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Key People

Management

Joe Kennedy, CEO & President

Joe Kennedy joined the company in 2004 following a five-year stint at E-LOAN, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Vice President of Sales, Service and Marketing for Saturn Corporation, which he grew to over $4 billion in revenue and established as the top brand for customer satisfaction in the auto industry. Joe joined the initial start-up team at Saturn, four months after its founding, as a marketing manager and held positions of increasing marketing responsibility over the course of his 11-year tenure there.

Joe holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, where he dabbled in music theory and learned to compose his own Gregorian chants. He is Pandora's resident pop music junkie. Current favorites include Counting Crows, G.B. Leighton, Sarah McLachlan, Juanes and Kelly Clarkson. Joe has also been playing the piano for more than 30 years, most of which has been spent attempting to master Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Tim Westergren, CSO & Founder

Tim Westergren founded Pandora in January 2000 and now serves as its Chief Strategy Officer. Tim is an award-winning composer, an accomplished musician and a record producer with 20 years of experience in the music industry. He has recorded with independent labels, managed artists, owned a commercial digital recording studio, scored feature films, produced albums, and performed extensively. His main instrument is the piano, but over the years he has played the bassoon, drums and clarinet and his musical background spans such genres as rock, blues, jazz and classical music.

Tim received his B.A. from Stanford University, where he studied computer acoustics and recording technology. A musician's musician, he is obsessed with helping talented emerging artists connect with the music fans most likely to appreciate their music. In addition to guiding Pandora's overall strategy and vision, Tim now spends most of his time as Pandora's chief evangelist - traveling the country to meet with listeners to collect feedback, research local music, and spread the word of the Music Genome Project.

Tom Conrad, CTO

Tom Conrad leads the Pandora product organization, which includes product management, user interface design, software development, and network operations. Over the years, Tom has led numerous engineering and product design teams across a wide range of applications - from operating systems and enterprise software to video games and consumer web sites. Before joining Pandora, Tom was the Vice President of Engineering at Kenamea, Inc. where he led the teams responsible for the design and development of an award-winning Internet-scale messaging system. Tom previously was the Technical Director for the successful video game series "You Don't Know Jack."

Past experience also includes engineering management positions at Berkeley Systems, Relevance Technologies, Documentum, Pets.com, and Kenamea. Tom began his career at Apple Computer developing user interface elements for the Mac OS. Tom holds three U.S. patents and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Tom holds both technology and music close to his heart. His personal music collection includes more than 1000 CDs - many from artists that others on the Pandora team have never heard of. He likes to say the only instrument he plays well is his stereo.

Nolan Gasser, Chief Musicologist

Dr. Nolan Gasser is the brain behind the Music Genome Project and its rigorous methodology for analyzing music. He is a critically acclaimed composer, pianist, conductor and arranger, as well as a published musicologist.

Nolan got his Ph.D. in Musicology in 2001 from Stanford University, where he is an Adjunct Professor in Medieval and Renaissance Music History. He also is the composer of numerous award-winning musical works, including classical, jazz and popular music. In fact, his music has been performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Alice Tully Hall, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and even the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

As a pianist, Nolan performs and records regularly with marquee performers as diverse as Steve Miller, John Handy, and Carol Channing. He recently enjoyed great commercial success with his holiday song, Christmas by the Bay. In addition, he is the Artistic Director of the Classical Archives (based in Palo Alto, CA), the largest classical music website on the Internet.

Etienne Handman, COO

Etienne oversees all aspects of the Music Genome Project. This includes managing the musicians who acquire and analyze the music heard on Pandora, as well as Pandora's Listener Advocates - the team who responds to listener comments, suggestions and questions. Etienne spends most of his time working on ways to improve the quality of the Pandora listening experience.

From 2000 to 2004, Etienne served as CIO at E-LOAN where technology enabled an unrivaled level of customer service and efficiency. From 1999 to 2000, Etienne was Vice President of Technology for Oberthur Card Systems, where he managed the creation and deployment of American Express Blue. From 1990 to 1999, Etienne was Vice President of Operations with De La Rue where he led credit card service businesses in the U.S. and France. A highlight of his extensive technology career was helping to create the first widely deployed smart card in the U.S. Etienne completed Stanford University's Executive Program and holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science with concentration in Music from McGill University, Montreal.

Etienne also formerly worked as a club DJ, and music has always been central in his life. He grew up in a family of musicians, playing trumpet since the age of 8. He has performed with Jazz ensembles in Montreal, Washington DC and San Francisco.

Board of Directors

Joe Kennedy

View bio above.

Tim Westergren

View bio above.

Jim Feuille

No bio available. Add a bio.

Peter Gotcher

Peter Gotcher, co-founder and Chairman of Topspin, is a music industry veteran who has spent the past 25 years developing and guiding the strategy behind some of the most significant innovations in music production and distribution.

Gotcher worked at Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco from 1982 to 1984, then went on to co-found Digidesign Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of Digital Audio Workstations. He served as Digidesign president, CEO, and chairman, and during his tenure as CEO the company’s ProTools products became the industry standard for audio recording and music production. Gotcher took Digidesign public in 1993, a public offering that resulted in one of the 10 best performing NASDAQ stocks of 1994 and later sold the company to Avid Technology Inc. in 1995. Gotcher remained as the general manager of Digidesign and an executive vice president of Avid until May 1996, and he served on the board of directors of Avid until 2002.

