Buddy Media

Michael is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four successful internet-based media companies. He has a passion for creating, managing and growing companies from the ground up. Michael is currently Chairman and CEO of Buddy Media, Inc., a New York-based company whose social enterprise management system, the Buddy Media Social Marketing Suite, is used by eight out of the top ten global advertisers.

Before Buddy Media, Michael founded University Wire, an Associated Press-like network of more than 700 student-run newspapers, now owned by CBS Corp, and GOLF.com, a profitable online golf media company purchased by Time Warner's Time Inc. in January 2006. In February 2007, he started Lazerow Consulting, which helps finance, launch, manage and grow numerous digital media businesses.

Michael is widely recognized as a thought leader on digital media and marketing trends and is a contributing writer to Advertising Age, AllThingsD, MediaPost, Business Insider and Fortune, among other publications. He regularly speaks at conferences including the Monaco Media Forum, the Consumer Electronics Show, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit, Mashable Connect, MediaPost OMMA Global, Web 2.0 Expo and iMedia Brand Summit.

Michael and his companies have won numerous industry awards and accolades. In June 2011, Michael was named the New York region Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Buddy Media was named to Advertising Age's 2011 "Digital A-list", Ad Week’s 2010 “Insurgent of the Year” and won the "Best Enterprise" application honor at the 2011 TechCrunch Crunchie Awards.

Michael is an active investor in digital media companies through Lazerow Ventures, a $10 million family partnership and co-investment fund he launched in 2011. Current investments include Village Vines, Saving Star, Social Flow, Social Leverage, tagman and Copious. He serves on the board of directors of Village Vines and Saving Star.

Michael lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, two sons, Myles and Cole, and daughter Vivian. He graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. and M.S. in Journalism in 1996.

Kass is a successful entrepreneur with extensive experience in marketing, consulting and business operations.

Kass began her career by building Jaffe Associates, a leading marketing and management-consulting firm, from the ground up. After selling her first successful business venture, Kass moved on to Giant Step, a leading interactive agency and subsidiary of advertising giant Leo Burnett, where she served as Director of Business Development and Director of Public Relations and Marketing. At Giant Step, Kass worked with clients including United Airlines, Oldsmobile, Kellogg's and Hallmark.

Kass has founded several successful companies with her husband Michael, Buddy Media's CEO. Prior to Buddy Media, Kass and Michael founded GOLF.com, which was sold to Time Inc. in 2006. At GOLF.com, Kass served as co-founder, President and COO, where she helped take the company from an idea to a multi-million dollar consumer internet company.

In her current role as co-founder and COO of Buddy Media, Kass' responsibilities include managing the day-to-day operations of the business, including finance, marketing, PR, general operations, HR and more. This multifaceted position allows Kass to leverage her understanding of the internet and her experience as a proven entrepreneur.

Kass lives in New York City with her husband, Michael, two sons, Myles and Cole, and daughter Vivian. Kass received her B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College in 1993.

Jeff has more than a decade of experience driving revenue and building expansive brand relationships at major technology and marketing firms. As Chief Strategy Officer, Jeff leads the efforts that have resulted in eight out of the top ten global advertisers employing the Buddy Media social marketing suite as their social enterprise marketing software of choice. Jeff has worked closely with the Buddy Media team to guide brands in developing social media presences that are instrumental in growing their business.

Since joining Buddy Media, Jeff has played a central role in guiding the company from a start-up into the premiere social marketing system in the world. Jeff is often called upon to give his insights and vast knowledge on social media and digital marketing to various news outlets and industry events, including Adweek, MediaPost, iMedia Connection, the Direct Marketing Association, the Kraft Social Media Summit, Anheuser-Busch Social Media Summit and Digital Hollywood.

Prior to joining Buddy Media, Jeff lead global sales at Acronym Media, one of the largest search marketing agencies in the world, and Axciom (Nasdaq: ACXM) a global interactive marketing services firm, where he closed numerous key strategic accounts and grew the company’s revenue exponentially.

Jeff was born and raised in Manhattan. He loves to travel, enjoys saltwater fishing and writes passionately about weather on www.jeffsweather.com. Jeff graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego with a BA in Broadcasting and Mass Media.

