David SelingerCEO & Co-Founder
David Selinger first garnered international recognition as an expert in the field of eCommerce data analytics and personalization with his groundbreaking work leading the research and development arm of Amazon's Data Mining and Personalization team. In that role, David increased Amazon's annual profit by over $50 million (25% of US profit, 2003) setting the industry standard for recommendation services.
David has decades of experience, from developing the first Javascript-powered ad delivery system for Flycast—the same technology used by Google AdSense, DoubleClick and Overture—to leading Overstock's personalization efforts as Vice President of Software Development and Data Mining. David also cofounded Redfin, a venture backed, industry-leading real estate search/brokerage company.
David holds a broad collection of awards and standing patents in customer segmentation, analytics and data mining, including over a dozen pioneered at richrelevance. David's accolades also include the coveted PC Magazine Editor's Choice Award (won for 2Roam Wireless, acquired by Air2Web).
David received his BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
pdf download | David Selinger Bio
Darren VengroffChief Scientist
Renowned computer scientist and technology industry veteran, Darren Vengroff is responsible for all of richrelevance’s analytical and machine learning development – from high-level strategy and analytics, to strategic implementation plans. From startups to industry leaders Amazon.com and Goldman Sachs, Darren has designed and built a variety of world-class customer-focused scalable applications.
Prior to richrelevance, Darren was CTO and co-founder of Pelago, Inc. (makers of Whhrl) where he oversaw Pelago's technology and actively supported product definition, fundraising, and business development. Before Pelago, Darren was a Principal Engineer at Amazon.com with responsibilities in personalization, automated email targeting, time-series analysis, content platform architecture, attribute-based navigation, search, and build and deployment systems.
Before Amazon.com, Darren spent six years at Goldman Sachs. As a vice president, he was responsible for trading and risk management systems that priced billions of dollars of derivative products for the fixed income, currency, and commodity businesses.
Earlier in his career, Darren built the first microprocessor simulator capable of booting and running a commercial operating system under load. Prior to that, micro-architectural simulation was typically done on user code only, or on static instruction stream traces.
Darren holds an Sc.M. and PhD in Computer Science from Brown University, where he studied I/O-efficient algorithms with Jeff Vitter, and a B.S.E. in Computer Science with Highest Honors from Princeton University.
Tyler KohnVP, Engineering & Co-Founder
Tyler brings a breadth of expertise to richrelevance, ranging from Wall Street trading systems to wireless infrastructure to international device management. Before co-founding richrelevance, Tyler was a senior consultant at Lab49 and responsible for developing real-time analytic trading and reporting systems for Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. Prior to Lab49, Tyler ran Axeda Systems development and implementations in European and Middle-Eastern markets. His clients included Cisco Systems, Comverse Technology, Inc, and Maquet GmbH & Co. KG.
In another of his posts, Tyler was the founding chief architect of 2Roam. 2Roam’s wireless data platform was deployed across Asia, the US and Europe, and received PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice award. Tyler holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Boston University.
Todd PearsonChief Customer Officer
As Chief Customer Officer, Todd oversees all customer-facing operations including Sales and Marketing, leading richrelevance’s growth strategy and expanding customer base. Todd brings to richrelevance a wealth of experience with more than twenty years in sales management and strategic consulting, including an eight-year tenure at PayPal.
At PayPal, Todd held key roles in building several business units including Financial Services, Merchant Services and Credit Issuing. In 2007, as Vice President of Sales, he managed a team of 120 employees and was responsible for $125M in revenue, selling to a full range of eCommerce merchants and channel partners. Prior to PayPal, Todd worked as a strategy consultant at both Accenture and Andersen Consulting, managing strategy engagements with a focus on eCommerce. Previously Todd was a senior consultant at Edgar, Dunn & Company in the US and UK, where he was instrumental in developing the company’s European practice.
Todd received his MBA as a Sloan Fellow at the London Business School and his BA degree from University of California, Berkeley.
Bill GrowneyGeneral Counsel
As General Counsel, Bill is responsible for all aspects of richrelevance’s business and legal affairs. Before joining richrelevance, Bill served as Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel of imeem, inc., a leading social media company where he was responsible for securing the world’s first on-demand, ad-supported music licenses from the major labels and music publishers. Prior to joining imeem, Bill served as General Counsel of Napster, Inc. (formerly Roxio, Inc.), a publicly traded provider of online music subscription services and retail and OEM software products where he was primarily responsible for Napster’s corporate governance, SEC and M&A matters, managing the legal team, and negotiating and executing strategic business development agreements. Bill began his career practicing corporate, securities and M&A law at Gunderson Dettmer in Menlo Park, CA where he counseled leading corporate, venture fund, and investment banking clients on SEC regulatory matters, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing and intellectual property.
Bill holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Political Science and Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and a Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He also served over 10 years in the military reserves with the United States Marine Corps and the California Army National Guard.
Tyler HoffmanVice President of Sales
As Vice President of Sales, Tyler Hoffman brings over a decade of retail-focused internet expertise to richrelevance. His team is responsible for acquiring and servicing retail merchants—delivering them significant incremental sales lift through the richrelevance platform.
Prior to richrelevance, Tyler spent seven years building and running PayPal’s enterprise sales team, with a focus on internet retail and the services sector, as well as new market development of strategic categories including the airline vertical.
Before joining PayPal, Tyler was Sales Director for San Francisco-based internet pioneer CNET. His four-year tenure coincided with CNET’s development of Shopper.com, one of the first comparison shopping engines to support the then nascent online retail space.
Tyler holds a BA in Humanities from the University of Oregon.
Elya KurktchiSenior Director, IT and Operations
Elya joined richrelevance as the head of operations, overseeing their internal IT and Production Operation environment ensuring that richrelevance continues to deliver its superior value and service to its customers.
Elya has over 19 years of global operations and executive experience, ranging from Fortune 50/100 to successful startups, which resulted in the creation of 3 Fortune 500-level companies global infrastructures and operations in less than 4 years.
Before joining richrelevance, Elya was CIO at ePO, a financial services firm that focused on taking companies public through Dutch-auctions and Reverse Shell Mergers, overseeing their technology strategy and operations.
Prior to ePO, Elya held various executive and senior management roles at Microsoft, Jenny Craig, ProfitLine and WebSideStory (now Omniture). Elya was also the Director of Global Operations and IT at Akamai, managing a team of 120+ and was responsible for the buildout of their global CDN and Video network, customer and network operations. Before Akamai, Elya was instrumental in building Qualcomm's corporate core infrastructure, developing new hardware and software technologies and concepts in use today by global corporations.
Earlier in his career, Elya was one of the first scientists to create a structure-based, drug design environment where the three-dimensional structure of a drug target interacts with small molecules and is used to guide drug discovery. Elya studied towards a Doctorate in Mathematics at University of California, San Diego.
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