At the 2000 GRAMMY Awards, Gotcher accepted a Technical Achievement GRAMMY Award in honor of Digidesign’s contributions to the recording industry.

Gotcher became a technology-focused venture capitalist upon joining Institutional Venture Partners as a venture partner in 1997. In 1999 he was a founding venture partner with Redpoint Ventures of Menlo Park, California, a leading Silicon Valley technology venture capital firm. Since 2003, he has been an independent private equity investor. He has served on the board of directors of 15 public and private companies and currently serves as a director of Pandora Media, Dolby Laboratories, Line 6, Avnera Corporation and Dash Navigation. Gotcher also serves on the board of trustees for the Berklee College of Music and SFJAZZ.

Gotcher attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated with a B.A. degree with university honors in 1981.

Robert M. Kavner

No bio available. Add a bio.

Larry Kubal

A Managing Partner at Labrador Ventures, Larry has invested in seed and early stage information technology companies for the last 20 years. He is a founder of Labrador Ventures and serves as a managing partner of Labrador Ventures III, IV and V. Larry is the Labrador representative with portfolio companies Altierre, Aperto Networks, EoPlex, Pandora, PlayPhone, and Yardbarker.

In addition to his investment experience, Larry was a management consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm. Prior to consulting, Larry worked extensively in computerized database publishing for McGraw-Hill Publications Company and for the Academy for Educational Development. Larry was also a founding executive with a venture-backed PC software company, Avalanche Technologies, ultimately acquired by Microsoft.

Larry received his undergraduate degree from Duke University, cum laude with departmental distinction, and his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Larry Marcus

A General Partner at WaldenVC, Larry is focused on investments in digital media, ecommerce and technology enabled services. Larry has 18 years of consumer technology and media experience and is currently a Director of MeeVee, Pandora and the JazzSchool (Berkeley, CA) and on the advisory board of IBDNetwork.

Previously Larry was at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown where he was Director of New Media, Broadband, and Enhanced TV equity research and prior to that, Robertson Stephens & Company. Over his research career, Larry followed companies in interactive entertainment, consumer and business software, cable infrastructure, new media, and the Internet, leading numerous IPOs and follow-on offerings for companies such as CBS MarketWatch, Terayon, Women.com, Edmark, Maxis, Wink, and Softnet. His coverage also included Intuit, Electronic Arts, Sierra On-line, Broderbund, CNET, Activision, Learning Company, Softkey, Acclaim, RealNetworks, Excite@Home, General Instrument, Scientific Atlanta, Gemstar, and OpenTV. He was an early backer of Netflix and Virage. Before working in research, Larry served as a consultant for Digidesign and Maxis, ran a computer store, and worked as a media planner at Jordan, McGrath, Case and Taylor Advertising.

Larry received both his bachelor’s and MBA degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.

Doug Barry

Mr. Barry brings to Selby twenty years of investment and operating experience in media, consumer technology and wireless industries. Prior to Selby Venture Partners, Doug founded several startups and held senior management positions in a variety of private and public technology companies. In addition to co-founding CobaltCard (an American Express-backed startup), Doug was a senior executive at Electronic Arts, Navio Communications (a Netscape spin-off IPO) and was also the senior Vice President and General Manager of Turner New Media (a Division of Turner Broadcasting). He was also a consultant to several early stage consumer technology companies including Tivo.

He currently serves on the board of BigFix, Clairvoyante Laboratories, Size Technology, Pandora Media, Sharpcast and Visage Mobile. In addition, Doug was a seed investor in Panopticon (Acquired by Kana), Explore Technology (Acquired by Leapfrog) and Coremetrics. Doug holds a B.S. from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard University. He is extremely active in raising awareness for social entrepreneurship in the Bay Area through his board and advisory board affiliations with Grameen Foundation USA and Juma Ventures. Doug’s spare time is spent skiing, playing tennis and spending time with his wife and four children.

Brian Steel

Brian is currently the Chairman at Pandora International. Prior to that, Brian held the position of President, International, Yahoo! Search Marketing. He was with Yahoo! for three years, following its 2003 acquisition of Overture (previously GoTo.com). Prior to Overture/Yahoo!, Brian was a Managing Director of Idealab, which created GoTo.com, and also President and CEO of Idealab Silicon Valley. While associated with Idealab, Brian also served on the boards of directors for a number of Idealab companies, including Airwave Wireless, Cooking.com, Cars Direct, Commission Junction, Desktop.tv, eVoice, Omnilux, Scan Mobile, Sameday Technologies, and Spun.com, as well as non-Idealab companies such as Discern Communications and Swell.com. Before joining Idealab, Brian served as president, chief operating officer, and director for On Command Corp., the world's largest provider of information and entertainment services to the lodging industry. Previously, Brian held senior executive positions at SBC Communications and Shearson Lehman Brothers.

Brian holds a B.A. in economics and conducted graduate work in corporate strategy at Duke University, international marketing and finance at the Pacific Asian Management Institute, and negotiation at Harvard University.

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