Our Team
Alan Phillips, Founder & CEO
Alan Phillips is a proven entrepreneur with over twenty years in applied technology. Phillips co-founded uLocate Communications in 2003, a leader in the application of location-based services. Prior to uLocate, Phillips co-founded Nurse.com which was sold to a large healthcare company in 2002. Phillips was an Executive in Residence at GrandBanks Capital, a Softbank Affiliate. His previous experience includes six years as EVP/CIO at ZDNet and President of CNET’s Market Intelligence division. He serves on several Boards (uLocate Communications, Skyscape, and Project-A-Phone.) and is an advisor to numerous early-stage ventures. Phillips received a BA from Vassar College in Quantitative Economics.
Jon Finegold, Founder & COO
Jon Finegold is an Internet entrepreneur with a passion for new technologies, particularly those technologies that help connect people. Finegold founded ontri.com, an online community that connects triathletes and marathoners which has become a premiere web site in its category. He led marketing and business development for uLocate Communications, a leader in wireless location based services with their innovative GPS buddy finder application, and while at uLocate led the market entry of where.com an online community for sharing photos from camera phones. Finegold also led marketing and business development at OpenAir, a leading application service provider for professional services businesses and Taral Networks, an early player in picture messaging technology for mobile phones. Finegold holds a B.S. from Allegheny College in mathematics and an M.S. from M.I.T. graduating from its pioneering Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership program.
Jennifer Sagalyn, Vice President, Content Partnerships
Jennifer Sagalyn is a technology veteran with 14 years of experience building partnerships with Fortune 1000 companies including AOL, Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo!. Partnerships she created helped to shape ground-breaking technologies including Apple's built-in access technology, VoiceOver, and the Adobe Connect Meeting Captioning Extension. She is also played a leadership role in bringing about the first industry-wide forum dedicated to online multimedia access. Most recently, Jennifer was Director of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston. She holds a BA from Stonehill College.
Troy Sechrist, Vice President, Business Development
Troy Sechrist is an entrepreneur and expert relationship builder, having led partnerships throughout the consumer electronics, photography and online industries with companies including Canon, HP, Samsung, Costco, Walmart and many more. Mr. Sechrist brings over 15 years of experience leading business development and product marketing for a number of photo and technology startups as well as market leaders. He was most recently VP of Business Development for Phanfare, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Sechrist led product marketing and business development for HP's consumer photo software business and was President & CEO of FotoWear, Inc., a specialty photo paper marketing firm, where he developed partnerships and led international expansion efforts with all of the top brands in consumer imaging and printing. His career in the consumer photo category began with Canon. Troy received his BA with honors in Economics from Pepperdine University and his MBA from The Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine.
Jim Staub, Vice President, Engineering
Steven Maggs, Vice President, Technical Operations
Board of Directors
Thomas Burgess, Founder of Third Screen Media
Thomas Burgess is the founder and former chief executive officer of Third Screen Media, which was recently acquired by AOL. During his tenure there, he was responsible for leading the senior management team with particular focus on the company's overall business development, marketing and sales strategy. Prior to Third Screen Media, Thomas served as president of Internet portal CollegeLink.com, Inc. purchased by Monster.com early in 2001. Prior to that, he served as CEO of 9th Square, Inc. (currently Bluestreak.com, Inc.), an Internet e-commerce and advertising software and services company that he co-founded, angel financed and guided through successful initial product development and market launch. Before that, Thomas held senior management and sales positions in the interactive marketing and telecommunications industries. Thomas has a BA from Providence College.
Mike DiFranza, President & Founder of Captivate Networks
Mike DiFranza is the president and founder of Captivate Network, the national news and entertainment network that delivers quality programming and advertising to a highly desirable and targeted audience during the workday. As a pioneer in the out of home video advertising market, Mike identified the shifting media consumption habits of consumers and the growing need for marketers to reach these consumers in the daily flow of their lives. Mike led the sale of Captivate to Gannett in 2004. Prior to founding Captivate, Mike served as the director for the Eastern U.S., Canadian, and Latin American Business Units for Mentor Graphics. In that role, he supported the development of underlying technology for the media and telecommunications industries. Prior to his position with Mentor, Mike held various positions with Metheus Corporation and GCA Corporation. Mike holds a BS in engineering and computer science from Northeastern University and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School's Program for Management Development.
