About Us > Management Team
BlueKai's vision for enabling polite marketing was formed by our team of seasoned executives who bring decades of experience from the online advertising, behavioral targeting and data mining industries. Together, they are building a company that will enable a balanced ecosystem where targeted advertising produces results for advertisers and continued revenue for publishers – all driven by a data exchange that respects consumer control and privacy.
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Omar Tawakol, Chief Executive Officer As Chief Executive Officer at BlueKai, Omar is responsible for the overall management, growth, and vision for the company's groundbreaking exchange business. Prior to founding Bluekai, Omar was the Chief Advertising Officer of Medio Systems, the leading provider of mobile search and advertising solutions for carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile. He joined Medio from Revenue Science, where as Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager he was instrumental in founding and growing the company's leading behavioral targeting businesses which provide services for many of the largest internet publishers. There he was actively involved with key industry leaders in defining standards for behavioral targeting. Omar earned Master of Computer Science and Industrial Engineering degrees from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from MIT. While at Stanford, he was a computer science researcher in the Stanford Logic Group as well as at the HP Software Labs. Omar's research on formalizing context was published in the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. Omar is also an active speaker and commentator on topics such as behavioral targeting, mobile advertising, and consumer privacy. |
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Grant Ries, Chief Revenue Officer As Chief Revenue Officer at BlueKai, Grant is responsible for driving strategic business development efforts with top tier publishers and online brands. Grant brings over 11 years of experience in business development, sales and product marketing and has executed successful partnerships with many of the largest online media companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, NBC, Disney, ESPN, Dow Jones and many others. Prior to co-founding BlueKai, Grant was the first non-founding executive and VP of Business Development at YuMe, one of the largest video ad network and platform with monthly global reach of over 130 million uniques and 500 million video streams. Grant built YuMe's strategic roadmap, business plan and launched the ad network and platform business. Prior to joining YuMe, Grant was VP of Business Development at Revenue Science. Grant was a member of Revenue Science since its inception and served in a variety of strategic roles, from sales and marketing and account management to business development. Grant secured deals with global media and Internet leaders, resulting in over 50% of the company revenue. Grant earned a Bachelor of Arts and Science degree and a Masters degree from the University of Washington and serves as company advisor to YuMe and AdReady. |
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Michael Bigby, Chief Technology Officer As Chief Technology Officer, Mike is responsible for the strategy, design and development of the BlueKai data exchange and overall management of the technical organization. Mike brings over 13 years of experience in software engineering and extensive experience in the development of innovative advertising and security solutions. He spent the last 10 years as a manager, director and senior director at Yahoo, where he managed multiple large-scale teams to build Yahoo's branded advertising delivery, messaging and anti-abuse security platforms. Under his leadership his team also managed Yahoo's client performance strategy, its Global User Database and a SWAT team comprised of the senior engineers who served as strategic internal consultants. Prior to joining Yahoo, Mike was the first software engineer at Broadcast.com, and built their engineering organization from the ground up until their purchase by Yahoo. Mike joined Broadcast.com from a consultancy role at BSG. Mike earned a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from Texas A&M University. |
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Alex Hooshmand, Vice President of Product and Operations As Vice President of Product and Operations, Alex leads BlueKai's product management, client services and operational efforts. Alex joins BlueKai from Right Media, a Yahoo! company and the first and largest online advertising exchange, where he headed the Strategic Integration Group (SIG). SIG's primary focus was signing and integrating value-added service providers and ad networks (such as behavioral targeting networks) to the Right Media Exchange. During Alex's tenure, the SIG team grew its client base and revenues exponentially, contributing to Right Media's leadership position in the online ad industry. Prior to Right Media, Alex worked as Director of Product Management at DoubleClick and as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. Alex earned a Bachelor of Economics degree from Carnegie Mellon, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Wharton University. |