Team

Bill brings more than 25 years of hands-on experience building and leading high-growth organizations in digital media, advertising and mobility. He most recently served as CEO of Audience Science, a pioneer in behavioral targeting and online audience monetization, powered by over 200 billion data insights on 386 million people worldwide. Bill is an Executive in Residence with MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, and has held roles in several MDV portfolio companies, including CEO of Sabrix, CFO of nLight, and Strategic Advisor to Quake Technologies, acquired by AMCC.

Bill serves on the boards of Audience Science and Pelago, and is a personal investor and advisor to several new media companies, including iLike, RealSelf and Kickball Labs. Previously, Bill co-founded @mobile, a wireless Internet software and services company, where he served as COO and CFO, and later engineered the company's $400 million merger with Software.com (Openwave Systems). Prior to @mobile he served in management and technical positions at Lucent, AT&T Wireless, Hughes and Northrop.

Bill holds 13 patents and has a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, a Master of Science degree from MIT, and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

Alex leads all product strategy, design, development and operations at hi5. Previously, he was CEO and co-founder of WildTangent Inc., the world's largest online game network with over 35 million monthly unique visitors. During his tenure, WildTangent developed a unique and highly successful micro-currency based economy that blended ecommerce and advertiser sponsored play of premium content. Alex also pioneered technology for online game publishing, resulting in an extensive portfolio of rich media delivery and micro-currency based monetization patents.

Prior to founding WildTangent, Alex was responsible for Microsoft's multimedia strategy. He was one of the principal creators of Microsoft's DirectX technology, which became the foundation for all Windows multimedia applications, 3D graphics, media players, and casual multiplayer games, as well as thousands of PC and Xbox games. Several books have been written about St. John's exploits at Microsoft including Renegades of the Empire by Michael Drummond, Opening the Xbox by Dean Takahashi, and Masters of Doom by David Kushner.

Alex was awarded an honorary degree in Real-Time Interactive Simulation from the DigiPen Institute of Technology for his extensive contributions to innovative game technology and the school's curriculum. Alex also advises the University of Washington on ways to enhance its technical degree programs and serves as an EIR advisor to the Tech Transfer department.

Karthik Kongovi – VP, Corporate Development and Legal

Karthik is responsible for hi5's strategic transactions and legal matters. Since joining hi5 in 2005 Karthik has played a key role in hi5's revenue and venture financing activities. In addition, Karthik has been responsible for hi5's financial and administrative functions.

Prior to hi5, Karthik was an associate at Cooley Godward LLP where he advised and represented technology companies throughout their business lifecycle. Furthermore, Karthik has been a regular speaker on start-up company matters at events organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Karthik holds a B.B.A. in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from Stanford Law School where he was a member of the law review.

Dan heads up global technical operations, including site serving, systems administration, network administration, data centers, infrastructure architecture, and information security, for one of the top 20 most heavily-trafficked sites in the world.

Dan brings nearly 20 years of technical operations experience at some of the world's largest web sites. Prior to hi5, Dan was VP of Technical Operations at LookSmart, a premier search advertising network. He was previously Director of Operations for NextTag.com, a leading comparison shopping engine. Dan also spent five years at Wal-Mart.com as Senior Director of Site Operations & Infrastructure. He started his career at Apple for 10 years, in various project management, developer support and IT positions.

As SVP of Development and Developer Relations, Kevin is responsible for all aspects of developer relations for hi5.com, including deployment of games and monetization.
 
Since 1991, Kevin has been developing games for a wide range of publishers, including Microsoft, Activision and Electronic Arts. Prior to joining hi5, Kevin was one of the founders of Big Six Games, which was acquired by hi5 in 2010. Kevin previously founded the game development studio Knockabout Games in 2002 and Cinematronics in 1994.
 
In addition to managing internal production studios at Activision and Maxis, he has also personally designed over 20 titles for PC, console, Web and mobile platforms, and oversaw the development of dozens more.
 
Kevin was one of the founding directors of the IGDA and sat on the advisory board for the Austin Game Conference.

As the Vice President of Business Operations for hi5, Rajat oversees all revenue- and traffic-generating activities for the company.

Prior to joining hi5 in 2008, Rajat worked as a Retail/E-commerce Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group for several years where he performed analysis and provided business recommendations for a variety of companies in online and brick & mortar retail, and consumer goods.

Rajat holds a B.S. in Engineering & Applied Science and a B.S. in Economics from the California Institute of Technology, a M.Sc. in Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

As the Vice President of Engineering at hi5, John is responsible for technology architecture, mobile product development as well as overseeing all software engineering initiatives for the company.

John is one of the best recognized development executives in the mobile games industry having founded Seismic Studios, and worked with many publishing partners including JAMDAT, THQ, Sorrent, and Thumbworks to create wireless applications on mobile platforms including BREW, Symbian, J2ME, and smartphones. Additionally, John was a founding member and Director of Development for industry leading mobile and social gaming company, Digital Chocolate.

As Vice President of Production at hi5, David is responsible for defining the product strategy and managing overall production at hi5. David heads hi5’s production team, directly overseeing design, product implementation, and virtual goods on hi5.com.

David brings over two decades of experience in leading, growing, and producing content for software businesses in the games industry. Prior to joining hi5, David was Vice President of Business Development for Reality Gap, a publisher of MMO games. From 2002 through 2009, Dave worked at WildTangent across a variety of roles, most recently as Managing Director of WildTangent’s EMEA business unit.