Leadership
BranchOut's Executive Team
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Rick Marini – Founder, CEO & Chief ConnectorRick is a serial entrepreneur and pioneer in social media with more than a decade of experience in the consumer Internet space. As the Founder & CEO of BranchOut, he is responsible for setting the right course, hiring incredible people and letting them run as fast as possible to build a service that can change the world. Previously, Rick was the Founder & CEO of SuperFan, a social entertainment platform that developed social games and Facebook apps. SuperFan's clients included CBS, MTV, Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony and others. Before SuperFan, Rick was the Co-Founder and Chief Strategist of Tickle, one of the largest social media sites on the Internet. In 2002, Tickle won the "Rising Star" Webby Award as the fastest growing site on the Web and became a top 20 global site with 200 million registered users and $40 million of annual revenue. In 2004, Tickle was acquired by Monster Worldwide for over $100 million.
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Ebbe Altberg – Chief Operating OfficerEbbe has extensive experience leading large-scale product innovation, development and operations. He joins BranchOut after spending four years at Yahoo!, where he was most recently senior vice president of media engineering. At Yahoo!, Ebbe was responsible for global media product strategy and development, including Yahoo! Homepages, News, Sports, Finance and Entertainment. Before that, he served as vice president and head of audience for EMEA, where he handled consumer strategy, products and content. He also served on the board. Before going to Yahoo!, Ebbe was chief product officer for Ingenio, a company that was acquired by AT&T in 2007. He also spent 12 years at Microsoft in various product leadership positions.
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Chris Merritt – Chief Marketing and Sales OfficerChris brings 20 years of experience and relationships to BranchOut, where he'll focus on building out Enterprise solutions and bringing them to market. He joins BranchOut from Yahoo!, where he most recently was responsible for their largest advertiser and agency relationships as VP of Global Advertiser Partnerships. He also led the turnaround and divestiture of Yahoo!HotJobs, which was sold to Monster Worldwide. Prior to Yahoo!, Chris was a Senior Executive with Monster, leading teams on the ground in North America, Europe and Asia.
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Nate Smith – Director of EngineeringNate is a founding team member of BranchOut. Nate is responsible for the architecture and technical design of BranchOut. Prior to BranchOut, Nate was a Senior Engineer at SuperFan and Tickle before that. Nate has a BS in Computer Science and Engineering from The University of California, Davis. On the weekends, Nate surfs, plays softball, and plays rugby for the San Francisco Fog RFC. He's recently put new strings on his bass and is looking to put the band back together. |
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Ray Siu – Director of Consumer TechnologyRay is a founding team member of BranchOut. Before becoming Director of Consumer Technology at BranchOut, Ray was a Web Developer at Tickle, specializing in social networking and creating viral applications. He was also a front-end developer on Tickle's photo sharing site, Ringo, and a dating site, LoveHappens. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of San Francisco and has studied Multimedia and Web design at the Art Institute of San Francisco. Some of Ray's favorite things are the Notorious B.I.G., 7-11 hotdogs, his Xbox, McDonalds and the Wu-Tang Clan. |
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Zack Onisko – Director of Product GrowthZack is one of the founding team members of BranchOut and is a multi-disciplined product strategist and product designer. He has been working with some of the BranchOut team since 2003, previously at SuperFan and Tickle before that. His experience working in start-up environments has allowed him the privilege to own many products from every stage of the product development flow — from the idea stage to designing wireframes, mock-ups and prototypes; to delivering specs and managing the team of front-end and back-end engineers; to assessing and prioritizing project tasks; to QAing; launching live products; following through with analytic measurements and optimization; and iterating to maximize virality and revenue. Zack studied communication design and business at San Francisco State University. He is an avid music fan, collects guitars, is patiently browsing for a new motorcycle, and enjoys morning jogs around Lake Merritt with his fiance and Australian Shepard. |
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Greg Wong – Head of Business Development & Legal AffairsAs Head of Business Development & Legal Affairs, Greg uses his deal making and legal expertise to help drive and execute on BranchOut's partnerships. Before coming to BranchOut, Greg worked at Yahoo! as a Director of Business Development for Flickr, Mail, Answers and Groups. He also served as Director of Legal and Business Affairs for HotJobs, the Yahoo! homepage and other sites. Before Yahoo!, Greg worked as VP and General Counsel at Engage.com. He also worked as an M&A and venture attorney at Morrison & Foerster.
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Ted Metzger – Head of MobileAs Head of Mobile, Ted is responsible for the product direction and engineering development of BranchOut's mobile platform. Before he came to BranchOut, Ted was an engineer at SuperFan, and met Rick and the rest of the founding team while working at Tickle. Ted has a BS from Georgia Tech. He spends his free time getting his jazz chops together on upright bass. |