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About TourVote
 

Management Team:

Ben Cruz, Co-Founder / CEO Mr. Cruz has 22 years of international, executive management experience with large and small companies including Black & Decker and Noise Cancellation Technologies, Inc.  Prior to Demand ID Systems, Mr. Cruz was founder and Managing Director of Synchromedia, the first company to provide multi-city entertainment and dining recommendations to users of wireless information access devices, done in partnership with Motorola. In addition to 8 years of strategic and commercial development in the interactive travel, entertainment and digital and wireless media arenas, Mr. Cruz brings skills in P&L management, marketing, distribution, product development, licensing, fund raising, quality management and team building.  Mr. Cruz holds a Masters in International Management from The American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird), consistently ranked the top International MBA program in the country by US News and World Report.  

Jay Bartlett, Co-Founder / VP Product Management Mr. Bartlett is a 31-year veteran of the information publishing industry, encompassing media from printed books to applications software to online reference and decision support systems for the professional, educational, and consumer markets.  He has held P&L responsibility in addition to managerial and executive positions in product management, sales, marketing, corporate development, strategic planning, operations, and technology.  Among the companies he has helped to develop new lines of business and enter new markets are Fair Disclosure Financial Network, Inc., VeriSign, Inc., Thomson Financial, Information Access Company, Strategic Intelligence Systems, and Wadsworth Publishing Company.  A frequent concert-goer with wide-ranging tastes, he comes from a family of notable professional musicians and visual artists from whom he inherited no discernible artistic talent but an active appreciation for creative work--and for the challenges of reaching an audience.  Mr. Bartlett holds a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and has taken continuing education coursework in information technology.

Skip Daly, Partnership Manager Mr. Daly is a co-founder and principal of the indie record label BOS Music (www.bosmusic.com), which has released CDs for such rising artists as Railroad Earth and The Ordinary Way. He moonlights as the bassist in the Wammie-nominated group Oddbox. His network of friendships in the industry (especially in his native Washington, DC, area) and knowledge of the indie music business has proven invaluable in expanding the TourVote network. Mr. Daly also is an 8-year veteran of the financial information industry, having managed large databases for Thomson Financial and The Nasdaq Stock Market, with additional experience in a technical sales role for Thomson Investor's Network. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University Of Maryland at College Park and has pursued additional education in the information technology field.

Advisory Board:

Michael J. Bebel –  Michael Bebel is currently engaged in a number of consulting and advisory engagements that draw upon extensive knowledge and expertise  gained while leading various online initiatives in the music industry. His most recent leadership post was president and chief operating officer of Roxio’s Napster Division. As COO, Bebel was responsible for overseeing the operations of the company's online music division including the launch of the new, legitimate Napster 2.0 service in October of 2003. Bebel took on this position after serving as president and CEO of pressplay where he led the effort to establish one of the first successful legitimate online music services. Before joining pressplay, Bebel was executive vice president of the eLabs division of Universal Music Group (UMG), where he played a leading role in the formation of the pressplay joint venture between UMG and Sony Music. Prior to that, Bebel was senior vice president for strategic planning and business development of Universal Music Group’s eCAT division, where he helped shape the landscape of various online initiatives and played a lead role in negotiating key joint ventures and strategic alliances. Bebel was brought to Universal Studios, Inc. from its then-parent company, Seagram, in January 1996 and served in a leadership capacity focused on improving operations across the studio, theme park and music divisions. From 1991 to 1995, he held several financial management and business development positions at the Seagram Beverage Company in New York.


Brian Dearth, Partner, Brand2B – Brand2B is a consultancy providing strategic and tactical advice and services to cutting edge new media companies. Prior to Brand2B, in February 2000, Mr. Dearth joined HSX® Research as CEO to lead the company's market research efforts. Mr. Dearth brought to HSX over a decade of senior-level operations and development experience in entertainment market research. From 1997 to 2000, Brian was the senior vice president of the Entertainment Group at VNU USA, a $3-billion Dutch publishing and business information company whose holdings collectively represent the largest market research operation in the world. He oversaw VNU's efforts to build marketing applications for entertainment companies and headed a team that spent $250 million to acquire companies in the entertainment information space, including National Research Group, SoundScan, and Broadcast Data Systems. From 1990 to 1996, Brian was the group vice president of Claritas, Inc., a precision market research company wholly-owned by VNU, where he was responsible for marketing and product development. Brian holds a B.A. in Statistics from Miami University and a M.A. in Demographics from Georgetown University.

