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American City Business Journals
Strategic Investor
American City Business Journals is the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers. American City metropolitan business newspapers reach 4 million readers each week with exclusive, in-depth coverage of their business communities. The loyalty of these readers testifies to American City's commitment to top-quality journalism, unexcelled service for advertisers and readers, and active business community involvement.
Richard Tahta
Rikki Tahta co-founded Covestor with a group of entrepreneurs who believe that salaried fund managers have no monopoly on investment talent and shouldn't have a lock on the rewards that come with investment success. Rikki has held a number of senior roles in Finance and Information Services. Previous start-ups include ARK Information (acquired by Thomson Financial), WebTrack (acquired by Jupiter Communications - later public on NASDAQ), Steelhead Systems (acquired by Merrill Lynch) and Bookpages (acquired by Amazon.com). Other positions include Chase Capital Partners (private equity) and Thomson Financial (Securities Data Corporation). Rikki lives in New York and loves fishing.
Simon Murdoch
Simon set up online bookstore Bookpages in 1996 and sold it to Amazon in 1998. As VP Europe for Amazon, he managed huge growth from start-up through to multimillion turnover and hundreds of staff. In 2000 Simon co-founded and became a partner of Episode 1 Partners, an early stage technology VC which managed the $100m Chase Episode 1 Fund. Episode 1 invested in nine businesses, notably the successful Betfair.com. As an Angel investor, he has invested in Shazam, been chairman of Video Island (now merged with and renamed LoveFilm), Zoopla! (where he is currently a director) and Shutl (currently chairman). Recently, Simon founded and funded FriendsAbroad.com, a social network for developing language skills and contacts abroad which was successfully sold to Lesson Nine GmbH, operators of language learning site Babbel.com. Simon is currently CEO of StormForward, an e-commerce conversion consultancy which helps online retailers to increase their online sales and profits
Gary Mueller
Gary Mueller is founder and Chairman of ISI Emerging Markets, one of the most widely-used-on-line business information service of emerging markets. In 1999, Euromoney Institutional Investor, purchased ISI and the company operates as an independent subsidiary. In June 2000, Mr. Mueller was appointed to the parent company's Board of Directors. Mr. Mueller is also a Chairman of Euromoney subsidiary, Information Management Network and runs Euroweek and structured Finance International, two international finance publications. Prior to starting ISI, Mr. Mueller did research at Harvard University on economic and democratic reform in the former Soviet bloc, and then worked for KPMG's privatization group in Poland. Mr. Mueller serves on the Board of Directors of Endeavor, a non-profit organization suporting entrepreneurship in emerging markets, and the Board of Advisors of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School.
Roland Beaulieu
Roland Beaulieu has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. He served as Chief Operating Officer of CCBN and was also the head of CCBN's Institutional Management Group, which successfully launched "StreetEvents," a corporate reporting tool which became the defacto standard of Wall Street institutions. Before his tenure at CCBN, Roland spent 13 years in a variety of positions at Thomson Financial. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Trading Service Division, and played a key role as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in building the technology behind Thomson's First Call. Most recently, Roland was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at GrandBanks Capital and formerly the Chief Executive Officer of NewRiver, Inc.
Tom Aley
Tom Aley is a venture investor and startup advisor. Previously, he served as SVP and Managing Director of Dow Jones' Business and Relationship Intelligence group. Tom joined Dow Jones when it acquired a company he co-founded, Generate Inc. With over 20 years experience in the information, software, and media industries, Tom has a proven track record of driving sales and building and investing in successful companies. Prior to founding Generate, Tom was a Partner at Reed Elsevier Ventures, the venture arm of the $8 billion media company where he co-led investments. Earlier, Tom was executive vice president at Stonepath Group, a VC firm, where he co-led the company's initial public offering. Previous to Stonepath, Tom co-founded OneZero Media and served as executive vice president of sales. Prior to OneZero, Tom was a founding director at ZDNet, where he launched and managed the company's e-commerce business unit, Computershopper.com. Prior to ZDNet, Tom headed eastern regional sales at Shiva Corporation. Tom serves on the Outsell Content Board, and also on the board of the Jericho Road Project. Tom has served on boards of iPhrase, Nextpage, the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), SIIA, and Northeastern University's High Technology MBA Program.