Management

Jeremy Verba, CEO of Piczo, Inc., is responsible for driving corporate direction and overall business strategy of Piczo (www.piczo.com), the number one online forum for self-expression for teenagers. With nearly 20 years of experience, Jeremy brings extensive Internet and interactive business execution acumen in media, entertainment, communications and online services to Piczo.

Most recently, Jeremy was general manager and vice president of AOL’s Voice Services division, where he and his team created a division with five premium services, totalling over one million subscribers.  The stand-alone division was profitable a year ahead of plan and formed the foundation for the recent launch of AOL’s Voice over IP service, Total Talk.

Prior to AOL, Jeremy was President and COO of HearMe (formerly Mpath Interactive), a publicly-traded company focused on multiplayer gaming, live online communities and the early VoIP initiatives targeted at both the consumer and carrier markets. Jeremy transformed the company to VoIP focus by shifting revenue sources and reducing expenses, and grew the company from 120 employees to over 270.

Additionally, Jeremy was founder and President of E! Online, one of the first businesses focused on delivering entertainment news and services online.  Under Jeremy’s leadership, E! Online was profitable in three years. The company broke through many of the initial barriers in the online content space, including live web-casts, major advertising by film studios and television networks, and e-commerce initiatives targeted at the entertainment consumer.  E! Online is still the leading entertainment news and information site on the Internet..

Jeremy is originally from Toronto, Canada and is a graduate of MIT and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Jim is the founder and chief technology officer of Piczo (www.piczo.com), a social networking site for teenagers worldwide.  As founder of Funtigo, Jim wrote the proprietary software engine that powers Piczo.  Wisdom gained from the Funtigo service led to the launch of Piczo in 2004.

Before Funtigo, Jim was engaged for three years at Charles Schwab as a senior software developer.  Jim worked on the Schwab.com online trading website, and took a lead role in various technical initiatives. 

Prior to his time at Charles Schwab, Jim participated in Passpoints.com, a dot com era start-up which offered a turnkey online customer loyalty program.  Jim served as the lead engineer and built and led the development team that consisted of several engineers. 

Before joining Passpoints, Jim was a senior engineer with Oracle Consulting, where he participated in a national performance tuning group that worked on-site at Fortune 500 companies.  He also participated in the development and release of the Oracle 8 database server.

Previously, he spent five years in the digital map industry, working on the data and software that is used in vehicle navigation systems.  Jim spent most of that time working at NavTeq, which today supplies Yahoo Maps and Google Maps with their mapping data.

Jim grew up in Berkeley, California and has a BS degree from the University of California at Davis. 

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Jeanine LeFlore, vice president of products of Piczo (www.piczo.com), oversees product development, marketing, user experience, and member services at Piczo (www.piczo.com), the number one online forum for self-expression for teenagers. Jeanine has over 12-years of experience in business and product management and product marketing in media and online communities.

Most recently, Jeanine created and ran Yahoo! Avatars, a first-to-market next generation business and platform designed to capture youth, generate revenues, and drive engagement cross Yahoo! As product lead and business head for this global platform, Jeanine established herself as the resident expert on the youth target audience and evangelized youth effort cross Yahoo! Network focused on the tween and teen market. Her successes include building out Avatars across 13 countries, integrating it into over a dozen Yahoo! Properties, and driving Avatars to over 10M active monthly users. When Jeanine first joined Yahoo!, she also oversaw the Community Platform including Yahoo! Message Boards, Polls, Member Directory, and Profiles.

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Jeanine was senior technical product manager for AOL where she was responsible for creating the next generation AOL music and voice services including Video@AOL, Radio@AOL, Radio@Netscape, AOLbyPhone and AOL Voicemail with Call Alert. Under Jeanine’s leadership, Radio@Netscape downloader player experienced a 50% growth in consumer base and usage in the 4-month period after the launch of the product.

Jeanine is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley with a degree in psychology and a minor in business administration.

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Derek Rudd, vice president of North American Sales of Piczo, Inc., is responsible for driving advertising sales in North America at Piczo (www.piczo.com), a popular online forum for self-expression for teenagers.

Most recently, Derek was vice president of Consumer Ad Sales at Fox Interactive Media’s IGN Entertainment, a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. Derek helped lead the company to profitability, positioning IGN as an entertainment destination beyond its roots as a gaming property. In his seven years at IGN, Derek led a team of over 20 sales professionals who worked with consumer advertisers to reach the elusive, young adult audience. IGN was acquired by News Corporation in October 2006, concurrently with News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace.

Prior to joining IGN, Derek worked for Publicitas/Globe Media, a respected Los Angeles magazine representation firm. He was responsible for advertising revenue in the Southwest Region and worked with a diverse list of top publications including American Express Publishing's Travel + Leisure, Time Inc's Mutual Funds Magazine, and Sailing/Cruising World.

