COMPANY PROFILECOMPANY PROFILE

Management Team

 

Michael Lazerow

Michael Lazerow - Chairman & CEO

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's first foray into entrepreneurship came with the founding of University Wire, an Associated Press-like network of more than 700 student-run newspapers that is now owned by CBS Corp. U-Wire provides the most in-depth coverage of campus news and student issues and is distributed widely through almost every major college newspaper and most of the major Internet portals. Michael sold U-Wire to Student Advantage, the nation's leading student membership organization linking 1.5 million students through one affinity card program, in May 1997. As a member of the Student Advantage management team, Michael helped grow Student Advantage from a handful of employees into the premier media and marketing company in the college market with more than 300 employees and $80 million in annual revenue.

Building on his growing experience in the online space, Michael next founded GOLF.com, which was purchased by Time Warner's Time Inc. division in January 2006. Michael led GOLF.com from a start-up to a multi-million dollar profitable golf media company. Michael successfully funded GOLF.com by raising equity financing from private investors, leading venture capital firms and media companies, including NBC Sports and the New York Times Co. And with a wide network of contacts in the internet and general business community, Michael negotiated and executed successful partnerships on behalf of GOLF.com with Time Warner, NBC Sports, MSNBC.com, Yahoo!, AOL, FoxSports.com, Microsoft, New York Times Co., the PGA Tour, USA TODAY, Knight Ridder, Chicago Tribune, GOLF MAGAZINE, NTT Communications and more than 200 other companies. As part of the acquisition by Time Inc., Michael agreed to join Time Inc.'s GOLF MAGAZINE division for one year as General Manager of GOLF.com and GOLFONLINE.com. In addition to overseeing all of the company's golf internet properties, Michael sat on a 5-person management team that managed the leading golf publication.

Michael left GOLF.com in February 2007 to start Lazerow Consulting, which helps finance, launch, manage and grow internet-based media businesses. Michael's client list included CSTV, a CBS Corporation company. At CBS, Michael helped launch two new businesses in the sports community and student media spaces.

Michael lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, two sons, Myles and Cole, and daughter Vivian. In addition to investing in private companies and real estate, he enjoys live music, golf, tennis, poker, fly-fishing, reading, writing and video editing.

Michael graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. with a B.S. and M.S. in Journalism in 1996. His byline has appeared in more than a dozen newspapers, including Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Miami Herald, the Delaware State-News, The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., and the Montgomery Journal.

Michael is currently the chairman and CEO of Buddy Media, Inc., a New York-based company that is a leading developer of applications for social media sites, including Facebook and MySpace.

 

Kass Savarese Lazerow

Kass Savarese Lazerow - COO

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 a client base of blue chip companies that included United Airlines, Oldsmobile, Kellogg's and Hallmark.

Together with her husband Mike, Buddy Media's CEO, Kass has founded several successful companies. Her most recent before Buddy Media, GOLF.com, 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 multimillion 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.

 

Ira Tau

Ira M. Tau - Vice President, Technical Engineering

Ira is an Internet Technology professional with over 25 years of experience building systems and managing technology teams.

Ira spent close to 10 years at Time Inc., dedicated to the Internet Technology Group, which was responsible for hosting the company's nearly 100 web sites. Over Ira's tenure as Associate Director and deputy of the Internet Technology Group, he developed a foundation of experience that spans a multitude of core back-end, content management, and e-commerce systems. More recently, Ira worked at NBC/iVillage as a Technical Analyst in the realm of content management systems and legacy systems transitions.

Ira's current role at Buddy Media enables him to apply his technology and management expertise toward building Buddy Media's platforms to enterprise functionality and scale. His responsibilities span software development, infrastructure operations and product development.

Ira is a native New Yorker and enjoys cooking, music, reading, writing and travel. He is also an amateur dog trainer, and is owned by a 5 pound Chihuahua, named Feebi. His educational background includes a B.A. in Computer Science, an M.B.A. in Computer Information Systems and various continuing professional certifications and awards.

 

Jeff Ragovin

Jeff Ragovin - Vice President, Sales and Business Development

Jeff has over a decade of experience directing interactive sales efforts at major technology and marketing firms.

Jeff's experience, leadership, and execution-focused results engendered an impressive history of career achievements. He was the Director of New Business at Acronym Media, one of the largest search marketing agencies in the world, where he was responsible for closing key strategic accounts and growing the organization. His business initiatives have been honed over time and developed with one goal in mind -- to bring greater value to all clients and advertisers.

Through an extensive network of interactive marketers, Jeff develops turnkey social media strategies to help clients achieve their marketing and sales goals. In his role as Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Buddy Media, Jeff is responsible for the leadership and growth of the sales organization. His primary focus is to grow revenue, deliver profitability, and provide best in class service to Buddy Media customers.

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.

 

Matt Zarzecki

Matt Zarzecki - Vice President, Product Development

Matt has spent more than ten years creating engaging, interactive products while managing product, technology, and design teams for a number of successful businesses.

Most recently, Matt created CafeMom, one of the fastest growing niche social networks on the Web. Matt's fingerprints are all over CafeMom, as his vision shaped the site’s user experience and creative design. His innovation and expertise are evident throughout CafeMom, as is his specialty of understanding exactly what is necessary to the creation of an engaging user-facing product. Prior to CafeMom, Matt worked at Next Jump, Inc., a leading provider of corporate rewards and loyalty programs - another home run for Buddy Media, as Matt will spearhead an initiative to revamp and improve our successful AceBucks rewards platform.

As Vice President of Product Development at Buddy Media, Matt is responsible for leading the direction and defining the strategy for user-facing products across all social networks.

Matt grew up outside of Princeton, NJ and is a graduate of Tufts University with a BA in English.