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Turner is a producer at Electronic Arts specializing in action-hero titles. She is working on her second James Bond game and recently completed production on the Gameboy Advance version for release this November. Turner joined EA from another area of entertainment and technology: digital music. In 1999 she co-founded and led Gigabeat, a Kleiner Perkins company. Gigabeat provided music personalization and delivery technology and was acquired by Napster in 2001. Prior to Gigabeat, she worked on a series of projects in film and online music in Los Angeles. Turner holds a M.S. and B.A. from Stanford University.
Distributors, sales representatives, and cooperatives are all different venues for enabling entrepreneurial companies to sell their products and services. Understand the similarities and differences, and chose the alternative that is right for your business.
Tactics for selling services are offered by an entrepreneur whose consulting firm places temporary senior-level talent in finance, law, and other disciplines in early-stage and growth companies.
As senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Ken is responsible for all palmOne marketing activities, including product marketing. Prior to joining the company, Ken was the founder and chief executive officer of Riffage.com, a venture capital-funded music media company backed by Mayfield Fund, Bertelsmann and AOL. The management team he recruited built Riffage into a popular music site on the Internet, with 1 million unique visitors per month, signing major sponsors including Sony, Sega, Lipton's and Telocity. Before founding his own company, Ken was vice president of corporate marketing for Diamond Multimedia Systems, a leading PC peripherals company, where he managed all worldwide marketing functions, tech support, customer service and Internet marketing. Ken also led the introduction of the Rio portable MP3 player, which established the MP3 market and maintains a leading share today after the entry of Sony, Compaq, Philips, Samsung and Intel, among others. Previously, Ken headed marketing for Apple Computer's PIE (personal interactive electronics) division, overseeing all Newton marketing programs. Ken also has held key marketing roles at NEC Technologies, Cognitive Systems and Atari. He holds a master of business administration degree from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.
As Senior Vice President of Hardware, Matt Hershenson brings a wealth of experience to Danger. He is responsible for Danger's hardware engineering, development and design efforts. Before co-founding Danger, Matt managed the hardware group at Mainbrace Corporation, a Windows CE systems integrator. Prior to Mainbrace Corporation, Matt served in various roles at Philips Electronics. During his tenure with the Philips Mobile Computing Group, he was responsible for the hardware of the Velo-1 handheld PC, one of the first Windows CE devices. While at Philips Semiconductors, Matt served as a systems architect, where he played an integral role in the design of numerous consumer handheld devices, including the Sharp Mobilon, Philips Nino, and the Compaq C-series. Before Philips, Matt was a hardware engineer with Catapult Entertainment, since acquired by Hearme. He was part of the team that turned the vision of multi-player gaming over the Internet into a reality. He handled all aspects of product development and design for the XBAND Video Game Modem. Matt also played a key role in the product development and design of the Apple Powerbook 150, then Apple's most affordable PowerBook computer. Matt also co-founded MOTO Development Group, a product design consultancy firm specializing in product development. MOTO aided in the design of many technical products, such as remote controls for Apple Interactive TV.
Ann Winblad is the co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and experience have been chronicled in many national business and trade publications. Ann has over 25 years of experience in the software industry. She began her career as a systems programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1976 Ann co-founded Open Systems, Inc., a top selling accounting software company, with a $500 investment. She operated Open Systems profitably for six years and then sold it for over $15 million. Prior to co-founding Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Ann served as a strategy consultant for prestigious clients such as IBM, Microsoft, Price Waterhouse, and numerous start-ups. In addition, Ann has co-authored the book Object-Oriented Software and has written articles for numerous publications. Ann received a BA in mathematics and in business administration, as well as an MA in education and international economics from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ann also has an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of St. Thomas. Ann has served as a Director of start-up and public companies and currently serves as a director of Intacct, The Knot, Voltage Security, Krillion and Mulesource. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of St. Thomas and is an advisor to numerous entrepreneur groups.
Before co-founding Fluidigm, as Mycometrix, Mr. Worthington held a variety of engineering, operations and marketing positions at Actel Corporation, which designs, develops and markets field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and associated design and development software and programming hardware. Mr. Worthington served in several departments during his tenure at Actel, including product engineering, R&D engineering management, program management, product planning, and strategic marketing. His last position at Actel was Director, Strategic Marketing and Product Planning. Mr. Worthington received his undergraduate degree in Physics and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
When developing a strategic plan to launch an international business program, growing companies must consider the potential barriers and adjustments they might need to make to their products and services.
Attention-grabbing tactics for niche products include providing snappy names and packaging, placing cold calls, and befriending the media in an effort to win PR, says the founder of a specialty women's hosiery company.
Carving a niche in a specialty business entails listening to customers for specific needs and becoming known in the industry as an expert or insider, says the cofounder of a broker-dealer that serves credit unions.
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