Jim Savage, Partner of Longworth Venture Partners
Before Longworth, Jim Savage spent 20 years successfully developing, launching and managing early stage software and media companies. As CEO of PlanetAll, Inc., a pioneering social networking service, Jim directed the company from its early venture-funding phase through its successful acquisition by Amazon.com. Previously, Jim was the founding General Manager of ZDNet, the Web's leading IT media company, acquired by CNET for $1.3 billion. Before ZDNet, Jim was an executive vice president at Simon & Schuster/Prentice Hall, where he directed the online publishing activities of its legal publishing division. Jim started his career managing digital media initiatives at McGraw-Hill.
Jim represents Longworth on the boards of directors of Innovectra, Scrapblog, and Voxant. In addition, he serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange.
Board of Advisors
Barry Waxman, TechASIA Management (Founding, Managing Partner)
Barry’s experience spans a successful 25+ year career in diversified segments of the high tech systems industry. Core skills and track record scales from private early stage startup companies to over $1 billion public companies.
He has demonstrated a solid track record of Team leadership and coaching, significant revenue/sales growth, developing key OEM strategic customers & partners, key early adopters and Design Wins, successful highly visible marketing campaigns, building high performance organizations, developing strategic operating plans and driving positive culture changes. Also spanning a large portion of his career, he has demonstrated his ability and expertise in sourcing (procurement) technology products from Asia, as well as developing relationships with key system integrators, technology manufacturers and distributors.
Experience includes Executive/GM/Officer & Senior Management positions with a repeatable track record in Design Win driven Sales (OEM and Channels), Marketing, Operations (including Procurement) and Engineering responsibilities.
Barry is recognized as having developed a global geographic business expertise that includes a particularly strong knowledge of Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Australia), North America, Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile) and Europe.
Market segment and domain knowledge, spans Semiconductors and System Level products used in Imaging (Video and Still), Advanced Video CODEC’s, DVD Players/Recorders, Set Top Boxes, Wireless and Mobile Consumer Products, Mobile Commerce, PC’s/Computers, Storage and Networking, MEMS devices, Medical/Bio, Automotive(Telematics) and Gaming Industries.
He has professionally, served on Executive Management Teams of Western Digital, Adaptec (successful IPO), Mylex (acquired by IBM), PixelMagic (acquired by Oak Technology and Zoran), Microtouch Systems (acquired by 3M) and startups, Standard MEMS, Connex Technology (now BrightScale), Tak Imaging (acquired by InSilica/Flextronics), as well as founding mVision Technology and TechASIA Management.
TechASIA Management is a Business Development firm assisting VC funded startups establish early referenceable Design Wins with Tier 1 OEMs and ODM’s in Asia. It also works with VC firms on Due Diligence activities prior to funding, covering many areas of technology.
Other experience and involvement includes, Founding Member of GlobalScot’s Advisory Board, promoting and advising emerging Scottish company’s. Barry is also a member of Launchpad Venture Group, an Angel investor in the Boston area.
His Degree was earned in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Paisley College of Technology, King’s College, London.
Myron Kassaraba, President, MJK Partners
Myron is an experienced executive who has been a part of bringing several pioneering products to market and establishing new technology platforms and standards. Myron founded MJK Partners in 2003 a consulting practice where he works with clients in the mobile and embedded technology markets such as Ambient Devices, Mitsubishi Electric’s Research Labs (MERL), Progress Software, uLocate Communications and Zeetoo, Inc. At MERL, Myron licensed the Saffron digital type technology to Adobe/Macromedia for Flash and to Monotype Imaging.