Susan joins Buddy Media with over twenty years of leadership roles in technical, sales, and managerial capacities for the world’s leading technology companies. As President, Buddy Media, Susan leads global revenue generation and oversees the company’s sales and client support teams.

Prior to Buddy Media, Susan spent more than seven years at Salesforce.com, most recently as SVP, Strategic Sales. In this role, she focused on Salesforce.com's largest clients within their focused vertical industries, including High Tech, Financial Services, Insurance, Media, & Telecommunications. Prior to this role, Susan served as SVP of Platform Sales, where she instantiated a new sales organization to enable SalesForce.com to effectively sell its recently launched Force.com Platform.

Susan joined Salesforce.com in 2004 SVP, Global Services Sales, and was responsible for global services consulting and support, as well as training sales and delivery. Under her leadership, services revenue grew in excess of 70% year over year. Before joining Salesforce.com, Susan held the role of Vice President of the Global Manageability Services Practice at Sun Microsystems, Inc., driving sales and generating over $3.5 billion dollars in revenue annually for the company -- more than one third of Sun's total revenue. Under her leadership, Sun achieved its first $1B quarter for Services in Q4 FY'04.

Previous to joining Sun, Susan spent seven years as a software developer at the National Security Agency (NSA), where she developed a deep knowledge of mission critical development, architecture, deployment and operations. Susan graduated from the University of Scranton in 1986 with Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. She currently resides in San Francisco, and is based out of Buddy Media’s West Coast office.

Patrick has been writing code and building web technologies since the early 90’s, when his father, an engineer at IBM, brought home an OS/2 laptop with an internet connection. This passion for technology spurred Patrick into a job as an application developer at IBM, and a college degree in Computer Science at Marist College. After receiving his diploma, Patrick returned to his home state of New Jersey where he led a team of developers at JK Design in delivering web solutions for a variety of large clients.

In 2007, Facebook released their development platform and Patrick immediately positioned himself as one of the social network’s premier developers. After just a few weeks of the platform’s lifespan, Patrick had created 4ca.st Weather, the top weather application on Facebook with over 250,000 users, and Crushes, the top dating application on Facebook with over 1,000,000 users. Crushes was one of the first twenty-five applications on Facebook with 1,000,000 users. Patrick rode Crushes’ success right to Michael Lazerow and Buddy Media. In December 2007, Buddy Media acquired Crushes and hired Patrick as an application developer.

Patrick’s fingerprints are all over the Buddy Media social marketing suite, which was awarded the TechCrunch “Crunchie” Award for “Best Enterprise.” He leads a team of more than 50 product managers and engineers who work at the cutting edge of social media innovation. Patrick is frequently called up to provide his insights on web technology at industry events including the Business of APIs Conference, SXSW NYC Tech MeetUp and MongoNYC.

In his spare time, Patrick can usually be found in a NYC card room or losing his winnings at a craps table in Las Vegas.

Michael Jaindl (MJ) has over seven years managing and building technology products for the largest companies in the world.

MJ joined Buddy Media in January 2008 to pursue his passion for social media and community building. As Chief Client Officer, MJ is responsible for leading the Buddy Media account management and client loyalty teams, as well as developing and implementing best practices for clients to utilize the Buddy Media social marketing suite.

MJ began his career at GE after being accepted into the elite Information Management Leadership Program (IMLP). While on IMLP, MJ implemented large-scale enterprise-wide technology solutions across a number of GE businesses. MJ rotated positions every 6 months, managing large global teams within the US and abroad. He worked in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina and The Netherlands. He achieved Six Sigma certification early in his career and used that skill to improve business processes across GE.

After IMLP, MJ was responsible for Sarbanes Oxley compliance, including the global roll-out of Sun Identity Manager across all GE Industrial businesses. Prior to Buddy Media, MJ held a position at NBC where he spearheaded their first social network for the company’s web property iVillage. He was responsible for product development, community growth and platform monetization.