Fluent in Japanese, Derek began his career at Taisho Seiyaku, Japan’s number one pharmaceutical company, where he worked directly with Japan’s top advertising agencies, Dentsu (Coca Cola) and Hakuhodo.

Derek received his BS in international business and marketing at the University of Utah.

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Paul Remer, vice president of business development of Piczo (www.piczo.com), is responsible for driving new business opportunities including strategic alliances for Piczo (www.piczo.com), the number one online forum for self-expression for teenagers. Paul is a seasoned entrepreneurial executive with over 23 years of experience in management and international business development.

As interim CEO of Piczo between January and June 2006, Paul is credited with stabilizing the firm and growing the company from five to 30 employees in three months. Paul implemented key business metrics dashboards to allow analysis of member trends by country, sales and operational performance. In addition, Paul exceeded Q1 P&L plan by 20 percent.

Prior to Piczo, Paul was CEO and co-founder of Siterra Corporation, a software provider of property management solutions. The company operated on an “at or near” profitable basis since its inception in 2001. Paul raised approximately $9 million in capital to fund growth and infrastructure while maintaining strict control on expenses.

Paul led numerous companies over the years, including Xippix, Inc., where he was the executive vice president in the Professional Services division. This group was responsible for much of Xippix’s revenue. Paul was also CEO and co-founder of Cafex Corporation, a web-development firm, until its acquisition by Xippix, Inc. Profitable throughout its existence, Cafex’s client roster included Netscape, Sun Microsystems, AOL, Autonomy and numerous dot com startups.

Paul is a graduate of Humboldt State University and holds a J.D. from University of Santa Clara Law School.

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Peter van Pruissen, is vice president of finance of Piczo (www.piczo.com), a social networking site for teenagers worldwide.  Peter is responsible for all financial, accounting, HR and administrative functions at the company.  Peter has over 20 years experience which spans financial planning and analysis as well as systems and administration functions. 

Prior to Piczo, Peter had a number of roles at ON24, Inc., the webcast services provider, before becoming chief financial officer at the company.  Highlights of his time at ON24 include overseeing multiple rounds of venture financing and guiding the company through its early internet growth phase as a start-up online financial news network, and then managing the subsequent restart and aggressive growth into a leading webcast and streaming media solutions provider with a global presence delivering value to enterprise, healthcare and publishing customers. 

Before ON24, Peter was corporate controller at Wired Ventures, Inc., the multimedia print and on-line publishing holding company and parent to Wired Magazine and the Wired “wired.com” digital divisions.  Here, he was responsible for all divisional and corporate consolidation financial and accounting functions.

Previously, Peter held a number of finance-related positions including director of finance and administration at the human resources and payroll specialists Ceridian / Tesseract Corporation and manager, financial reporting & analysis at engineering consulting services provider, ABB-CE / Impell Corporation. 

Peter holds an MBA in finance from the University of San Francisco and a BA in finance from Nijenrode -The Netherlands School of Business, Breukelen, The Netherlands. 

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Geoff Judge is an angel investor and the chief revenue officer of Piczo (www.piczo.com), a social networking site for teenagers worldwide, where he is responsible for advertising revenue.

Previously, Geoff was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Preclick, a digital photography software firm which also built HP’s Photosmart Essential Software which ships with HP colour inkjet printers.

Prior to Preclick, Geoff was the COO of Media Solution Services Inc., the market leader in credit card billing insert media and a subsidiary of Havas.

Before this, Geoff was senior vice president and general manager of the media division at 24/7 Real Media and a co-founder of the company.  He was also formerly the president and COO of Interactive Imaginations, one of the three companies that merged to form 24/7 Media in 1997.

Other positions held by Geoff include vice president, Marketing for iMarket Inc, a venture backed software company, as well as a number of VP positions in the Card Division of American Express. 

Geoff has an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a BA in economics from Northwestern University.  He is a founding board member of Children for Children and a Trustee for the Sacred Heart School in Manhattan. 

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Chris Seth, managing director of Piczo, Inc. (www.piczo.com), is responsible for the UK and expansion into Europe. Piczo, a social networking site for teenagers worldwide, attracts 10 million unique visitors each month. With over 16 years of managerial experience in digital media and advertising, his career has flourished within the fields of interactive businesses, communications, new media and publishing.

Most recently, Chris was managing director for Richmond Events, which runs strategic business forums across the globe. He was responsible for the UK and European division.

Prior to Richmond Events, Chris was media director at BBDO's digital agency Proximity, the first UK agency to integrate interactive, direct and promotional services. While there, he contributed to income growth of over 300% through local and global pitch wins including Emirates, Shell, FT and Save the Children.

Before Proximity, Chris was regional director of the International Herald Tribune, and was responsible for the newspaper's performance in Europe.

Additionally, Chris spent five years in the publishing industry as European sales manager for Time Out magazine. Chris was solely responsible for establishing new companies in Paris and Madrid and also expanded the publishing group with the launch of nine titles.

Chris is a graduate of Southampton University and holds a joint honours degree in French and Spanish.

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