Corporate

Charlie Thomas

Mr. Thomas became CEO of Rasorsight in February 2005. In his first two years, Mr. Thomas has led Razorsight to strong growth resulting in a #8 ranking on Deloitte's Virginia Fast 50 and a #114 ranking on Deloitte's National Fast 500 list. He's also established very strategic partnerships between Razorsight and IBM, ACS and BearingPoint.

Mr. Thomas has co-founded, grown and sold 3 companies over the last decade, and he has negotiated over $1 Billion in capital financings for his companies. He has successfully closed over 15 M&A transactions. Prior to Razorsight, Mr. Thomas founded and grew Claris Capital, a boutique investment bank, from 2002 to 2005. Mr. Thomas co-founded an Internet Service Provider which later sold to Verio and a Professional Services firm that sold to Private Equity firm GTCR.

In 1993 Mr. Thomas founded Net2000 Communications, a broadband telecommunications carrier, and led the company as CEO for nine years from start-up to an IPO led by Goldman Sachs in March 2000 with an initial market cap over $1.5 billion. Net2000 grew to $150 million in revenue and over 1,000 employees before being acquired by Cavalier Telephone in 2002.

Mr. Thomas has also held sales and marketing positions with IBM and Bell Atlantic. Mr. Thomas serves on several corporate boards. Mr. Thomas is author of a book "Entrepreneur: A CEO's Lessons in American Capitalism" which was published in May 2005. Mr. Thomas graduated from the University of Virginia.

Tim Hanlon

Tim Hanlon is Executive Vice President/Ventures for Denuo, the futures consulting practice of advertising agency holding company Publicis Groupe, S.A. He is chiefly responsible for the solicitation, negotiation and oversight of the unit's strategic partnership and equity investment activity — focused exclusively on paradigm-changing "new media" platforms and technologies. His current role is an outgrowth of his previous work as head of Publicis Groupe Media (PGM) Ventures, and includes formal advisory and directorial positions with over three dozen start-up companies.

Prior to founding the PGM Ventures practice, Hanlon was Senior Vice President/Director, Emerging Contacts for Starcom MediaVest Group, a global media services network of Publicis Groupe Media and parent holding company Publicis Groupe, S.A. He was chiefly responsible for all US client activity and agency initiatives in the field of emerging media technologies, including the firm's ground-breaking TV 2.0 Practice, centered around evolutionary television platforms such as interactive/enhanced television, on-demand video, digital video recording, interactive program guide navigation, addressable advertising, and digital broadcasting/datacasting.

Hanlon has over 15 years of traditional and interactive agency media experience including roles as Vice President/Director, Strategy & Business Development for the Digital Marketing Group of Chicago-based marketing services agency Frankel, and Director of Interactive Media at Creative Alliance in Louisville, KY. He also served as the Advertising Media Manager for the in-house agency of credit card issuer MBNA America in Wilmington, DE, USA.

Hanlon also has wide-ranging journalism experience, including production and writing stints at CBS News, Sports Illustrated and the Voice of America.

Among numerous advertising and television industry activities, Hanlon was Chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) Advanced Television Committee from 2001-05, a founding member of the Steering Committee of the Innovation in Digital Advertising (IDiA) Consortium, and a founding member of the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences (NAMAS). In 2004, he was an inaugural recipient of Interactive Television Today's Leadership in Interactive Television Award, and has been named as one of MEDIA Magazine's "100 People to Know." His insights into the future of media and advertising are regularly seen in major electronic, print and trade press outlets.

Hanlon holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and a BA from Georgetown University.

Pragnesh "Prag" Shah

Pragnesh is a seasoned industry veteran whose career spans wireless and traditional POTS service. Most recently, Prag served as Vice President of Product Innovation at Sprint Nextel where he led the company's emerging mobile products initiatives for consumer and business segments. In that role he drove incubation of new lines of business in mobile advertising, mobile payments, and entertainment/media.

Previously he was Vice President & GM of the Sprint PCS E-Commerce Business Unit, directly responsible for driving e-commerce transactions, usability design, software development & testing, and web operations. At Sprint, he also held executive level positions in consumer retail sales, customer operations, corporate strategic planning, and merger integration.

Prior to Sprint Nextel, Shah's experience includes positions in business development at Omnipoint Corporation (an Arlington, Virginia wireless start-up at pre-IPO stage), and five years design engineering experience with NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

He earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and MS and BS engineering degrees from the George Washington University. Born and raised in Washington, D.C. he now resides in northern Virginia.

Dr. Adam Berger

In the last seven years, Dr. Berger has founded and grown two companies whose mission is to extend the capabilities of mobile phones past voice into compelling, usable new data services. Penthera, based in Pittsburgh, develops software solutions for efficient delivery of high-quality video to wireless handsets. At Penthera, Berger has served as CTO, vice president, and director.

Previously, at Nokia, Adam ran an advanced technology group (R&D group) within Nokia's Enterprise Systems Division where he was responsible for the development and prosecution of IP portfolio related to mobile email, browsing, and synchronization software. In that capacity he coordinated with peer groups in Technology Platforms, Nokia Ventures Organization (NVO), and Multimedia division, based in Helsinki. He also served as IP/patent reviewer and technology consultant to Nokia Ventures Organization and Innovent (Nokia venturing unit).

In 2000, Berger co-founded Eizel Technologies Inc., a venture-backed startup that developed a corporate mobile email system. Eizel was sold to Nokia in 2003 and became a component of the newly-formed Enterprise Systems division. The Eizel product line grew into the Nokia One Business Server™ product, developed in conjunction with development efforts in Dallas and Finland offices.

Dr. Berger was trained as a researcher in the field of computer science. His expertise relates to the transmission, compression, and processing of text. He has presented at leading international conferences in the fields of artificial intelligence, information retrieval, and language processing, and has served as a reviewer for journals and conferences in the field of machine learning, speech and language analysis, and neural processing.

From 1992 to 1995, Berger was a member of the Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory at IBM, where he participated in developing systems for speech recognition and language translation based on stochastic models of text and voice. He has also held a research position at Clairvoyance Corporation, a Japanese-funded R&D firm specializing in information management. Berger holds a B.A. in physics and an M.S. in computer science from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a recipient of an IBM Graduate Fellowship, a Harvard College Scholarship, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Tom MacIsaac

Tom is currently the President of Cove Street Partners, Inc., a boutique advisory firm specializing in digital media and online advertising. Previously, Tom led strategy and corporate development for A OL's (NYSE: TWX) ad network businesses, where he was responsible for strategic planning, M&A and strategic business development and played a major role in the transformation of AOL into a leading, diversified advertising business through his leadership in over $1 billion in AOL ad network acquisitions.

Prior to AOL, Tom served as President and CEO of Lightningcast, Inc., a leading video ad management platform and ad network, acquired by AOL in 2006, working with customers that included AOL, Comcast, Disney/ABC, Microsoft, Scripps, A&E, MTV, MLB, NBA, Reuters, Hulu, Warner Bros. and many others. In 2000, Tom founded Internet and mobile electronic messaging company Backwire, Inc. which was acquired by Leap Wireless (Nasdaq: LEAP) in 2001.

Prior to founding Backwire, Tom was a partner at venture firm Venturehouse Group and before that President of AOL Select, an AOL JV that acquired AOL subscribers through alternative channels, including direct selling and multilevel marketing. Prior to entering the digital media and marketing world, Tom practiced corporate and securities law with the global law firm Dechert.