Audible Magic Management & Board of Directors
Management Team
- Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO
- Jim Schrempp, Vice President of Product Investigation & Core Technology
- Rob Williams, Vice President of Systems & Operations
- Jeremy Stern, Vice President of Business Development
- Jay Friedman, Vice President of Marketing
- Lee Courtney, Vice President of Support & Quality Assurance
Board of Directors
Management Team
Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO
Vance Ikezoye co-founded Audible Magic in 1999. He has over twenty years of experience in high technology sales, marketing, and technical support including thirteen years at Hewlett-Packard Company. At HP he was involved in both the computer systems and medical products businesses. After HP, Ikezoye joined Trade Reporting and Data Exchange Incorporated, a VC-funded information company startup, where he served for five years in the positions of Vice President of Sales, Marketing, International, and Business Development. During that time, he developed distribution channels in the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia. Ikezoye holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School.
Jim Schrempp, Vice President of Product Investigation & Core Technology
Jim Schrempp has spent more than nineteen years in development and support at Hewlett-Packard Company. He has extensive experience managing all aspects of teams of 50+ software professionals. Schrempp managed system software development for HP’s $1B mid-range computer systems business including an R & D team responsible for the release of HP’s proprietary relational database management system. He was also responsible for a system performance tuning organization that developed and utilized benchmarks to predict performance and provide specific tuning recommendations of new system hardware and software. Previously, Schrempp managed post-sales system 3rd level factory support for HP’s commercial business computer systems. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Rob Williams, Vice President of Systems & Operations
Rob Williams has more than twenty-eight years of product development, customer support, professional services, and major account management experience. He has built teams from the ground up and has managed hundreds of employees across geographically dispersed organizations. Williams has lead product development teams at leading electronic commerce companies that powered some of the largest electronic exchanges around the world. More recently, he was VP of product development at Neoforma/GHX, which was a leading provider of online applications and services to buyers and sellers of healthcare products. Previously, he was a VP of product development at Commerce One, which was a pioneer in secure XML based electronic commerce exchanges. Williams began his career at Hewlett Packard. Williams attended the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program at U.C. Berkeley.
Jeremy Stern, Vice President of Business Development
Jeremy Stern has more than twenty-five years of experience in broadband, media and Internet industries. His experience and expertise include corporate development, business strategy, new product launch, public policy and legal affairs. At Continental Cablevision (n/k/a Comcast Cable) for eleven years, Stern’s roles included head of regional corporate development and corporate and legal affairs. He additionally served as a corporate officer. Stern also worked for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in Washington, DC where he spearheaded the industry’s first coordinated anti-piracy effort and was also deeply involved in industry legislative matters. For more than a decade, he has practiced telecommunications and Internet law. Stern was the founder and managing partner of Cole, Raywid & Braverman’s Los Angeles Office and in that capacity served as special counsel for Audible Magic on copyright and public policy. Stern graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and was awarded his Juris Doctorate at Georgetown University Law Center.
Jay Friedman, Vice President of Marketing
Jay Friedman has more than 29 years of experience in computer, software, and Internet markets with extensive background in marketing, product management, business development, sales and business operations. Most recently, he co-founded SonicSwap where he built an online music social networking company. Friedman began his career at HP and Sun Microsystems. After Sun, Friedman joined Prognostics where he was Senior Vice President of Operations and Executive Consultant. Friedman then joined LiveWorld, a private-labeled, social networking company where he was Sr. Vice President of Sales & Marketing, building the business by working with recognizable consumer brands in developing their online social presence. Friedman has a Bachelor of Science degree in Math & Computer Science from UCLA and an MBA from Santa Clara University.
Lee Courtney, Vice President of Support & Quality Assurance
At Audible Magic Lee oversees all customer and partner support and quality efforts. He brings to Audible Magic 29 years of experience in Software Engineering, Marketing, Product Management, and Support. Most recently Lee was the Product Line Manager for Wind River’s Linux product for consumer devices, responsible for the mobile phone space and open source automotive infotainment platform. He has worked at numerous start-ups as a Founder, individual contributor, manager, and advisor. In addition to his professional activities in Silicon Valley, Lee is a long time volunteer at the Computer History Museum, helping start the Museum’s volunteer program, working on several restoration and development projects, and currently working in the Museum’s Software Preservation Group. Lee has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Board of Directors
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Ph.D
Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of ten books and has also published more than 110 articles and book chapters. Dr. Pfeffer also writes a monthly management column called The Human Factor for Business 2.0, a leading business magazine.
