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Management

As CTO of Medify, Jay has responsibility for all technology and product development efforts at the Company. Jay's passion for startups, Internet technologies and data mining goes back over 15 years. At Netbot, which built the Internet's first consumer comparison shopping tool (acquired by Excite in 1997), Jay was a Senior Software Engineer and later Engineering Manager. After a stint at Excite, Jay left to co-found AdRelevance, the first technology-driven online advertising measurement service (now owned by Nielsen/NetRatings), where he was VP of Engineering and later Chief Technology Officer. Jay's focus on data mining technologies was in full swing when he joined Sightward as VP of Engineering, a startup developing enterprise data mining applications. Seeking a challenging data mining problem and intrigued by the vertical application of data mining technology in travel, Jay joined Oren Etzioni at the inception of Farecast in late 2003. There he co-developed an early prototype of the predictive technology, and later built the engineering team and led the development of Farecast's full suite of technologies. Farecast was acquired by Microsoft in April of 2008. Jay studied computer science and music at the University of Iowa.

Mike Fridgen, VP of Marketing & Product Development

Mike is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience launching successful consumer Internet companies. Most recently, Mike served as Vice President of Marketing & Product Development at Farecast.com, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. At Microsoft, Mike led product management for Bing Travel and Bing Shopping. In the late 90s, Mike was co-founder and CEO of TripHub.com, a venture backed online travel start-up. Mike has a MBA from Harvard Business School and BA from University of Washington.

Krista Pappas, VP of Business Development

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Andy Farsje, VP of Finance & Administration

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Board of Directors

Hugh Crean

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Oren Etzioni

Prior to joining the Decide team Oren founded Farecast (acquired by Microsoft in 2008). He chairs Madrona's Technology Advisory Board and is a Professor at the University of Washington's Department of Computer Science & Engineering. He is the author of more than 100 academic papers on topics including Web search, data mining, agent technology, and various aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He was the Chief Technology Officer and board member of Go2Net Inc. (acquired by InfoSpace) and a founder of Netbot, Inc. (acquired by Excite). He received the NSF Young Investigator Award, was chosen to be an AAAI Fellow, and in 2007 received the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Award for "long-standing technical and entrepreneurial contributions to Artificial Intelligence".

At Netbot, Dr. Etzioni helped to conceive and design the web's first major comparison-shopping agent. In 1995, he and his student Erik Selberg developed MetaCrawler, the Web's premier Meta-search engine for several years. He also is a co-founder of Clearforest (acquired by Reuters).

He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University, and his MS and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Matt McIlwain

Matt McIlwain focuses on a broad range of software-driven companies for Madrona. He currently serves on the boards of Farecast, iConclude, Isilon Systems, PayScale, Vykor, World Wide Packets and now Mixpo. He was on the boards of Performant (acquired by Mercury Interactive) and Nimble (acquired by Actuate) and was actively involved with TeamOn Systems (acquired by Research in Motion). Previously, he was Vice President of Business Process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC), a Fortune 250 company. He also was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in the telecom, supply chain and financial service industries, and worked in investment banking at CS First Boston. Mr. McIlwain is a Technology Advisor to the Discovery Institute, a board member of Villa Academy, and advisory board member for Families Northwest. He and Greg Gottesman teach an annual course on venture capital in the University of Washington Executive MBA Program. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Moshe Mor

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Erik Blachford

Currently the Chief Executive Officer of Terrapass, Erik Blachford was formerly President and CEO of Expedia, Inc. and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp's travel division, IAC Travel, including online travel businesses Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Classic Custom Vacations and Interval International. Previous positions include President, Expedia North America and Expedia Senior Vice President, Marketing & Programming.

Erik serves as a board director at TerraPass, Sharebuilder (Bellevue, WA), Zillow. (Seattle, WA), Farecast (Seattle, WA) and Surfparks (New York, NY). Erik holds a bachelor's degree in English and certificate in theater from Princeton University and a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.