Carl Freed, President, Trevanna Entertainment Mr. Freed's founded Trevanna Entertainment, a company which provides consulting services for live musical events. Trevanna also provides tour management for Alternative Venue Entertainment, a unique program which brings concert tours to prominent summer camps. Mr. Freed is also managing director of the Independent Promoters LLC, a collection of the largest independent concert promoters in North America who have come together to produce concert tours, one time major events and collectively to secure corporate sponsorships. Previously, Mr. Freed was Sr. VP Business Development at Metropolitan Entertainment, at that time one of the largest independent full service entertainment companies in the country. Mr. Freed has over 20 years of experience in the production, marketing and promotion of entertainment properties. Mr. Freed's skills as a cutting edge entertainment executive have borne fruit in many areas as he has negotiated precedent settings agreements for Metropolitan wearing many hats: He secured the first tour for the arguably the world's most famous boy group, The Backstreet Boys , helped in the creation of the Up In Smoke Tour, named one of the top ten tours of all time by Spin Magazine. Negotiated one of the largest webcasting contracts at the time for Woodstock 99, helped acquire the exclusive 25 year relationship with the award winning Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and generated key sponsorship agreements for Metropolitan. Prior to his 10 years at Metropolitan, Mr. Freed was executive Director of the North American Concert Promoters Association, a trade group comprised of the largest concert promotion companies in North America. There he acted as the concert promotion industry's liaison to all sectors of the music industry and governmental agencies. Mr. Freed's experience also includes a stint as Director of Development for BRB Entertainment, one of Hollywood's most successful musically-oriented television production companies. Mr. Freed also served on the boards of the CityKids Foundation and Concerts for the Environment.
More on Carl

David E. Leibowitz, Managing Partner, CH Potomac - David E. Leibowitz is Managing Partner of CH POTOMAC, a strategic services company focused on the entertainment, media and technology industries. Mr. Leibowitz brings twenty-five years of experience in copyright, media, communications, and technology matters, as well as business issues facing the entertainment, new media, consumer electronics and information technology industries. Among other activities, Mr. Leibowitz serves on the Industry Advisory Boards of Peppercoin, 13 Colonies Software, CD Intelligence and Neurok Optics. Earlier in his career, Mr. Leibowitz Co-Founded VERANCE and served as its Chairman. VERANCE offers innovative technology solutions to protect, manage, and monitor audio and audiovisual content, including broadcast monitoring and verification, copy protection and content management. Before that, Mr. Leibowitz was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), responsible for business and legal issues facing the industry with particular emphasis on how to position the industry to utilize new physical and electronic format systems. During this period, Mr. Leibowitz chaired the worldwide recording industry’s International Steering Committee on DVD Audio, the RIAA New Technology and Multimedia Committee and the RIAA Legal Committee. Prior to his work at the RIAA, Mr. Leibowitz was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm Wiley Rein & Fielding. Mr. Leibowitz also has served as Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights for the U.S. Copyright Office.

Jeffrey Salinger, Co-Founder & COO, Versura, Inc. Mr. Salinger is a senior executive with nearly 25 years of financial services experience in marketing, systems, operations, and strategic acquisitions and alliances. As a seventeen-year veteran at Sallie Mae, Mr. Salinger held progressively more responsible positions. His last position at Sallie Mae was Vice President of Product Management and Business Development. His responsibilities included marketing, product and systems development, advertising, direct mail, research and retail loan operations. He also directed the development of strategic alliances and business acquisitions, and served on the boards of two holding company subsidiaries. Most recently, Mr. Salinger was a principal in the investment firm, Stuart Mill Capital, and was a senior executive at Sato Travel, one of Stuart Mill Capital's acquisitions. In this capacity, he directed marketing and sales efforts, including commercial sales, military and government sales, product development, advertising, marketing services, business development, and contract administration. 

George Seff -  Mr. Seff is Vice President of Technology at Infocruiser. Prior to Infocruiser, Mr. Seff was executive vice president and CTO of Claritas, a premier data mining company which was acquired in 1999 by VNU of the Netherlands.  Managing a $14M annual budget, Mr. Seff delivered e-commerce, Internet, client-server and desktop solutions in the decision support marketplace.  Mr. Seff has successfully founded two high technology start-ups.  He holds a BA in Mathematics, an MS in Computer Science and attended the Stanford University Executive Program for Growing Companies.

 

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