Management Team

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  Megan Gardner, CEO

  Megan Gardner is the Chief Executive Officer of Plum District overseeing all areas of the business including Sales, Marketing, Operations, Technology and Business Development. Megan brings extensive experience in finance, strategy and operations to Plum District having served as the Director for Strategy and Business Development for Ameriprise, where she advised the CEO and Senior Management team. Megan launched her career on Wall Street as an investment banker for Deutsche Bank and Soundview Technology, primarily focusing on technology clients. Megan is passionate about connecting women together online and offline and created Plum District to provide women with the opportunity to have a rewarding career, spend quality time with their family and be connected within their local community. Megan holds a BA from Smith College and an MBA from Harvard. Megan currently serves on the Alumnae Association Board of Directors for Smith College and was recently nominated by Fortune for the 2011 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs Award.
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  Jim Kollross, VP Finance

  Jim oversees finance, accounting, operations, human resources, business development, legal, and facilities at Plum District, bringing fifteen years of experience building financial operations and ensuring profitable growth across Internet, mobile, and financial technology companies. Jim has driven significant value creation, including close to $1B in shareholder value at exit through both acquisition and equity offerings. He has led the finance team and other areas for three high-growth VC and private investor backed companies, Telephia (acquired by The Nielsen Companies), NextCard (NXCD), and VerticalResponse. Jim has also held senior leadership roles in Strategic Planning and Corporate Development at Morningstar and Bank of America, and he began his career at The Boston Consulting Group. Jim earned a BA in economics from Northwestern University and an MBA and JD from Indiana University, where he was a Merit Scholar.
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  Jackson Hull, VP Technology

  Jackson Hull is a veteran technology executive and entrepreneur. Before joining Plum District, Jackson was founding CTO at Chatterfly, a location-based mobile loyalty application acquired by Plum District. Prior to Chatterfly, Jackson was CTO at Sitoa, an e-commerce platform used by large online retailers to extend their product assortments and engage customers using social media. Jackson has built technology solutions large and small - from enterprise-class platforms, mobile and web services to social media applications. He holds several software patents, and degrees in mechanical engineering and material science from the University of California, Davis, and a master's in information systems from the University of California, Berkeley.
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  Kelly Murtha, VP Marketing

  Kelly brings over 12 years of internet marketing experience with a passion for data-driven marketing. Kelly started her career in customer retention and loyalty at online retailer eBags.com. Prior to joining Plum District to lead online marketing, Kelly held similar roles at e-commerce companies including Orbitz Worldwide, Netflix, and most recently Shutterfly. Kelly holds a BS from the University of Colorado.
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  Tizzy Cornish, VP Operations

  With a passion for startups and the people who work there, Tizzy has dedicated her career to launching and growing small Internet companies. Prior to joining Plum District, she co-founded and served as the VP of Operations and General Manager at GoodStorm, an eCommerce platform dedicated to helping non-profits and individuals raise funds through online sales. She also led the CA Account Management team at Edusoft, an educational software company that provided assessment platforms to US public school districts. Tizzy holds a BA in Biological Anthropology from Harvard.
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  Mari Bentvelzen, Director of Training and Development

  Mari brings over 9 years of sales and sales training experience to Plum District. She held several sales roles at a Fortune 10 consumer product company during her 7+ years there. She is busy searching the Northern part of the U.S. for exceptional people who are entrepreneurial and are passionate about their local communities. She loves spending time with her husband and daughter. In her free time she is working toward a certification in Pilates and sits on the Discovery Council at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Mari holds a B.A. from University of Washington.
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  Melissa Clemens, Division Director, Sales

  Melissa enjoys her role at Plum District, recruiting and coaching a top tier team of Regional Managers to lead our local sales efforts. As a busy mom of 3, she is passionate about helping other moms find flexible, fun and rewarding careers with Plum District. Melissa has 15+ years experience in sales, marketing and professional services for well-known brands like WeddingChannel.com and the Gap. Most recently, she spent 5 years developing and building her own successful Internet business. Melissa holds a BA in English from Stanford University.
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  Jillian Griffin, National Sales Director

  Jillian holds a BA from Princeton University, where she played four years of collegiate volleyball. A mother of four, Jillian is a "connected mom" herself - she is currently an active Princeton ASC Committee Member and member of the National Charity League. Jillian has an entrepreneurial spirit. She started her career in sales and briefly dabbled in home accessories and antiques businesses while raising her children. For Jillian, Plum District is the perfect fit - it allows her to have a fulfilling career and be a full-time mom.
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  Lee Shufro, Division Director, Sales

  Lee has an extensive background in sales management with American Express, Entertainment Publications and the Direct Marketing Association. Prior to joining Plum District, Lee was the Vice President of Sales at DoodleDeals, a New York daily-deal company bought by Plum District in 2011. Lee spent 10 years at American Express as the Vice President of Every Day Spend Merchant, where he was responsible for the supermarket, drug store, mass merchant, and oil industries. Lee was also the VP/General Manager of Amex's FX International Payments unit and VP of Sales with the Direct Marketing Association. He started his career with Entertainment Publications as an Account Executive in Hartford, CT. Lee graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Political Science and holds an MBA from Cornell's Johnson School of Management.

