ZENAPSE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Manager at Capgemini Invent
Aarai manages the development and deployment of the Zenapse platform and Zenapse Experiences client engagements. Previously a Senior Manager at Capgemini Invent, Aarai has over a decade of experience managing full stack development teams and delivering engaging marketing landing pages and customer experiences for a wide range of clients, including Chase, Wells Fargo, and Unilever. Aarai honed his skills as a full stack developer at Omnicom, as well as experience at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners and Digitas Health.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Board Member, Broad Street Angels
Job Titles:
- Chief Creative Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
Christer leads the creative team and overall creative direction for the Zenapse platform brand, and client engagements. He drives result-oriented creative to provide compelling brand experiences that meet business objectives.
A creative leader and marketing executive with over 25 years of experience, Christer has a broad background in design, advertising, marketing and direct response campaigns. His multi-disciplinary approach enables him to lead diverse creative teams to produce effective marketing across multiple channels for a wide range of clients.
Prior to Zenapse, he led Capgemini's Digital Marketing team to help clients acquire, engage and retain customers through innovative digital customer experiences. Prior to joining Capgemini, Christer was a Partner and Executive Creative Director at LiquidHub and Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Foundry9.
Christer's creative expertise spans from traditional advertising, beginning his career at Y&R, to product design for startups such as ActiveBuddy, which pioneered groundbreaking interactive chatbots (acquired by Microsoft).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Frank Mergenthaler was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of IPG. In his role as CFO, Frank had direct management responsibility for all areas of Global Finance, Information Technology and Investor Relations. In addition to his CFO role, Frank was Chairman of CMG,with operational responsibility for CMG operations, which included the company's public relations, sports and experiential marketing businesses.
Frank joined Interpublic with extensive experience in the media and entertainment industry, having played leadership roles at Columbia House, which was owned by the Blackstone Group, as well as The Seagram Company Ltd., owners of Universal Studios, Universal Music Group, and the Universal Theme Parks. In addition, he spent more than a decade at Price Waterhouse, becoming a partner in the Entertainment and Media practice of the firm in 1996.
From January 2009 to December 2018, Frank was a board member of Express Scripts Holdings (ESRX) and was Chairman of the Audit Committee. ESRX is a full-service pharmacy benefit management and specialty managed care company managing more than a billion prescriptions each year for tens of millions of individuals.
As our VP of Data, Gary is responsible for architecting, developing, and maintaining Zenapse database applications and systems using Microsoft technologies, Neo4j graph modeling platform, and Google Cloud SQL.
An information technology professional with 25+ years of experience in complex application development projects, Gary is a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) with a focus on data integrity, enterprise architecture, operational efficiency and disaster recovery.
Previously, Gary led the DBA team at Capgemini Digital Marketing group to provide clients innovative custom developed solutions using industry-leading database platform tools.
His versatile capabilities and expert knowledge in database performance tuning, configuration, integration and implementation, mobile strategy and cloud computing has enabled Gary to deliver successful projects for clients including Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Lincoln Financial, BB&T, Unilever, Fidelity and March Of Dimes throughout his career.
Job Titles:
- Chief Information Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
Godfrey is responsible for architecting, building and scaling the Zenapse technology platform. As CTO, he drives the company's technology vision and strategies while leading the company's software engineering, UI/UX and data science teams.
Godfrey brings over 25 years of technical development experience to Zenapse with a proven track record of creating value through technology innovation and application development across of number of industries including retail, financial services, telecommunications, entertainment and digital marketing services.
Most recently, Godfrey has set strategy and led technology development in the marketing services division of Capgemini. Prior to joining Capgemini he served as Managing Director Application Development at LiquidHub (subsequently acquired by Capgemini) and was a Partner and CTO of Foundry9 when the company was acquired by LiquidHub. He has also held leadership roles at A8 Media (SavingsAccounts.com among other properties) where he was a partner and served a Chief Technology Officer.
Godfrey has also held the position of Vice President, Special Projects for Steve Madden where he implemented and managed an ecommerce platform for the Steve Madden family of brands that was acquired from Kompo, LLC, where he had previously served as the Chief Information Officer.
Prior to Kompo, Godfrey was Group Director, Engineering for Organic, where he set the global technical direction of the company and led the ecommerce retail practice, managing marquee accounts like Federated Direct (macys.com, bloomingdales.com), Tommy Hilfiger, Reebok, Williams-Sonoma (westelm.com, potterybarnteen.com) and US Airways.
Job Titles:
- Chief Experience Officer
- President and CEO Janis Nakano Spivack / Chief Experience Officer Keith Chu
Janis leads the team that captures our understanding of human behavior and emotional intelligence in the Zenapse platform, as well as the Zenapse Institute - to share our experiences and collaborate with academic leaders and the public sector.
Job Titles:
- Chief Information Officer
- President and CEO Janis Nakano Spivack / Chief Experience Officer Keith Chu
Keith is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and manages all areas of the company's information systems, security, privacy and risk management - including corporate operating practices, technology and information systems that deliver the Zenapse platform to our customers.
Over the past 25+ years, Keith has led teams that evaluate and implement technical and operational policies and processes focusing on security configuration, operations and audit for both Fortune 50 companies and startups.
Prior to Zenapse, he planned and executed all areas of Foundry9's corporate and datacenter security operations to operate efficiently and securely, anchored by privacy, resiliency and redundancy, to create and maintain scalable platforms for financial services clients.
