METACERT - Key Persons
Starting his career as a Linux Systems Administrator and Network Management analyst gaining CCNA Cisco and CEH qualifications, Alfonso became a Security Specialist at Dextra Technologies working on projects for blue chip companies including Texas Instruments Later becoming a Senior Linux Engineer for Telecommunications company Sprint Nextel, Alfonso spent 3 years optimizing infrastructure and services with: NGINX, Varnish, Memcached, APC, Apache and MySQL tuning, Akamai CDN, CloudFlare, Amazon CloudFront along with organising system hardening and performing vulnerability assessments. For the past 6 years as CTO and Founder of his own specialist infrastructure company he gained valuable experience in the field of scalable architectures, distributed systems, and building cloud-native applications for clients while learning first hand of the value of entrepreneurial commitment.
Daniel is Director of web Advocacy & Open Source at Samsung Research where he leads the web Developer Advocacy team behind Samsung's mobile and VR web browser. He has also been co-chair the W3C's Technical Architecture Group (TAG) since 2013 with Tim Berners-Lee. The TAG is a special working group within the W3C, chartered with stewardship of the web architecture.
He has been working on the web for over 2 decades, first helping to create startups in the web publishing sphere and then (after moving to London from New York in 1999) working on the convergence between web and mobile through many projects and initiatives. He has also led open standards strategy for the UK Government and remains a member of the UK Government Open Standards Board.
Job Titles:
- ADVISOR
- Co - Founder of Glance Technologies
Desmond co-founded PayByPhone and was its CEO from inception through successful exit (now owned by Volkswagen), during which time PayByPhone went from a concept to a platform processing tens of millions of mobile payments annually for millions of consumers in over 100 cities around the world.
Desmond is the co-founder of Glance Technologies, enabling mobile payments for the restaurant industry. Glance achieved a public market valuation in excess of $400 million less than a year and a half after its IPO on the Canadian Venture Exchange.
Francey Hakes served as the first-ever National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction from January 2010 to March 2012. The United States Attorney General appointed her to the post, which was created by the U.S. Congress in the Protect Our Children Act of 2008, and which was housed in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
As the first coordinator, Francey was responsible for creating the inaugural U.S. strategy addressing child sexual exploitation entitled, The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, which was submitted to the U.S. Congress in August 2010.
After submitting this first National Strategy to Congress, Francey was charged with its implementation. She lead multiple working groups across federal, state, local and international agencies, and regularly briefed the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, drafted remarks for delivery by the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, and helped prepare the Attorney General for testimony before the U.S. Congress. Francey also testified before the U.S. Congress and the United States Sentencing Commission, and briefed senior officials at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Francey was a prosecutor for more than 15 years, serving first as a state prosecutor then as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Francey has held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance as part of her work on national security investigations, and was lead counsel on dozens of trials.
She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science, with a Global Policy Studies Certificate, from the University of Georgia. Francey also holds a Juris Doctor from Ohio Northern University. She now runs her own consulting firm, Francey Hakes Consulting LLC, that provides advice in the field of child protection.
Geir was a founder and CEO of the Global Name Registry Ltd (GNR), the operator of the .name top-level domain (gTLD). Geir has a background in computer science and has over 18 years of experience in the Internet sector, including 13 years in the domain name industry.
Job Titles:
- COO
- Member of the Core Team
In 2009 Ian co-founded AppCoast where he and his team built the official browser add- ons for Digg, Delicious, Microsoft, Yahoo!, eBay, PayPal, and Google. They also contributed to bug fixing for Firefox.
Job Titles:
- ENGINEER
- SENIOR RESEARCHER
- Senior Researcher & Enginner
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Chief Marketing Officer for Belkin International
in the World" Kieran is the Chief Marketing Officer for Belkin International, encompassing all three of its brands: Belkin, Linksys and WeMo, where he manages every aspect of the marketing organization and eCommerce globally.
Prior to joining Belkin, Kieran spent the past two decades building the best consumer experiences in the mobile, digital and retail sectors spanning everything from large companies to startups.
Kieran served as vice president of marketing for RadioShack Corporation where developed the company's first integrated marketing campaign resulting in a National Retail Federation Gold award.
Marc is a successful technology entrepreneur and thought leader in the cryptocurrency space. In 2005, he co-founded Tudou, which was ultimately sold to Alibaba for $5bn in 2016.
Until 2011, Marc acted as CEO of Spil Games Asia. After moving to to Vancouver in 2013, Marc became a managing partner in venture capital fund, CrossPacific Capital where he focused on FinTech, with an emphasis on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
In early 2017 Marc founded the first registered cryptocurrency investment fund in Canada, First Block Capital, and launched Canada's first licensed Bitcoin fund, the FBC Bitcoin Trust. He also founded Initial Coin Offering investment bank First Coin Capital and the largest Bitcoin miner in North America Hut 8 Mining, taking it public in March 2018.
