Board of Advisors

John Bess
Mr. Bess brings over 30 years of general management and consulting experience in marketing and sales in the consumer packaged goods space.  He is currently CEO of John Bess, LLC, which specializes in working with small and emerging companies as both an investor and advisor. He also currently serves as Non-Executive Chairman of MindsInSync, Inc, an ideas driven company specializing in the development of innovative products that enhance comfort and safety.

Mr. Bess's experience includes 21 years with P&G, including 8 in general management roles with responsibility for leading some of P&G's largest brands. He was President/COO of International Home Foods following its spin-off from American Home Products (now Wyeth) and helped lead its successful IPO. Mr. Bess spent several years with PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM in key corporate strategy consulting roles for such clients as Unilever, Nestle, Campbell Soup and PepsiCo.

Mr. Bess received a B.A. from Clark University with Honors in History and an M.B.A. in Marketing from New York University. He currently sits on the Executive Advisory Board for NYU's Stern School of Business.

Peter Daboll
Mr. Daboll oversees all internal and external marketing and consumer information to drive strategic insight at Yahoo!. He works directly with all “C” level executives as well as all operational Business Units. The global role combines market research, data intelligence, advertising effectiveness and business development teams across Yahoo!’s broad international and product footprint. He provides key leadership as Yahoo! transitions into a consumer-centric organization and driving consumer-focused product innovation.

Prior to joining Yahoo! two years ago, Mr. Daboll had a broad career in online advertising and consumer insights as CEO of Comscore Media Metrix. He led the company through rapid growth and helped build a leadership position in the online media measurement space.

Over his career, Mr. Daboll has also held senior positions at MarketTools, IRI, Nielsen and MediaPlan and pioneered leading products in the research and data insights industry.

Geoff de Weaver
Mr. de Weaver has over 20 years of experience as a global executive with deep expertise in marketing strategy and brand building. His past roles have taken him around the world and allowed him to excel in such positions as Managing Director, Executive Vice President, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of major marketing firms in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and China.

He has worked with clients in more than a dozen other countries. (e.g. UK, Germany, France, Italy, Singapore, etc.). Some of his blue-chip brand clients have included: Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Nestle, Unilever, Air France, Visa, American Express, Disney, E*Trade, EA.com, Shutterfly.com, TiVo, PlanetRX, and Webvan.

Mr. de Weaver is currently the Director of Business Development at Agency.com New York. Most recently he was the CEO at de Weaver and Partners Worldwide, the second largest independent direct marketing agency in Australia. Previously, he managed the digital and direct marketing units at four global advertising agencies, including Ogilvy and Mather and Ammirati Puris Lintas.  He held executive management positions at Direct Partners San Francisco, and DDB Worldwide Communications (Omnicon).

Nick Feimer
Mr. Feimer is currently Vice President of Global Marketplace Insights at Levi Strauss & Co, where he is responsible for global marketplace data acquisition, as well as all consumer research related advertising, promotion, product development, and merchandising. Earlier, he served as Vice President of Marketing Services at The Clorox Company, Director of Sales Information and Technology at Kraft Foods, and Director of Marketing Information at both Kraft and the Quaker Oats Company. Mr. Feimer has been recognized with a Special Achievement award at Quaker Oats, a Superior Achievement Award at Kraft, and a Clorox Diamond Leadership Award.

Prior to joining the corporate world, Mr. Feimer spent time in academics, teaching and conducting research in Applied Psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Mr. Feimer holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Riverside (graduated with High Honors and Phi Beta Kappa), and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Feimer has also served on numerous professional advisory boards and industry committees, including Information Resources, Inc.’s Client Advisory Board, the Category Management Committee of the Joint Industry Initiative for ECR, Marketing Sciences Institute’s Board of Trustees, and the Association of National Advertisers Committee on ROI.

George Garrick
Mr. Garrick currently serves as President and CEO of Jingle Networks, provider of the 1-800-FREE-411 service.  His extensive experience includes involvement in venture-backed startups, IPOs, large public corporations, and outside board memberships. Previously, he was President and CEO of Wine.com, Chairman and CEO of PlaceWare, and Chairman and CEO of Flycast Communications, where he led a successful IPO and later sold the firm to CMGI in a transaction valued at $2.3 billion.

Earlier, Mr. Garrick served as President and CEO for North America of the two largest market research firms in the U.S., Information Resources, Inc. and ACNielsen. During his IRI and Nielsen years, he was a nationally recognized figure and pioneering thinker in the marketing measurement industry and a board member of the Advertising Research Foundation.