Dr. Pfeffer has served on the faculties of the business schools at the University of Illinois and the University of California at Berkeley and was the Thomas Henry Carroll-Ford Foundation Visiting Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.
In addition to his work with Audible Magic, Dr Pfeffer currently serves on the boards of directors of SonoSite, Actify, and UniCru.
Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. in Administration and Management Science and his M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie-Mellon University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Dr. Pfeffer is a member and Fellow of the Academy of Management and a member of the Industrial Relations Research Association. He has won the Richard D. Irwin award for Scholarly Contributions to Management as well as several awards for books and articles.
Timothy Tomlinson
Timothy Tomlinson is a co-founder and partner in the firm of Tomlinson Zisko, LLP specializing in emerging technologies. Under his leadership the law firm grew to over 20 lawyers and is a full service provider of legal services to high technology Silicon Valley companies. Mr. Tomlinson’s areas of special expertise include mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, venture funding, corporate transactions and corporate finance. He is the author of numerous articles on insider trading, was a member of the ABA committee that assisted in the amendment of the SEC Rules relating to Section 16 of the 1934 Act and Co-authored Tomlinson Zisko’s Audit Committee Handbook. Mr Tomlinson also serves as Chairman of one and member of another public company audit committees and has served on the audit committees of two other public companies and several private company boards. Mr. Tomlinson received an AB degree in Economics and MBA and JD degrees from Stanford University. He is a member of the State Bar of California.
Robert A. Stengel
Rob Stengel is a Principle of Continental Consulting Group, LLC, a media consulting firm headquartered in Boston, MA. Mr. Stengel has run CCG for seven years. He advises media companies on acquisitions, business development, new network creation, and distribution strategies. Prior to forming CCG, Mr. Stengel was Senior Vice-President for Programming and Advertising for Continental Cablevision Inc and its successor company, MediaOne Group. In that capacity he was responsible for his company’s business dealings with cable networks, broadcasting companies and networks, sports leagues, and the Hollywood studios. During his time at Continental/MediaOne he served on the Board of Directors of E! Entertainment Television, Outdoor Life Network, Speedvision, The Golf Channel, The Food Network, and Music Choice. More recently he has served on the boards of Resorts Sports Network (RSN), American Public Television, and DataTV Networks. He has served as an advisor to such media firms as ESPN, Comcast Corp, DirecTV, MTV Networks, Discovery Communications, Scripps TV Networks, and Turner Broadcasting. He is a graduate of Tufts University.
Robert D. Williams
Robert Williams’ first career was as co-founder of The Real Paper, the weekly newspaper published in Boston which spawned the film “Between the Lines” starring Jeff Goldblum and Jill Eikenberry as well as the book Mansion on the Hill, by Rolling Stone editor Fred Goldman. He has founded a number of companies including:
National Cable Advertising (NCA) which pioneered the creation of the spot cable advertising industry. NCA partnered with Time Warner, Continental, Comcast and Cox and then merged with Katz Media, Inc. to create National Cable Communications (NCC). Before departing as CEO, Williams had overseen NCC’s growth from a start-up to a national company with 14 offices, 225 employees and over $350 million in annual sales. NCC generated over $1billion in sales in 2007.
eMediaRep, LLC to represent web inventory outside of public broadcasting eMediaRep works with major media groups including television, radio and newspaper companies to help consolidate access to local media web publishers on a network basis and to create media planning software to help plan local web campaigns on a national basis.
Williams Communications, Inc. (WCI) whose first initiative, National Public Broadcasting, LLC (NPB) was created to represent PBS and NPR stations to national marketers. NPB interactive, (NPBi), the internet division of NPB, was then launched to represent PBS.Org and other national sites. In September 2007, he merged NPB with National Public Radio’s (NPR) underwriting department to create a new company, National Public Media, LLC. He currently serves as CEO of that new venture.