Mario has been building industrial strength browser add-ons for blue chip companies for over 6 years. He built the popular Cryptonite extension for MetaCert which is a must have tool for anyone visiting cryptocurrency related sites to prevent phishing and check validation. He also built the popular news reputation add-on called Check This powered by MetaCert. In addition to being expert on Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge browser platforms, Mario contributes his considerable engineering talents to the bot team and billing engines.
Patrick Reilly, Esq. is an intellectual property attorney and the founder of Intellectual Property Society in San Francisco. His law practice encompasses patent prosecution, trademark prosecution and assertion, label and brand copyright protection and assertion, trade secret policy, creative rights management, and IP issues of start-up formation.
Patrick has a special commitment to encourage civic engagement with the evolution of intellectual property law, personal data rights and Internet identity. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute (Monterey) in Russian Language Studies, and has earned a BS in Sociology from the State University of New York, a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toledo and a JD from Concord Law School. Patrick is a member of the U.S. Patent Bar and the California State Bar.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Member of the Board
- Member of the Core Team
- CEO / Creator of the Internet Standard for URL Classification at the W3C - the Standards Body for the World Wide Web
First person to re-write Tim Berners-Lee's vision of "One Web" to help create a foundation for the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Charter - Paul was one of the original seven founders of that initiative and sat on the Steering Council for the first year.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- Member of the Board
Founder of Shanti Life - alleviating poverty through microfinance for sanitation and small business creation. Deal Maker (by appointment) for the Global Entrepreneur Programme, Department for International Trade (UK Government) - building global tech businesses from the UK.
Job Titles:
- SVP of STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Sheetal is an investor, Board member at MetaCert and SVP of Strategic Partnerships. With over 15 years experience working in technology, venture capital and social entrepreneurship she has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. In 2009, she decided to apply her skills to help entrepreneurs in Indian slums and villages to build sustainable businesses by providing mentoring, training, microfinance and promotion of health and well-being. She is a spokesperson on the topic, having presented at Cambridge, LSE, Doha Forum, Big Society, House of Lords, TEDx and other prestigious forums.
She acts as Advisor to London School of Economics Careers team focussing on entrepreneurship. From 2000- 2005 Sheetal was the first Director of VC Relations at Microsoft where she worked with the Venture Capital community in EMEA and Silicon Valley to help their portfolio companies leverage the .NET initiative, access smart funding and go to market. Previously she worked with the Edmonton Police force working with children and women to alleviate domestic violence and assist victims with drug abuse.
Sheetal has received several awards: Asian Women of Achievement: Social and Humanitarian (Prince Charles and Cherie Blair) for her efforts on taking technology to developing communities in India and Africa (2005); Management Today Magazine 35 Under 35; Success Magazine No 5 of top most powerful Asian women in the UK (2006), Award for Entrepreneur of the Year by Asian Woman Magazine and No 3 Ones To Watch' section of the Asian Power 100 list - the most influential and highest achieving Asian women in Britain (2007).
Asian Woman Magazine covered a story of Sheetal's business in the Sept 2007 issue. Sheetal has been invited to Buckingham Palace for "Women in Business" reception hosted by Her Majesty, The Queen in November 2007, Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta and was most recently nominated for the Microsoft Alumni Integral Awards 2012.
Sheetal has a Masters in International Relations (Economics) at the London School of Economics and a BA (Honors) in International Politics at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is a yoga teacher and plays drums and doh.
Job Titles:
- GENERAL COUNSEL
- Co - Founder of Business Counsel Law
Tom is a co-founder of Business Counsel Law Group LLP and has over 18 years experience working as a lawyer in the venture capital and startup technology company field in Silicon Valley. Tom's core area of law practice is the securities and finance field, with a focus on helping emerging growth companies, venture funds, and software and hardware computer companies navigate issues concerning new entity choice/formation, venture financing, securities, capital structure planning, private placements, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing transactions.
Tom has also started and sold companies and is an active angel investor. On the operating side, Tom participated at an operating level at several companies, including a venture fund, boutique investment bank, ISP (Genet sold to Level3 in 1998), and a law firm (Britton Silberman Cervantez sold to Thelen Reid 2000). Tom is also active in the Silicon Valley angel investor community, having founded the Harvard Angels (alumni angel group for HBS NorCal and Harvard Club SF) and the Golden Gate Angels. With regard to his angel activities, Tom focuses on the Internet, computer, communications and networking sectors (sample early stage investments include Open Table (IPO 2009), Friendster (acquired 2010), Genet (acquired by Level3), Specialty's Café & Bakery and others).
Prior to co-founding Business Counsel Law Group, Tom was a partner for 5 years in the San Francisco office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and a partner for 5 years in the San Francisco office of Thelen Reid & Priest LLP. Tom also had worked as an Auditor with the National Association of Securities Dealers, running oversight and conducting securities law enforcement audits for 50 small to mid-size investment banks from Los Angeles to San Diego.
Tom holds a Bachelor's in Business Administration, magna cum laude, from Loyola Marymount University, a JD from Harvard Law School and a MBA from Harvard Business School.