Leadership

Bill Gossman – CEO

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 St. John – President and Chief Technology Officer

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.

Michael Trigg – VP, Marketing and Business Development

Mike heads up hi5's global marketing organization, including corporate marketing, product marketing, international marketing and communications.

Prior to hi5, Mike was co-founder and vice president of marketing at Truviso, a real-time data processing company specializing in web analytics. Previously, he was vice president of marketing and interim CEO of Spoke, a professional social networking site. Mike was also vice president of corporate and product marketing at Epiphany, a leading provider of marketing analytics and web personalization (now Infor). As an early employee of Octane Software, he led product management prior to the company's $3.2 billion acquisition by Epiphany in 2000. Mike has also held marketing and products positions at 3Com and MCI.

Mike has his B.A. from Northwestern University and M.B.A from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jeff Stephens – Chief Financial Officer

Jeff Stephens is the chief financial officer of hi5 Networks, Inc. Jeff oversees the finance, accounting, human resources and administration functions of the company.

Prior to hi5, Jeff was the senior vice president finance and administration and corporate controller at QuinStreet, Inc., a leading online marketing and media company. At QuinStreet, Jeff built the financial and control infrastructure that allowed the company to scale effectively. During his tenure, QuinStreet experienced substantial growth in revenue, profits and headcount. Jeff has also served as corporate controller at Sonnet Financial, and started a software company while in college.

Jeff holds a B.S. in finance from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

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 Peterson – VP, Technical Operations

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.

Ramu Yalamanchi – Founder and Director

Ramu Yalamanchi founded hi5 and continues to serve on the company's board of directors. After launching hi5 in 2003, Ramu led the company to profitability within the first year of operation, and drove the vision for what has become one of the world's largest consumer entertainment services.

Prior to starting hi5, Ramu played a key role in technology companies that have advanced online advertising and the progression of Internet communities. He was an early contributor serving in product management, business development, and sales at eGroups (acquired by Yahoo!) and AdKnowledge (acquired by CMGI). In his final year of college, Ramu helped launch Sponsornet - the Web's first advertising network.

Ramu holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois – Urbana, Champaign.

Akash Garg – Co-Founder and Director

Akash Garg co-founded hi5 with Ramu and was the company's original technical visionary and chief technology officer. Akash developed the core product concepts and underlying technology that has helped to fuel the rapid growth of the service. To build one of the most-trafficked sites in the world, Akash guided the early design and implementation of a highly scalable, highly available platform using a combination of open source and homegrown technologies on low-cost Linux machines.

Prior to hi5, Akash was at Reactivity, assisting early-stage startups with technology strategy and direction, as well as architecting and implementing key portions of Reactivity’s flagship product. His interest in computers and technology began at a very young age. His family had purchased one of the early IBM PCs, and Akash’s initial interest in PC gaming led to an exploration and passion in programming.

Akash graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University.

Kevin Gliner – Senior VP of Production

As SVP of Production, Kevin is responsible for all aspects of production and related processes across the company. Additionally, Kevin oversees the production team on development of hi5.com and the deployment of games on the hi5 platform.
 
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.

Monty Kerr – VP of Commerce and Advertising

Monty is responsible for defining and implementing hi5’s commerce and advertising strategy. He leads all monetization activities for the company and oversees the sales team.

Prior to joining hi5, Monty was CEO at Big Six Games, which was acquired by hi5 in 2010. Before joining Big Six Games, Monty was founder and CEO of Red 5 Games, which made multiplayer casual games, and CEO of Glass Eye Entertainment, which created an online gambling system that managed $9 billion in microtransactions from 35 million paying customers.

In 2002, Monty co-founded the game development studio Knockabout Games along with hi5 SVP of Production Kevin Gliner. In 2000, Monty also headed Compulsive Development, which developed a variety of casual games.