LiveOps Advisors
| Marty Abbott | Michael Dearing |
| Doug Feirstein | Bill Gurley |
| Tom Keeven | Lynn Reedy |
| Jim Watson | |
Marty Abbott
Marty is a technology and business executive with experience in Fortune 500 and internet startup companies. He was formerly the COO of Quigo, an advertising technology startup. Marty spent nearly 6 years at eBay as VP of Operations, VP of Operations and IT and finally SVP of Technology/CTO during which time he was also a member of eBay's executive staff. Prior to eBay, Marty held domestic and international executive and management positions at Gateway managing both the IT software development and IT Operations groups in the US and Asia Pacific regions. Prior to Gateway, Marty was a manufacturing supervisor, software engineer and software and electrical engineering manager in Motorola's Land Mobile Product Sector. Marty served in the US Army for a total of 12 years as both an active duty and inactive reserve officer. Marty has an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida, a BS in Computer Science from the United States Military Academy (West Point) and is a graduate of the Harvard Busines School's Executive Education Program (Program for Management Development). He is a member of the University of Florida's Technology Commercialization Board and serves on the Board of Directors for Onforce.
Michael Dearing
Before joining Stanford's d.school in 2006, Michael spent nearly seven years at eBay (NASDAQ - EBAY) serving most recently as Senior Vice President & General Merchandise Manager for eBay. In that role, he led category management, product marketing, seller development, eBay Stores, and direct-to-consumer marketing for eBay North America. While at eBay, Michael and his colleagues were also responsible for the launch and growth of many new merchandise categories, and new businesses such as Buy-it-Now, the listings upgrade business, eBay Stores, and ProStores. Prior to eBay, Michael held leadership positions at Bain & Company, Filene's Basement, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE-DIS), and Industrial Shoe Warehouse. Michael is an east coast native, now happily a citizen of the Bay Area. He holds an AB in Economics, with a focus in economic history, from Brown University, and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Economic History Association and the Business History Conference.
Doug Feirstein
As a founder of LiveOps, Doug has been involved with LiveOps since March 2000. From March 2000 to January 2004, Mr. Feirstein was President and Chief Executive Officer of LiveOps. Prior to LiveOps, he was involved in developing call center operations and technologies for catalog and electronic retailing organizations. He holds a Bachelors degree in Finance from the University of Florida.
Bill Gurley
Bill joined Benchmark Capital in 1999 after spending two years as a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Before entering the venture capital business, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston focusing on personal computer hardware and software. His research coverage included such companies as Dell, Compaq, and Microsoft, and he was the lead analyst on the Amazon IPO. In both 1995 and 1996, Bill was a member of the Institutional Investor All-American Research Team. Prior to his investment career, Bill was a design engineer at Compaq Computer, where he worked on products such as the 486/50 and Compaq's first multi-processor server. Before Compaq, he served in the technical marketing group of Advanced Micro Devices' embedded processor division.
For the past twelve years, Bill has authored the Above the Crowd newsletter, which focuses on the evolution and economics of high technology businesses. Bill holds a MBA from the University of Texas, 1993; and a BS in computer science from the University of Florida.
Tom Keeven
Tom is a veteran IT and technology executive with both Fortune 500 executive and startup executive experience. Tom's experience includes 6 years at eBay where he was VP of Infrastructure, VP of Operations and VP of Architecture. Tom oversaw all of eBay's technical operations globally, including those of its wholly owned subsidiaries such as PayPal. Tom helped grow the technical infrastructure to achieve world class availability and scalability ultimately serving billions of requests per day and was a member of eBay's Extended Executive Staff. Prior to eBay, Tom held executive management position in Operation and Architecture at Gateway and Gateway Country stores. Prior to Gateway, Tom held executive management positions in Whirlpools Global operations organization. He managed infrastructure and operations organizations on three continents. Tom attended Ferris State and serves on the technical advisory boards of Salesforce.com, Tiversa and Bix.com.
Lynn Reedy
Lynn most recently served as senior vice president of product, development, and architecture at eBay, where she oversaw the entire product development process. Lynn joined eBay in 1999 as vice president of product development. That year, she and her team developed the processes and architecture that increased eBay's output fourfold.
Prior to joining eBay, Lynn was senior vice president and chief information officer of Miller Freeman, Inc., a leading media company and the largest trade show producer in the world. At Miller Freeman, she implemented strategic business systems and developed the company's Internet strategy for more than 200 Web sites. Previously, Lynn spent nine years at Amdahl Corporation and seven years at Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) in a variety of management roles. Lynn has a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and computer science from the University of Illinois and a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University.
Jim Watson
Jim is a General Partner at CMEA Ventures and is on the Board of Directors of Apriso, iSuppli Inc., Key Research and Teros. Prior to joining CMEA, Mr. Watson was a consultant to several professional services firms and venture capital partnerships in the areas of strategic planning and partnering, board development, and supply chain management. Mr. Watson was also one of the Founders of Monterey Bay Partners, a venture management firm specializing in high technology start-ups. He founded Skyway Systems, a high technology logistics company where he served as president and leader behind the supply chain strategy that twice landed Skyway on the Inc. Magazine list of fastest-growing U.S. companies in the 1980s. In 1993, Inc. Magazine named him as one of the Entrepreneurs of the Year. Prior to Skyway, Mr. Watson was with IBM's large computer systems division where he worked with several large companies, such as United Airlines, in designing and marketing computer systems for all phases of business.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, he served five years as a Navy pilot from 1969 to 1974.