MJ is frequently asked to speak at industry events including Social Media Week, the ReadWriteWeb 2Way Summit, PR News Facebook Conference, Social Retail Summit, mediabisto.com Socialize Conference, and is often quoted on social media related topics in publications such as The Next Web and U.S. News & World Report.

MJ grew up on his family’s farm in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He received a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in MIS from Boston University. In his free time, MJ can be found surfing at the New Jersey shore.

Dennis Morgan is a digital medial executive with more than 20 years of experience in finance and corporate/business development. He served as the CFO of three venture-backed technology companies: EPAC Technologies, Panther Express and Vibrant Media. While he was CFO of Panther Express, he also ran shared services for the companies under former DoubleClick CEO and current Gilt Groupe Founder and CEO Kevin Ryan's Alleycorp umbrella. Prior to his CFO roles, he was Vice President of Corporate Finance at Yahoo!, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA. At Yahoo, he led the corporate finance efforts for over $5 billion in acquisitions and business development deals, earning a team Superstar award for his work on Yahoo's newspaper consortium deal.

In addition, he ran Yahoo's corporate-wide budgeting process and served as finance head of Yahoo's $3 billion search business. Dennis began his career as an investment banker at Alex, Brown and Sons and at Thomas Weisel Partners. Dennis has an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia, where he was a Shermet Scholar, and a BA from Dartmouth College.

Natalie is a graduate of Cornell University and The George Washington School of Law. She was an associate on the corporate team in the New York office of King & Spalding LLP from 2001-2007 and a corporate counsel to the tax group in the New York office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP from 2007-2009. Natalie has worked on large transactions with brands such as Sprint Nextel and GE Power Systems and middle market private equity transactions with funds such as First Atlantic Capital, as well as advising several mid-sized companies on general corporate matters.

Natalie lives in Greenwich with her husband and son. She's fluent in French, a new member of the Junior League of Greenwich and a young conservator of the New York Public Library.

Alain Benzaken has been involved in technology and startups throughout his career, leading large technology teams at some of the most successful NYC startups. Before joining Buddy Media, Alain was VP of Technology at TheLadders.com from 2006 to 2011, helping the company achieve significant growth and revenues. Previous to that, Benzaken was an executive at Priceline.com, serving as Vice President, Development, International Systems, where he launched e-commerce travel products in Europe and Asia, and was the architect of Priceline.com's Customer Systems. Alain is also on the board of the NY Tech Meetup, the largest meetup in the world with over 18k members, and a big proponent of the NYC tech startup scene.

Alain was a co-founder of Gameline, LLC., a developer of the Baseball Manager fantasy sports product that was co-marketed with Sports Illustrated, FoxSports, and ESPN. He has also held senior positions at Ground Travel Technology Team, Inc. (GT3), and food52.com, a foodie site for home cooks. Alain also spent eleven years on the Web frontier at Prodigy Services Corporation, where he was a developer of the company's proprietary Web Browser and editorial tools. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Columbia and a master's degree in physics from Yale.

Alain joined Buddy Media in September 2011 to help grow and scale out the technology team, and is very excited to be at the center of everything that is social media. His responsibilities include overseeing the teams that build out Buddy Media products and helping to manage the incredible growth that Buddy Media is experiencing. Alain currently lives in Stamford, CT and is a very active triathlete. Last year, he completed his first Ironman race in Canada, and for some reason signed up for another one in 2012, the first IM to be held in NYC. He has run NYC, Paris, and Boston marathons, and completed the Escape from Alcatraz race. He lives in Stamford, CT with his wife and two girls, who are about to beat him at tennis any day now.

Valeh is an experienced executive with an eleven year track record in the digital media space.

Valeh began her career at Yahoo! where she held roles managing sales operations and finance in both the US and Europe. She played a key role in restructuring Yahoo!'s $1BN+ US sales organization. Valeh then became Senior Vice President of Sales Operations at MySpace, where she created and led a sales operations organization for the company's ad sales business.

In her role at Buddy Media, Valeh works with the company's COO in the day-to-day operations of the business, managing business operations, human resources, Buddy Media University, business intelligence and infrastructure.