As Foundry9 was acquired by LiquidHub and later Capgemini, Keith continued to further enhance security, operations, incident, change and problem management processes, which fully prepared Capgemini's operations to be ready to face the challenges of the past 24 months. During his tenure at Chase, he was the Production Assurance Director for the Corporate Internet Group and managed all change, incident and problem management for high availability websites servicing Chase customers.
At Organic and throughout his career, Keith has delivered technology solutions for clients including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, FirstData, AARP, Lincoln Financial, Sazerac, Unilever, Advance Publications, GE.
As our engagement leader, Maggie partners with our clients leveraging the Zenapse Experiences platform, provide strategy consulting, UI/UX consulting, creative services, campaign execution, reporting, analysis and program management.
Maggie brings deep member acquisition expertise from her work as a marketing leader at JPMorgan Chase, where she spent 10+ years - most recently as Executive Director of new customer acquisition efforts for the lending and wealth management businesses.
Previously, Maggie worked on affiliate programs dedicated to high volume growth for Chase partners, included Marriott, Southwest Airlines, Disney, British Airways, Hyatt, IHG, Starbucks, and Amazon.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Priceline, CTO / Shutterstock, CTO / Diageo, CTO / Pfizer, CTO
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Chairman of the Board of Directors
- Co - Founder
- President
- President and CEO Janis Nakano Spivack / Chief Experience Officer Keith Chu
Matt leads the vision for Zenapse and defines the overall company and product strategy - working with the executive team to provide strategic, financial and operational leadership to successfully serve our customers, drive growth and build company value.
Most recently Matt served as EVP, Capgemini where he led a cross-functional team of consultants and technical practitioners focused on delivering digital transformation and innovation services for a number of industries - financial services, retail, entertainment, advertising, consulting and automotive. He has deep experience in all functions required to operate a digital business including marketing, advertising, sales, transaction processing, information systems, operations, infrastructure and technology management.
Prior to Capgemini acquiring the company, Matt was a Partner and Chief Solutions Officer at LiquidHub, whose business grew by 300% in 3 years through his leadership and focused sales and marketing efforts. As the Founder, President and CEO of Foundry9, an internet professional services firm specializing in creative development, advertising, business analytics and technology solutions, he led a management team that delivered 10 consecutive years of profitable growth before the company was acquired by LiquidHub.
He also founded and was the CEO of A8Media, an innovative lead generation network for retail banking deposit products that he sold to Quinn Street. In addition, he managed internet marketing for Chase Cardmember Services where he was responsible for new customer acquisition, advertising and marketing. At Chase, Matt's team developed a key competitive differentiator that increased annual growth by nearly 100% for three consecutive years. Matt served as the CTO of Organic, an Omnicom owned interactive professional services firm. Under Matt's management, Organic delivered comprehensive solutions for Fortune 500 clients including DaimlerChrysler, Lucent Technologies, Federated Department Stores and Tommy Hilfiger.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Baiada is an investor, board member and entrepreneur.
Baiada founded Bluestone, Inc. in 1989 to provide technology expertise to Fortune 1000 companies and government organizations. Under his direction, Bluestone rapidly grew to a multi-million dollar company, earning its inclusion in the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing, privately held companies in the U.S. for three straight years, from 1994 to 1996. The software arm underwent a successful IPO in 1999, and was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2000.
Through his generous contributions, Drexel University was able to add the Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship in Technology to its campus.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Michael is President and CEO of LG Ad Solutions, a global leader in connected. Prior to LG, he co-founded Zenapse, served as an EVP and as Zenapse's CCO.
An entrepreneurially driven C-level executive, Michael's focus in Digital Strategy, Sales and Revenue Operations, Strategic Partnerships and Marketing has afforded him significant experience building and managing international networks and partners across the America's, Europe and Asia.
As Head of Growth at the media division of Lyft, and he was a member of the founding business team at Firefly. Prior to Firefly he served as EVP/CRO at RhythmOne (now Tremor International). At YuME (which later merged with RhythmOne) Michael served as CRO. He has also served as EVP, GlobalDirector, Digital at Clear Channel Outdoor and President and COO of Organic Inc.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Chief Creative Officer
- Chief Operating Officer
Steve brings over 35+ years of technology, product development and operations experience to Zenapse. Steve will lead the company's day to day operations and direct key company product initiatives to turn Zenapse's strategic vision into company-wide executable strategies.
Most recently, Steve was Vice President of the digital marketing group for Capgemini Invent/Capgemini Financial Services where he led a team of practitioners delivering digital innovation and Martech services for a wide variety of clients in financial services, advertising, retail and consulting.
Prior to Capgemini, Steve was a Partner at LiquidHub, managing the digital marketing technology transformation of Fortune 500 clients. Prior to LiquidHub, Steve was COO at Foundry9 - an internet professional services firm specializing in advertising and visual design services for a wide variety of clients. Over the course of his career, Steve has held a variety of senior positions in the financial services, automotive, advertising and consulting services industries.
Steve spent the first part of his career at IBM, where he held multiple roles in technology product design and development for semiconductor and electronic packaging products for large systems, many of which are still in use today. While at IBM, Steve was a co-author of over 20 U.S. and international patents in high tech product development, semiconductor process manufacturing and polymeric materials processing.