Key People

Add to Watch List Share This Page

Email Page Flag This Page

Flag

Management

Ethan Stock, Founder & CEO

Ethan co-founded Zvents in early 2005 with funding from NetService Ventures Group, where he has served as a partner since 2002. Ethan brings a diverse background in scholarship and technology to the pursuit of entrepreneurial ventures. In 1996, while in graduate school at UC Berkeley on an NSF fellowship, he founded Bamboo Systems, an early entrant in the CRM market. In 2000, he served as COO of eBusinessMedia, the B2B Internet arm of UK publisher United News & Media, where he oversaw the launch of multiple industry-focused internet content and commerce properties, including the first deployment of CommerceOne in Europe. A programmer since he was ten years old, Ethan worked as a systems engineer at EDS and was a principal consultant at strategy firm The McKenna Group in the late 1990s. He holds a B.A. in History from The Ohio State University.

Tyler Kovacs, Founder & Chief Architect

Tyler has been creating dynamic websites powered by open-source frameworks and databases for the past 10 years. Most recently, Tyler has been responsible for developing Zvents products and underlying technology, including software development, architectural design, automated testing, systems installation and administration, and database design and administration.
Prior to Zvents, Tyler built a number of customer-facing and internal web-based applications both professionally for startups Narus and Network Physics, and as a volunteer for several nonprofit organizations, including the San Francisco Food Bank. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from McGill University.

Gordon Rios, CTO

Gordon is a proven leader in search and search-related technologies. Over the past 10 years he has focused his efforts on devising machine learning systems for web search, document classification, and text mining. At Inktomi he developed the scoring engine for a user click-based ranking application that was deployed at HotBot and Snap, was a major contributor to the Directory Engine product which classified millions of web documents into over 10,000 categories, and was a founding member of Inktomi's Web Search Relevance Group. Moving to Proofpoint, an enterprise messaging company, he led the development of the award-winning MLX(tm) technology used in their industry leading anti-spam product. Most recently Gordon worked at Yahoo! in the International Relevance team, where he worked on all aspects of search engine relevance and developed production code running in all major international markets. Gordon holds an MBA in Finance and a master's degree in Engineering and Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley. His Erdös number is 4.

Paul O'Brien, VP of Marketing

Paul O'Brien brings search and marketing expertise to Zvents following his work with HP's direct-to-consumer Home and Home Office Store where he directed interactive and search marketing programs. A search, online marketing, web design and ecommerce professional with over 15 years of experience online, Paul is a demonstrated leader in e-commerce, marketing, and Search with relationships and skills in both B2B and B2C markets. Prior to HP, O'Brien managed Advertising Solutions at Yahoo! where he directed marketing campaigns for Yahoo!'s tech industry advertisers. He oversaw sales programs operations and the development of portfolio marketing techniques for the technology industry in Small business, Yahoo! Shopping, Search, early instances of Yahoo! Tech, the Homepage, and other properties. Previously, he was a consultant for various web portals designing and developing Web sites, e-commerce, and marketing strategies. Paul was recently published in the book, Online Marketing Heroes, and continues to blog at seobrien.com.

Robert Krohn, VP of Engineering

Robert has a proven track record of building world-class engineering teams and market leading products. He has over 15 years of systems engineering and management experience in a variety of high technology corporations and startups in Silicon Valley. Before joining Zvents, Robert was the co-founder and CEO of My Digital Life (MDL), a software startup uniting the worlds of smartphones, consumer electronics, and online services. Prior to MDL, he was a senior director at Juniper Networks, where he held various positions ranging from business development, platform engineering management, and software engineering management. Robert has also worked in management and individual contributor roles at Nexsi, Electronics for Imaging, Xerox AODS, and Hewlett Packard. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Digital Systems and Computer Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.

Jon Sofield, VP of Business Development

Jon brings a strong entrepreneurial flare to the business of developing global partnerships. His optimistic vision for creating and maintaining solid relationships has enabled him to facilitate the growth of several companies starting with the preliminary concept to rapid development and revenue building. Prior to Zvents, Jon held several executive management roles, in both sales and business development, at Commerce One, Intalio and ICL. Jon also started two companies in the U.S. and U.K., which shows his dedicated entrepreneurial spirit. In 1995, he established a Local Content Podcasting company, Podloco, and in 1996, he set up the first European E-commerce services company. Jon holds a Civil Engineering Honors Degree from Coventry Lanchester University.