Early in his career he co-founded Applied Videotex Systems, a software and online services company that developed and ran Boston CitiNet; the first advertiser supported regional online service. In senior product management, marketing and business development roles at Howtek, Edsun Labs and Eastman Kodak he was instrumental in developing the PC graphics and imaging ecosystem. Myron worked closely with key platform and application vendors including Adobe, Apple, HP, Microsoft and Sun to develop common standards such as TWAIN, ICC Color Management and FlashPix. At Kodak, where he ran Corporate Strategic Alliances and Developer Relations, Myron licensed the Kodak Color Management System (KCMS) to Microsoft for Windows 95 and established Kodak’s Developer Relations Group.
Myron has been active in local organizations and non-profits. He was a long-time Board Member of MIMC/MITX, a founder of the Boston chapter of Environmental Entrepreneurs and the MIT Enterprise Forum Energy SIG and currently serves on the Board of the Belmont Media Center. A graduate of Northeastern University, in his spare time Myron enjoys cycling, skiing, photography and spending time in Maine with his wife and two daughters.
Matt Lindley, EVP, Executive Creative Director, Arnold Worldwide
Matt has served on both sides of the advertising/marketing table throughout his career, first as a creative and then as a business strategist. Creative posts included Associate Creative Director at BBK, Creative Director at top-ten site ZDNet, and Executive Producer of Broadcast for CMGi's iCast unit. Business posts included founding Managing Director of Modernista! (named Adweek's Agency of The Year during his tenure), and VP, Television Products, at One Zero Media, a company he also co-founded, grew to 60 employees, and sold to GT Interactive within 18 months of incorporation. Most recently, Matt helped start LocaModa, a company that connects mobile consumers to trusted opt-in, loyalty and merchandise systems. He currently serves as EVP, ECD, at Arnold Worldwide in Boston.
Amy McDonough, Director, Audience & Content Development CNET Networks
Amy McDonough, Director of Audience and Content Development, is charged with implementing new features and content environments that speak to the community's desire for an interactive experience on Webshots.com, one of the Internet's largest photo and video sharing communities where users connect over shared interests spanning 10 channels and thousands of sub-categories. In her role, she is responsible for member acquisition and retention, working to build awareness for and create new products and features, as well as highlighting members of the community and their work, both within Webshots and the broader online community.
Since joining CNET Networks in 2001, Amy has held several positions involving strategic partnerships to move the business forward in key areas such as paid search, RSS distribution, strategic partnerships and mobile opportunities. In her most recent position as director of Webshots Services, Amy was responsible for all aspects of Webshots Services including premium subscriptions, The Webshots Store, Webshots Mobile, and Webshots Premium services & Application Programming Interface (API) services. These four areas combine to be a multi-million dollar services revenue stream today and are used and accessed by millions of users.
Earlier, Amy was the Managing Producer of Strategic Partnerships for ZDNet where she lead the team responsible for building exports of content, co-branded and private label website solutions, and balancing partner needs while maintaining branding and attribution with the highest possible quality.
Amy has a Bachelor's Degree in English and Elementary Education from Merrimack College in Andover, MA as well as a Professional Certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications from the UC Berkeley Extension program. In August 2004, she received the CNET Networks Excellence Awards, which acknowledge extraordinary contributions to the company by individuals who have performed at the highest level to move the business.
David Cole, Director Corporate Development CBS Boston
David oversees digital sales and cross-media programs integrating CBS’s WBZ-TV and TV38 television and web properties as well as developing technology partnerships and content/syndication strategies locally and the across CBS’s media properties.
Prior to joining CBS, David was a principle and co-founder of CSO Partners, a sales and marketing consulting firm that worked with companies in mobile/wireless, out of home digital media, search and content management.
David also spent over 7 years in management with Fox in local and national sales and culminating as VP, General Sales Manager, WFXT- FOX25, Boston.
With over 20 years experience working for top broadcasting companies and with emerging media and technology companies, David possesses a unique combination of highly successful sales management experience and the significant entrepreneurial drive and accomplishments associated with developing new business opportunities and strategic partnerships.