• Board of Directors

  Aileen Lee, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

  Aileen is a board member and a partner at Kleiner Perkins, the lead venture capital firm behind Plum District. At Kleiner Perkins, Aileen focuses on helping build breakthrough consumer-oriented digital companies and also works with companies like One Kings Lane, Callaway Digital Arts and ShopKick. She brings many years of operating experience having been founding CEO of a KP-backed digital media company, RMG networks, and having various operating roles in product management and marketing at Gap Inc, Odwalla and the North Face prior to joining KP. She has a bachelor of science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. Aileen is mom to 3 kids under the age of 6, so she loves shopping the district for great deals on kid-oriented goodies and relaxation treats for moms.

• Neil Sequeira, General Catalyst Partners

  As a Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners, Neil invests in both new and existing technology businesses. His areas of special interest include: Internet and new media; software; consumer services; and network infrastructure. Prior to joining General Catalyst, Neil has held positions at Time Warner and CMGI where he has lead a variety of mergers, acquisitions and investments in software, media and networking infrastructure. Neil was an early employee at Goldenvoice Presents, a diversified media company and is also a contributor to the founding of OpenRatings (DNB), a venture backed software start-up based in Boston. Neil servies on a handful of boards, some of which include Boxee, DECA, Elemental Technologiesspoken, has spoken at numerous media and venture capital conferences and is a judge for the Harvard, MIT and Wharton Business Plan Competitions. Neil is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning a BA in Business/Economics and Harvard Business School, where he received an M.B.A.

• Raul Vazquez

  Raul Vazquez was executive vice president of Global eCommerce for Walmart's developed markets, responsible for defining multi-channel strategies and delivering financial results. Raul served in several leadership roles during his tenure at Walmart including executive vice president and president of Walmart's west geographic business unit, and president and CEO of Walmart.com. Before joining Walmart in 2002, Raul worked at startup companies within the ecommerce industry. Prior to that time, he spent several years at a boutique consulting firm that specializes in competitive strategy for Fortune 100 firms, and as an industrial engineer at Baxter Healthcare. Raul is a graduate of the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, and also received bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial engineering from Stanford University.

• Advisory Board

  Daphne Carmeli

  Daphne has over 25 years of executive and operational experience leading cross functional teams in high growth, category leading, entrepreneurial environments. She currently serves on several Advisory Boards of emerging high technology companies including Visible Measures, HubSpot, Support Space and DudaMobile. Previously, Daphne was the CEO at Metreo from it's inception in 2000 through 2006, overseeing the company's business, product strategy and direction until its sale to Symphony Technology Group. Prior to Metreo, Daphne was the Vice President of Marketing at Netscape/America Online (AOL), the Director of Marketing at Healtheon/WebMD, and has held marketing management positions at Silicon Graphics (SGI) and Logica Data Architects. Daphne received her MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brandeis University with BS in Mathematics.
  
  

  Chuck Geiger

  Chuck Geiger is the Chief Technology Officer at Chegg.com and brings significant experience running technology and product organizations at some of the largest online ecommerce sites in the world. As the former CTO of Ask.com, PayPal, Wine.com, VP of Product Development at eBay, and executive positions at InterActive Corp (IAC), Chuck brings an array of technology experience. Chuck is a partner of Silicon Valley Product Group, focused on helping large companies and start-ups build product and technology strategies, technology due diligence, and architectural assessment. Chuck holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Kansas.
  
  

  Benjamin Sun

  Benjamin Sun is an internet entrepreneur and angel investor. Mr. Sun is a co-founder and partner of LaunchTime LLC, an incubator focused on digital media and e-commerce. Previously, Mr. Sun’s was at Community Connect Inc. where he served as President & CEO for 12 years. Mr. Sun co-founded Community Connect Inc. in 1996 and grew the company to be a leading online publisher targeting various niche markets. According to comScore, Community Connect’s sites – AsianAvenue.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com (pronounced mee-hen-tay) collectively generated over a billion page views each month. This made Community Connect not only the leader in reaching Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos but also positioned their network of sites as one of the Top 25 highest trafficked sites on the Internet based on page views. Mr. Sun started Community Connect in his Manhattan based apartment with a small team of friends and a business plan. He was responsible for growing the company by raising over $20 million from notable investors including Comcast and Sandler Capital and using those resources to build powerful new media brands. In April 2008, Community Connect Inc. was acquired by Radio One, Inc. the fifth largest radio company in the U.S.
  
  

  Steve Goodman

  Steve was a founding member and an investor in Plum District. Steve has founded and grown three technology companies to successful exits creating over $100 MM in value. Steve was previously founder and CEO of Lasso Logic; acquired by SonicWALL (NASDAQ: SNWL), founder and CEO of Learning Productions; acquired by SkillSoft (NASDAQ: SKIL), and founder and CEO of PacketTrap Networks; acquired by Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT). Steve is currently the Vice President of Network Management at Quest Software. Steve holds a MS in Computer Science from The George Washington University.
  
  

  Soleil Moon Frye

  Soleil Moon Frye is the always lovable girl who played the classic character Punky Brewster on TV. Today she is all grown up -- a married mom of two, an author, a designer, a momrepreneur, and a social media maven with over 1.4 million followers on twitter, and 100,000 Facebook fans. As well as being a superstar mom and business woman, she hosts the daily web series Her Say, and is the author of the book Happy Chaos. Soleil has been a huge supporter of Plum District since its conception, and offers the team a wealth of expertise in social media and all things mommy.