Valeh lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. Valeh received her BS from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and MA from Harvard University.

Vic Russo is a finance executive with over a decade of experience working in both public and private industry. He has more than eight years of experience in Digital Media. Prior to joining Buddy Media, Vic served as Vice President of Finance at 24/7 Real Media and Controller of DoubleClick, Inc. As part of the DoubleClick $3.1 billion sale to Google, Vic played a key role in planning and implementing the integration of the companies' financial operations. Vic began his career with Ernst & Young, where he specialized in auditing clients in the technology, communications and entertainment industries.

Vic graduated with honors from Lehigh University and is a Certified Public Accountant. When he is on a break from living the Buddy Media dream, Vic is most likely traveling, practicing martial arts, eating a huge meal, serenading his soon-to-be bride with a Lady Gaga tune, or watching the Yankees.

Myles brings 14 years of experience in the advertising, media and digital marketing industries to Buddy Media, where he oversees the company’s largest strategic brand client relationships.

Prior to joining Buddy Media, Myles built and ran the digital marketing practice at the Kaplan Thaler Group (division of Publicis), where he oversaw all digital advertising, promotional and social media efforts for a wide range of clients including Procter & Gamble, Wendy’s, Continental Airlines and Aflac, and he won several industry awards in the process, including two Webby Awards in 2010.

Prior to Kaplan Thaler Group, Myles was the SVP, GM of Alloy Media & Marketing, a full service promotional and digital marketing agency, which was named the 2004 Agency of the Year by PROMO magazine. He is frequently called on to speak at industry events including the Business Development Institute Social Consumer Conference, Social Week Chicago, Internet Week New York and Internet Summit.

Myles was born and raised in Long Island, NY and now lives in Westchester, NY with his wife and daughter. Myles earned his B.A. in Public Policy at Duke University, and his M.B.A. in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Luca is a digital media executive with more than twelve years of experience, nine of which with a pan-European scope and focus. Prior to joining Buddy Media, Luca was global digital measurement firm comScore's third employee in Europe and was instrumental to the development of the company's sales, client service and account management teams.

With full responsibility of the European sales and client relationship management teams, Luca managed clients ranging from all major agencies and brands to top publishers and advertising networks.

Before joining comScore in 2005, Luca held senior roles at Yahoo! for more than five years with growing responsibilities within the trade and consumer marketing team.

He gathered work experience in London and Milan and managed teams based throughout Europe. Luca graduated from Universita' L. Bocconi, Milano in Business Administration. He is frequently called on to speak at industry events including the Financial Times Online Advertising Seminar and M&M Online Briefing Summit on Online Video.

Ken Mandel is an industry veteran in the digital advertising arena, serving most recently as Regional Vice President of Advertising Sales and Marketplace for Yahoo! Asia Pacific. He joined Yahoo! in January 2008 as Regional Vice President & Managing Director of SE Asia and was tasked with establishing the Internet giant there. He would eventually open four new markets in less than two years.

Before 2008, Ken held regional leadership roles with WPP, where he served as CEO of XM Asia Pacific, CEO of Neo@Ogilvy and Vice President of OgilvyOne Asia Pacific. While at Neo@Ogilvy, Ken grew the digital media network from zero to more than 200 people in just 16 months.

He also helped lead OgilvyOne to two consecutive Regional Agency of the Year titles and was the founder of the multi award winning Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab responsible for break through mobile marketing innovations for American Express, Diageo, and Nokia Mobile Phones.

Ken completed his Asia-Pacific Management Post-Baccalaureate Program at Capilano College, Vancouver, Canada and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Psychology from McGill University in Montreal.

A digital media veteran and frequent industry spokesperson, he currently serves as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Chairman Singapore, Southeast Asia Chapter and is a board member of the Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific, after previously serving as the founding Vice Chairman. Ken is also a Board Council Member of Design Singapore under the Ministry of Information, Communications & the Arts (MICA) and was recently appointed Chairman of the Digital Advertising Alliance Singapore (DAA), an initiative of the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA). Ken, along with his wife, Thet, and two young sons have been residents of Singapore for the past 12 years and consider it home.