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270 River Street, Troy, NY

Bill Phelan

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO and Co-Founder, Bill Phelan brings more than 20 years of operational, technical and financial experience to Media Factual. Bill is an accomplished entrepreneur and leader having led several ventures through the start up years and successfully managing them through significant acquisitions by large public companies. He has spearheaded the creation of Media Factual’s vision and positioning and established a business model that is driving the next-generation of Big Data.

Management Team

He also managed an online marketing campaign that increased the company’s sales by 400%. As a Senior Software Engineer at AOL, Joshua was responsible for architecting the localization, co-branding, member management and search systems for the AOL Classifieds system. The search system enabled detailed searching and logging of data by an unlimited number of custom attributes per category, and powered all of AOL’s Careers and Work channel via its proprietary API.

Josh has worn many hats at Media Factual/Bright Hub, beginning as a co-founder of the company. He has a significant amount of experience with both the technical aspects and business use of the software. Josh is tasked to work with the Development and Big Data team in Troy and Belarus to manage the website to its full potential. View Josh’s profile here.

Prior to her role at College Factual, Carly worked on the Bright Hub team for over five years as SEO Specialist, online marketer and content strategist. There she managed a team of writers and editors, brainstormed content ideas, optimized content for the web, and served as an editorial resource and educator, as well as managed social media efforts and support communication tasks. View Carly’s profile here.

Advisors

Peter Horan

Peter C. Horan is an experienced entrepreneur with a history of building successful media and internet businesses. As a CEO and independent director he has been part of four profitable exits in the last seven years totaling almost $700 million in value.

Peter is currently the President and COO of Answers a dynamic media company that lives at the intersection of search and social with 100M web visitors, 40M MAUs on social, and 20M monthly users on mobile. He was previously CEO of IAC Media and Advertising, Goodmail Systems, AllBusiness, About.com, and DevX. He has also played a role in five major revolutions in media and technologyincluding: home video games; personal computers; cell phones; Windows computing; and the internet.

Peter has served on the board of directors of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Online Publishers Association. See his profile here.

Dr. James Hendler

James Hendler is the Tetherless World Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science and the Head of the Computer Science Department at RPI. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Experimental Multimedia Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), serves as a Trustee of the UK’s charitable Web Science Trust and is a visiting Professor at DeMontfort University in Leicester, UK.

James is the Chief Scientific Officer for Avagen Ventures. Credited as one of the early innovators of the “Semantic Web,” James was the recipient of a 1995 Fulbright Foundation Fellowship. His other roles include: former member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board; Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the British Computer Society, and the IEEE and the AAAS. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002.

In 2010, Dr. Hendler was selected as an “Internet Web Expert” by the US government. He is the Editor-in-Chief emeritus of IEEE Intelligent Systems and is the first computer scientist to serve on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science. View his profile here.

Dr. Ian Fellows

Ian Fellows is the President of Fellow Statistics. Ian is a leading statistician and programmer based out of Los Angeles, California. His active research interests encompass many areas of statistical theory, including the analysis of longitudinal data, small sample sizes and social network analysis. Ian’s accomplishments in statistical visualization won the prestigious John Chambers Award in 2011.

In addition, Ian’s artificial intelligence work has been featured in a number of popular press outlets, including the San Diego Union Tribune. Ian is the creator of the Deducer project, which makes the statistical programming language R more accessible to non-programmers. View his profile here.

Bob Smith
Chairman

Robert Smith is Chairman of Media Factual lending his more than 25 years of experience creating and managing interactive community-based businesses to the role. His extensive experience in general management, business development, sales and marketing and product development has helped Media Factual/Bright Hub establish a strong foothold in the marketplace. He has served as Chairman of the Board since 2006.

Bob led one of the first internet business incubators in the nation, Vector Development, LLC, where he worked directly with Internet-based start-up companies as both a strategic advisor and investor. He helped found and guide companies in e-government, e-commerce, identity monitoring/management, community-based widget design and nonprofit, community-based mapping.

Bob was a member of the AOL management team where he helped large media companies such as the New York Times and the Tribune Company create their first online community ventures. He went on to serve as General Manager of all of AOL’s community programming operations. He was founder of AOL’s Digital City, the first nation-wide city guide service, growing that business to over $100 million in sales.

Bob is a retired United States Naval Officer and holds a MBA in Marketing Concentrations: Advertising and Electronic Publishing from George Washington University and a BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California. View his profile here.

Mitchell Mumma
General Partner, Intersouth Partners

Intersouth Partners, founded in 1985, is one of the nation’s oldest early-stage venture capital firms, managing $780 million in seven venture capital partnerships. One of the largest early-stage venture funds, it has invested in almost 100 companies, and focuses on the life sciences and technology sectors.

Mitchell is a general partner with Intersouth Partners, where he has primary responsibility for the firm’s technology portfolio, which includes investments in enterprise infrastructure (including software, tools and databases); processing power (including semiconductor materials and chips) and communications (such as network software and components). He has served on the boards of more than 20 private companies for Intersouth over the last 18 years, and currently serves on the boards of five Intersouth portfolio companies: Bright Hub, Infoglide Software, TapRoot Systems, Trinity Convergence and Ziptronix. Prior to joining Intersouth in 1989, he served in management roles at three Intersouth portfolio companies. Previously, he worked as a manager in the high growth business practice at Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte & Touche).