Brian Harris
Dr. Harris is a Founder and Co-Chairman of The Partnering Group (TPG).  He is acknowledged internationally as a thought leader in the field of consumer goods retail management and is recognized worldwide as the developer of the Category Management approach. Since founding TPG in 1990, he has helped implement this approach in retailer, wholesaler, and manufacturer companies in 25 different countries. He co-authored the U.S., European, and Brazilian ECR Category Management Best Practices Reports.

Prior to founding TPG, Dr. Harris was the founder and CEO of ABA Groups, which developed the Apollo Space Management System in 1985 and merged with Information Resources Inc. (IRI) in 1987. From 1978 to 1983, he was a professor of marketing in the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Southern California and a Director of USC's Food Industry Management Program.

Dr. Harris earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from Michigan State University and has an M.B.A, and a B.A.in Economics with First Class Honors.

Mike Jennings
Mr. Jennings brings more than 20 years of experience in information systems, business development, finance and manufacturing to his current role in advising technology companies on product development, delivery and market strategy and working with the venture capital community to evaluate new technology investments.  Mr. Jennings most recently served as co-founder, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Development at Appshop, the leading provider of hosted Oracle application and database technology.

Mr. Jenning's experience includes positions with companies such as United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, InfoSolutions and SimulTrans. He has designed and built industry leading hosting and software delivery platforms, built and managed global information system support organizations, supported over 300 technology sales cycles wins, managed the implementation of more than 30 ERP and CRM deployments, founded and built three companies. In his tenure, he has also held senior finance positions as a CFO and Controller.

He earned a Diploma in Network Management and Engineering from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

David Kantor
Mr. Kantor is Principal of DKantorAssociates, LLC, business consultant to consumer products companies and to private equity and technology providers focused on the consumer products sector. He brings over 25 years of experience working with the leading manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of food, beverage, household and personal care products. His work has encompassed all facets of the business, including strategy, organization, operations and technology.

An important part of Mr. Kantor's prior and ongoing work involves deployment and integration of leading edge data and technology-reliant capabilities in support of critical business decisions. He was among the very first to develop and take to market advanced trade promotion and pricing management capabilities and serves as an advisor to start-ups focused on leveraging technology to drive advanced analytics out of large scale data bases. Prior to founding DKantorAssociates, LLC, he was a partner at Booz Allen Hamilton where he worked from 1980 to 2004.

Mr. Kantor holds an M.B.A from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a law degree from South Africa.

David Matz
Mr. Matz brings over 20 years of consumer packaged goods experience with particular expertise in brand marketing, business strategy, mergers and acquisitions as well as marketing mix modeling.

Mr. Matz was president of the Laundry and Home Care division of Clorox, their largest business unit, and was their Chief Marketing Officer. He was one of the visionary leaders at Clorox that spearheaded the development and implementation of their in house marketing mix modeling expertise and importantly their utilization of these capabilities not only at the brand level, but at the corporate level providing portfolio optimization benefits to drive both growth and cost cutting.

He is Principal of Matz Consulting providing management consulting and senior executive coaching to consumer products companies. He works with venture funded start ups, private equity, and stand alone middle market companies.

He received his M.B.A from the University of Chicago.

Glenn Patcha
Mr. Patcha is currently Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Lance Inc. Lance is a leading branded and private label snack food company with over $800mm sales.

He has over 20 years of consumer products experience in various sales and marketing roles with several Fortune 500 companies including Nestle USA, Eastman Kodak and ConAgra Foods. His diverse experience includes both Branded and Private Label products as well as working across traditional and alternative channels.

Mr. Patcha holds a B.S. and an M.B.A from the University of Southern California.

Pam Kline Smith
Ms. Smith is a seasoned technology marketing professional, with over 20 years experience that encompasses creating new marketing categories and helping companies take advantage of market changes.

Most recently she served as Vice President of Marketing for LiveOps. Previously, she served as the Vice President of Marketing for Metreo, Inc., a leading supplier of pricing software, which was acquired by Symphony Technology Group. She was Vice President of Marketing for Arcot Systems, Inc., a provider of authentication security solutions. Ms. Smith was a Partner at Regis McKenna, Inc/The McKenna Group for 10 years where she led the teams responsible for defining e-business for IBM, creating the first online travel solutions for United Airlines, USAirways, British Airways and Galileo, launching several successful start-ups and taking companies such as Rightpoint and Eloquent through successful acquisitions. She also served as Vice President at Prognostics, a leading market research/consulting firm that was acquired by NFO.

Ms. Smith holds a B.A. in French magna cum laude from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.  She attended the University of Paris-Sorbonne.