Playdom

Before taking the helm at Playdom, John served as President of Publishing and Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts (EA), where he oversaw global operations for the four billion dollar gaming company and led its consumer-facing businesses, including EA Mobile, Pogo, EA.com, global online gaming and Rupture. In addition, John drove a push to move EA from a software to a services model, and spearheaded the company's expansion into social gaming. Prior to joining EA, John served as President and CEO of Revolution Heath and CEO of Ticketmaster, the world's leading live event ticketing company. During his tenure at Ticketmaster/InteractiveCorp (IAC), John also oversaw several leading online entities such as Evite.com, Match.com, CitySearch.com and ReserveAmerica.com. John is a Director of the Board for The Artists Den, a music production and promotion company, and previously held Board of Director positions with Expedia.com, Active.com, Fastclick, Going.com and Extend Health. John earned a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard University. John's favorite Playdom game is Wild Ones because global, synchronous, social, multi-animal animated annihilation can't be beat.

Marianne serves as Playdom's expert "Voice of the Customer." As VP of platform relations and customer experience, she drives the company's relationships with key platform partners and oversees its growing loyalty and game services teams. Before joining Playdom, Marianne held posts as VP of optimization services for TouchCommerce and senior director of business consulting services for LivePerson, both leading providers of online customer acquisition and care tools. In addition, she brings valuable campaign development and management experience from tenures with Points.com and Digitas/Modem Media. Marianne holds an HBA in psychology from the University of Western Ontario. An earnest Canadian at heart (just ask her to say "out and about"), Marianne's plots in Lil Farm Life and Tiki Farm are always perfectly tended.

Dave's experience shooting lasers at tiny particles in a Berkeley physics lab has made him a master at deciphering minutiae, a talent he taps into regularly at Playdom. As VP of business intelligence, Dave spends his days interpreting user data to develop insights that inform company strategy and support Playdom's core teams. Previously Dave held research and analytics positions at CBS Interactive, eBay, Shopping.com (formerly Epinions) and IBM Almaden Research Center, not to mention the many years spent at Berkeley earning his MBA and PhD in experimental physics. If that's not enough, Dave is a killer Mobsters 2 and Sorority Life player—thanks in part to the backstabbing skills he's picked up watching High School Musical with his three kids.

Jesse oversees Playdom's initiatives on platforms beyond the social nets, and manages the company's San Francisco game studio. A true Renaissance man, Jesse brings the ideal combination of game development expertise and business acumen to Playdom. Jesse came from Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he helped assess and manage investments in enterprise infrastructure and consumer technology. Before Lightspeed, he spent seven years at Microsoft launching hit games and growing the tech giant's publishing efforts from small PC-centric titles to triple-A console games. Jesse earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated with dual degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. When he's not smack talking in the office, he's demoralizing his opponents with his sharp wit in Wild Ones.

Paul is charged with driving Playdom's growth through international expansion and business diversification, a role that's perfect for him given his twenty-plus years of experience making big things happen. Most recently, Paul led international market development at eSolar, an innovative utility-scale energy company. Before taking on the world's energy challenge, Paul drove strategic growth for Ticketmaster from the UK and Los Angeles, and served as CEO of a wireless technology startup called Antiron. Paul has a BS in engineering from West Point and may or may not have worked in military intelligence from 1986 to 1991. Perhaps that's why he's affectionately called "The Cleaner" at Playdom—or his fastidiously tended plots in Lil Farm Life may inspire the name.

It's hard to have a serious conversation about gaming without mention of Steve. It's also hard to have a humorous conversation about gaming without mention of him. Steve's contributions to the industry began in 1981 at the legendary adventure game company Infocom, where his titles included Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a collaboration with Douglas Adams), Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork Zero. Prior to joining Playdom, Steve co-founded Boffo Games and held senior creative posts at Blue Fang Games, Floodgate Entertainment and WorldWinner.com. Over his prolific career, Steve also consulted with teams at Activision, Blizzard, Disney, EA, Harmonix, Hasbro and Legend, to name a few. A former board member of IGDA, Steve is co-organizer of the Social and Online Games Summit at the GDC and the annual Game Designers Workshop. Steve holds a BS in construction project management from MIT, but otherwise assures us that he did not waste his four years there.

After successful tenures with UCLICK, Real and InfoSpace, Sean comes to Playdom from casual gaming's inner circle. A shrewd negotiator (you've been warned) with a strong focus on product P&L, Sean has executed development partnerships with game powerhouses from Microsoft to Nintendo and distribution deals with megabrands from Viacom to Comcast. In addition, he forged licensing relationships with USA Today, Yahoo, Warner Brothers and Reader's Digest to bring amazingly casual titles to the PC, DS and mobile gaming platforms. Sean has an MA in applied economics from Washington State University and a BA in economics from Western Washington University. A lead singer in the virtual band Amoebas in Love, Sean also holds an MFA in rocking.

