnegan is the U.S. Director of OMD Digital, a Strategic Business Unit of OMD Worldwide, at which he is responsible for digital media for top brands, such as Dell, GE, Bank of America, Lowe''s, United Airlines, Nissan/Infiniti, Quaker, McDonald’s and Johnson & Johnson, among others. Mr. Finnegan began his career at BBDO New York, at which he focused on spot TV buying and print planning and buying. With the advent of the Internet, he shifted his focus to new media and worked with interactive agencies, such as Darwin Digital (Zenith) and JWT Digital. Mr. Finnegan was named a 2007 Media All Star for MediaWeek magazine and is currently involved in many online advertising industry groups and associations, such as the IAB, AAAAs, AAF, OPA, i20 Events, Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA), Chicago Association of Direct Marketing (CADM), The WSJ Online Leaders Series, Google’s Inaugural Agency Advisory Council, the Washington Post.com Advisory Council and the iMedia Summit Advisory Board. He also travels the country extensively speaking to many colleges and universities on the study and impact of online advertising.