PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Tony Gentile is a software and Internet industry veteran with 15 years of experience conceiving, designing, building and marketing consumer and business focused Internet/software products and services.

He has been a corporate development and product management executive and consultant at start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, including: Overture Services (Yahoo!), Adobe Systems, Vivendi Universal, Ofoto.com (Kodak), Knight Ridder Digital, PointCast, WishClick.com, MyFamily.com, and WestCode Software.

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PROFESSIONAL RESUME


Tony Gentile


OBJECTIVE
Senior level Product Management/Strategic Planning position for a mainstream software/Internet products or services company, where I can substantially grow a new or existing line of business.


SUMMARY

* Fifteen years of Internet and software industry success in all aspects of product management, marketing and software development, at both consumer and enterprise focused companies.

* Track record of envisioning and delivering customer-focused, well-architected, quality products, on time, within budget, while adapting to shifting and conflicting demands and priorities.

* Ability to synthesize emerging technologies, customer needs, competitive trends, and business imperatives. Can create and implement effective business and product strategies.

* A highly organized manager and coach, able to quickly assess needs and provide tools to resolve difficulties, enhance learning, and improve performance.

* Strong leadership, communication, presentation, negotiation and partner management skills.



EXPERIENCE

Director, Corporate Development
Knight Ridder Digital (Knight Ridder Inc), 2003-2004

Member of a core team responsible for building new lines of business and revenue streams for the online division of the second largest domestic newspaper publisher.

* Conducted extensive industry, competitive, financial, and behavioral analysis and modeling, in multiple strategic spaces (search, shopping, online coupons) in support of M&A/investment activities. Efforts facilitated $25MM in investments and nation-wide local market rollouts.

* Performed industry and vendor analysis, and contract negotiation for contextual advertising, behavioral targeting and auction solutions. Anticipated 18 month revenue of at least $6MM.

* Assisted portfolio companies with their business and product strategies, including a comprehensive overhaul of social networking site Tribe.net’s classified listing business model and service offering.


Consultant, Global Product Management
Overture Services (Yahoo! Inc), 2003

Provided business and product strategy consulting services to Overture Services, a global leader in commercial search services on the Internet.

* Developed the business case, product strategy and product design for a new line of business, Overture Advertiser Web Services (AWS). Drove implementation, including product development, co-selling of major accounts, and licensee integration and support. By the end of 2003, $400MM of Overture's paid listing revenue was managed through AWS.

* Core member of a small team that defined "Indy", a strategic project aimed at closing the competitive gap with Google. Indy launched in Summer 2003, meeting expectations by adding $85MM to 2003 revenues and significantly improving Overture's competitive position.


Director, Product Management
Ofoto.com, Inc. (Eastman Kodak), 2001-2002

Oversaw all products and services for the leading online digital photography e-commerce service.

* Managed a team of 12, constituting Ofoto’s Product Management, Product Marketing, Creative Services, Merchandising and Usability functions.

* Created and improved processes, products, services, and sales channels leading to 300% annualized revenue growth ($30MM run rate for FY02).

* Sourced, evaluated, negotiated and managed multiple vendor solutions.


Director, Product Management
MyFamily.com, Inc, 2000-2001

Oversaw all products and services for the top online family site, with over 1.5MM active users.

* Motivated, managed and coached a staff of 7 Product Managers.

* Partnered with Biz Dev and Ad Sales to close multiple $1MM+ deals.

* Worked with executive team to convert the service to a break-even subscription model.

* Participated in M&A due-diligence activities. Led product integration efforts of acquired companies.

* Reengineered the rapid development process. Implemented new process for the evaluation and prioritization of medium and large-scale initiatives.


VP, Product Development (co-founder)
WishClick, Inc, 1999-2000

Managed the ground-up design, development, operation and strategy for WishClick, a b-b-c e-commerce ASP providing networked gift registry functionality to top online retailers.

* Recruited and managed the 12 person Product Development group.

* Led all aspects of the on-time, on-budget, twelve week $1.1MM ideation to live service process.

* Established vendor relationships, negotiated pricing and specified hardware, software and service levels for the site’s $0.6MM development and production environments, and co-location services.

* Co-sold retailer partnerships. Conducted sales force training and authored all sales collateral.

* Developed and managed internal processes for retailer partner integration, site operation, release engineering, defect tracking, marketing promotions, retailer reporting and merchandising.

* Raised $7.5MM from angels, Mentor Ventures and eCompanies.


Senior Product Manager
PointCast, Inc., 1997-1998

Cradle to grave responsibility for PointCast's flagship desktop and enterprise products, used by over 1.5MM members. Concurrent management of multiple product lines and cross-functional teams.

* Delivered an XML-based “Universal Client” (UC); UC reduced co-brand builds from 48 to 1, and dramatically improved targeting of partner content, facilitating significant ad revenue growth.

* Recognized opportunity to ‘monetize’ client web browser traffic, adding $2MM to FY98 revenue.

* Won distribution of PointCast Mac on Mac OS 8; resulted in a 500% increase in daily users.

* Managed a high-energy, 10 week, ground-up crash redesign of PointCast’s enterprise products; products were well received by both existing and prospective customers at Fall Internet World ’97.


Producer and Sr. Technical Developer
Davidson & Associates (Vivendi Universal), 1994-1997

Managed product development for Vital Links (a six-time award winning multimedia U.S. History product) and Educast (a ground-breaking content delivery network for teachers and administrators).

* Led a multi-disciplinary team of 30 software, sound and video engineers, producers, SQA testers, and graphic artists through development and launch of Vital Links’ three year, $4.5MM build-out.

* Developed 3 of the 7 Vital Links software applications on both the Mac and Windows platforms; project managed the in-house and external contract development of the remaining four apps.

* Sourced and negotiated key content and technology licensing agreements.


Additional industry work experience (1988-1994) available upon request
- posted by Tony Gentile @ 4:26 PM