Christa oversees Playdom's financial management and forecasting, and helps drive the company's strategic planning. Christa comes to Playdom from Thomas Weisel Partners, where she served as managing director for four years and a senior equity research analyst for almost a decade. In 2009, while covering market leaders from Google to Yahoo, Financial Times ranked Christa the #1 Internet software and services analyst for earnings estimates in the United States. Prior to joining Thomas Weisel, Christa held an assistant vice president position at Merrill Lynch. Christa graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carnegie Mellon with degrees in economics and German, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Much like her Wild Ones character, Christa always hits her targets.

Brad drives Playdom's legal strategy and oversees a majority of the company's business operations, leveraging his deep experience managing legal departments for multi-national public companies and practicing corporate law. Before joining Playdom, Brad served as general counsel and corporate secretary for Leslie Rudd Investment Company, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Ticketmaster. Although his expertise in the gaming and ticketing industries is invaluable, Brad's personal obsession with online gaming makes him perfectly suited for Playdom. Brad graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and summa cum laude with a BA in business and economics from UCLA. Always an overachiever, one could debate whether Brad works harder advancing Playdom's corporate initiatives or leveling up in Mobsters 2.

Omar oversees Playdom's worldwide game development and production pipeline. Before joining Playdom, Omar served as the founder and CEO of Trippert Labs, a successful iPhone and social game developer acquired by Playdom in 2009. Omar entered the gaming world with a diverse business background, from guiding design and strategy teams at IDEO and McKinsey to evaluating financial investments at Bain Capital. Omar earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. He enjoys vacationing in tropical locations or, when he can't get away, happily grows pineapples in Tiki Farm.

Rachel brings a diverse background in brand strategy and marketing to Playdom. Before joining Playdom, Rachel led the strategy practice for MiresBall, a leading brand consulting and visual design firm. During her five-year tenure, she worked closely with global clients, including Intel, Black & Decker, Shure, Taylor Guitars and Qualcomm, and led several large-scale brand realignments. Earlier in her career, Rachel served as client director for ESI Design, a nationally recognized brand experience design firm, and co-founded and served as chief marketer for BrainTrust, a staffing agency specializing in Growth Talent™. Rachel graduated with honors from Georgetown University with degrees in English and government. Despite her petite frame, the dictatorish Demon Lord doesn't stand a chance against her in Heroes — or in person, if it came to that.

Rick is a serial entrepreneur, in a good way. Prior to founding Playdom, Rick co-founded and served as CEO and/or chairman of two successful Internet technology companies, Adify and FlyCast Communications. Rick was also on the founding team of Octel Communications, a leading manufacturer of voice information processing systems. As the oldest (and, um, wisest) member of Playdom's founding team, Rick helps shape business strategy and reminds us to always think big. Rick holds a BS in psychology from UCSC and an MBA from the Wharton School.

Chris spent two years as a Google engineer before founding Playdom. Before officially joining Google, Chris received his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon — completed in a record-breaking two years and ten months — and interned at, you guessed it, Google. Chris also holds a BA in computer science from Berkeley. However, his knack for programming and obsession with gaming goes much further back: As a high schooler, Chris took 14th place in the USA Computing Olympiad and spent countless days trying to program his first 3D RPG.

Ling founded Playdom as a Stanford PhD candidate in computer science. Before Playdom, Ling puzzled over data anomalies at Google and researched the scalable visual analysis of large datasets at Stanford. Ling has an MS in computer science from Stanford and a BS in electrical engineering from Berkeley—both accomplishments squeezed in between marathon sessions of Counter-Strike. A literal student of the world, Ling lived in Beijing, Shanghai, Toronto and Vienna before moving to the Bay Area to "study" his two favorite things: CS and gaming.

The founding CEO of Playdom, Dan Yue now serves as the company's Chief Product Officer. In the same ilk as many of the Valley's leading entrepreneurs, Dan is an interesting character. Prior to Playdom, Dan was employee #1 at Adify, an ad network platform acquired by Cox Enterprises in 2008; founded several wildly unsuccessful technology start-ups; and served as technical consultant to Wynn Design and Development. With a degree in physics from Swarthmore College, Dan uses data-driven insights to understand what players want and deliver it. A lifelong gamer, Dan has played thousands of hours of Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur's Gate 2, and spent 34 long days as a semi-professional Blackjack player. Dan's commitment to the player experience runs so deep that he wakes up several times a night to check the performance of our games.