Mitchell is a Director and former Chairman of the Board of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the United States. He serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA). He is an investor and Advisory Board member of The Entrepreneur’s Philanthropic Venture Fund of the Triangle Community Foundation and serves on the Advisory Board for N.C. State University’s Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. He has served as a mentor to the Kauffman Foundation’s Kauffman Venture Fellows Program.

Mitchell is a frequent speaker on the topic of venture capital. He is an adjunct professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he teaches and advises on the entrepreneurship curriculum. Mitchell has earned an A.B. in management science from Duke University. View Profile.

Jonathan Aberman
Founder and Managing Director, Amplifier Ventures

Amplifier Ventures is a group of early stage venture capital funds that invests in technology start ups in the Mid-Atlantic. Amplifier also operates the Amplifier Networks a family of online social communities that provide educational content, relevant news and business advice to entrepreneurs, investors and service providers in the Washington, DC technology community.

Prior to forming Amplifier, Jonathan was a venture capital attorney, where as a Partner in three top-tier law firms, he mentored the formation and growth of over 60 promising emerging technology companies and represented more than 15 venture capital funds in transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $1 billion. He has a prior career as an investment banker and arbitrage trader.

Jonathan has served as a Media Factual/Bright Hub Director since 2006. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of two other Amplifier Portfolio companies – iBelong Networks and Hook Mobile. He is a professor at two prestigious educational institutions, and serves in advisory capacity in many well known organizations that promote company formation and entrepreneurship. He is a frequent writer and commentator on venture capital topics for regional and national publications and is an active blogger on topics affecting venture capital, entrepreneurship and the technology economy.

Jonathan is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of George Washington University. He holds a Masters in International Economics with Distinction from The London School of Economics. Jonathan is the recipient of Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees from both Cambridge University and a Masters in Law from New York University School of Law. View Profile.

Board Members

About Us

Our Philosophy

Meet the Team

Press

Prior to co-founding Media Factual, Bill was founder and CEO of OneMade, an “eBay like” e-commerce marketplace exchange that was successfully sold to America Online in May 2003. He also served as the Chief Strategist and COO of the technology and network services business for Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD™), the world’s largest floral technology services organization connecting over 20,000 domestic florists and more than 40,000 international florists through an e-commerce floral order exchange, the Mercury Network™, and led the company’s successful acquisition by Leonard Green and Associates in February 2004.

Bill serves on Bright Hub’s board of directors and serves on a number of boards including Capital District Physician’s Health Plan, Paradigm Capital Management (Mutual Fund Trustee), and Mechanical Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MKTY). Bill is a graduate of Siena College and did his Master’s studies in taxation at City College of New York. See his profile here.

Brian Murrow

Brian Murrows is an Associate Partner with IBM for Business Analytics and Optimization. Brian has over 20 years of experience as a business analytics, strategy, technology consultant, business leader, and author. The common thread through all of his work is the use of advanced analytics to arrive at real-world business decisions.

Brian’s experience includes executive-level strategic planning, large-scale financial and decision-support models, design and implementation of large-scale portals, web-based applications, financial management systems, online communities, and customer relationship management systems.

He has worked with large corporations such as Cisco Systems and Fannie Mae; government organizations such as USAID and the US Department of Labor; and nonprofits such as America’s Promise and the Points of Light Foundation. See Brian’s profile here.

Joshua McWilliam

VP Product

Joshua McWilliam is the primary evangelist for Media Factual’s product strategy, both in the United States and overseas. Prior to joining the Bright Hub team, Josh designed and implemented systems in various industries, including banking, insurance, and customer service. As CTO and co-founder of an online retailer of performance auto parts, he managed the development of an e-commerce system which controlled an inventory of tens of thousands of parts and automatically processed orders from their many manufacturers and distributors.

Carly Stockwell

Director of Content & Marketing

Carly Stockwell serves as the chief marketing and content strategist at College Factual. She fills a variety of roles in the company, including managing the editorial calendar, crafting relevant content for the website, and communicating College Factual’s message of personalized college selection to students, parents and college admin professionals. She enjoys connecting with and learning from peers in the spheres of higher education and data journalism, and assists the business development team in this process.

Mark Lewyn

Mark Lewyn has been in and around the technology world for nearly three decades, first as a technology writer for major publications such as Business Week magazine and USA Today and, more recently, as a prolific technology investor and entrepreneur.

Mark is currently CEO and President of TechScore, a company that provides broadband information to real estate property listings. Before that Mark founded Paxfire, which was the first company to monetize, in parnership with Yahoo, DNS error traffic for Internet Service Providers. The company, which was eventually acquired by a rival, created 50 new jobs and generated nearly $100 million in revenue.

Prior to this, Mark was part of the founding management team of CitySearch, which was eventually acquired by Interactive Corp. Mark then moved on to become a founder of EzGov, a provider of e-government services that was backed with $20 million from Warburg Pincus. Mark also served as a vice president for Vector Development, a venture capital firm and business incubator also backed by Warburg.

Mark writes regularly about the technology scene for a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and AllThingsD. He is a 1982 graduate of Northwestern University. See his profile here.

John D. Pomeroy

John serves as the Chief International Admissions Officer and Senior Assistant Director of the University at Albany State, University of New York. John manages the development and implementation of all international admissions activities. He travels extensively throughout Asia, Europe, South America and Middle East, Overseeing the admission decisions of all international freshman and transfers applicants and evaluate all international transfer credits and course equivalents for students. View his profile here.