Paul Swiencicki, VP Sales

Zvents Names Paul Swiencicki Vice President of Sales
VP Role Created to Pursue New Opportunities in Marketing & Advertising for Zvents Media Network
San Mateo, CA - June 10, 2008 - Zvents, the leader in local search technology and the local search engine to find things to do, today announced the appointment of Paul Swiencicki to the new position of Vice President of Sales. With Swiencicki’s appointment, the company moves aggressively to leverage its unparalleled local media network to advance highly targeted marketing and advertising on the Internet.

As Vice President of Sales, Swiencicki will play a key role in optimizing the company’s profitability and local advertising revenue. The Zvents Media Network, which manages local business listings, promotions, and advertising across hundreds of major local and national media sites, connects consumers with local businesses through a local content and search experience. Consumers clicking on events of interest come directly into contact with smart business advertisers. With contextually relevant, geo-targeted banner advertisements and Enhanced Listings for featured sales, in-store promotions, or commercial events, an advertiser appears with timely enhancements to any event in a consumer’s focus. Opportunities for national and local advertisers to reach millions of active, local customers through the Zvents Media Network are unlimited.

“As the Zvents Media Network continues to grow in local search, new possibilities are emerging for our company. Priorities now are to solidify the management team and start monetizing our significant reach,” said Ethan Stock, Zvents CEO and co-founder. “Paul’s impressive track record as a leader and sales executive strengthens Zvents’ position to advance on a new scale of advertising for the Internet.”

“My focus is to actively introduce customers to local businesses and events in their communities, enabling businesses to reach an engaged audience with local advertising opportunities,” said Swiencicki.

Swiencicki has over 15 years of experience leading sales organizations and implementing aggressive sales strategies in start-up environments. In 2004, he founded Work Metro, a network of regional focused job boards that partnered with large media companies like Comcast and Time Warner. After building a multi-million dollar subscription based revenue stream, the company was acquired by Jobing.com in early 2008.

Prior to WorkMetro, Swiencicki served as the Vice President of Sales at SurfControl. During his six-year tenure at SurfControl, the company went public, grew to more than 450 employees worldwide, and surpassed the $100 million milestone in sales.

ABOUT ZVENTS
Zvents is the leading local search engine technology company for local businesses, entertainment, and events. Zvents provides a complete and compelling local user experience, enabling users to find, contribute, share and promote local businesses, entertainment, sports activities, retail promotions, events, and performers. The company aggregates rich business and event information from the open-web, user-contributed content, 3rd party event sources, and links high-quality editorial partner content with its search index. Zvents powers a local content and advertising network for hundreds of media partners in the Zvents Media Network. For more information, visit www.Zvents.com.

Ross Settles, VP Channels & Revenue

No bio available. Add a bio.

Board of Directors

Ethan Stock

View bio above.

Laura Brege

Laura Brege, General Partner at Red Rock Ventures and current EVP & Chief Business Officer at Onyx Pharmaceuticals. She also held senior financial positions at COR Therapeutics, Flextronics, and The Cooper Companies.

David Carlick

David Carlick, Managing Director at VantagePoint Venture Partners, has been a director at numerous Internet companies over the past decade, including Ask Jeeves and Intermix (MySpace.com), and was an early co-founder of DoubleClick and Poppe Tyson's poppe.com group.

Paul Martino

Paul Martino is CEO of Aggregate Knowledge, and was the founding CTO of Tribe.net and founding CEO of Ahpah Software, a Java security company. He previously held business development positions at Intertrust and SkyPilot.

Jason Whitt

Jason Whitt, Vice President at VantagePoint Venture Partners, serves their Information Technology Group focusing on digital media, wireless, and consumer oriented technology investments. He was responsible for acquisitions, venture investing, and corporate strategy for Cisco Systems' Corporate Business Development group and has worked with Xros, Nortel Networks, and TransVascular (acquired by Medtronic).

Paul Levine

Paul Levine joined AdBrite as Vice President of Marketing in 2007, and is responsible for the company’s marketing and public relations programs.

Prior to joining AdBrite, Paul was VP/GM of the Local business at Yahoo!, where he managed Yahoo!’s yellow pages, local search, maps, events, classifieds, and real estate properties. He was responsible for product strategy, content development, advertising partnerships, and P&L and executive management for this rapidly-growing business unit.

From 1998-2003 Paul held a number of management positions at E*TRADE. As Vice President of Product Management, Paul led the evolution of E*TRADE’s brokerage product line, including the Power E*TRADE program for active traders. As Director of Online Marketing, he drove record-setting growth in online customer acquisition.

Paul holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Amherst College.