IAB Ad Technology Marketplace 2014, Spotlight: Programmatic

Seraj is the Chief Strategy Officer at AcuityAds, a leading journey automation platform for omnichannel digital advertising. Seraj previously co-founded Digitas, a global digital advertising agency and Visible Measures, a third-party digital video measurement company. Over the past 25 years, Seraj has done extensive research on viewership trends across digital platforms and is an authority on consumer trends and insights guiding the future of consumer marketing.

Robert Brett is the Vice President of Programmatic Sales for Viacom Media Networks, where he oversees the company’s sales efforts in the automated and data-driven advertising marketplace. Brett has held multiple sales and management roles during his 20-year career at Viacom Media Networks, covering both Television and Digital direct sales responsibilities.

Viacom Media Networks is among the most vibrant, diverse and culturally relevant collections of brands in media and entertainment, differentiating itself in the marketplace by leveraging both audience and content for its partners. MTV is the cultural home of the Millennial Generation. Nickelodeon is the number one brand for kids. Comedy Central is the number one brand in comedy.

Dennis leads Meta’s efforts to more effectively collaborate with the advertising ecosystem on standards and solutions related to privacy, ads measurement, brand safety, and more. Dennis joined Meta in 2021 after 4 years as the CEO/GM of IAB Tech Lab, the digital advertising industry’s global technical standards body. Prior to IAB Tech Lab, Dennis spent 14 years in advertising technology product leadership roles at Yahoo and Microsoft, after starting his career in software at Apple, Oracle, and a Pinterest predecessor he co-founded.  Dennis holds degrees in Computer Science and Business Economics from Brown University.

As Co-Founder and CEO of a disruptive ad tech startup, Rob works with leading publishers, agencies, and advertising industry visionaries to deliver a new standard for how digital ads are made and responsively delivered.

Dividing his time between corporate strategy and management, as well as sales and partner development, Rob brings an endless energy and entrepreneurial spirit to the company. With an unwavering focus on meeting the needs of employees, customers, investors, and the ad tech community, Rob’s innate ability to combine market insight and technology connections has enhanced Adcade and its long term viability.

Rob is an experienced sales professional with an innate ability to incorporate both strategic planning and sales blocking & tackling to remain in-tune with clients and the ever-shifting ad tech ecosystem.

After graduating from The University of Miami, Rob began his career working for the Miami-Dade Public Defenders Office, with the intention of attending law school at his alma mater. Although he was accepted and days away from starting, he decided law wasn’t for him and moved to New York. With a penchant for sales and a love of networking and building meaningful relationships, Rob soon joined Barclays Capital in Equities Sales where he worked in Sales & Trading.

Scott Cunningham is owner of Cunningham.Tech Consulting and is architect of NewsPassID ad network for the Local Media Consortium. He is author of Defining Brand Safety Series by the Brand Safety Institute (BSI), Founder of the IAB Tech Lab, principal technology and program Founder of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), former President of Media News Group Interactive and was a pioneer in the development of USATODAY.com. Additionally, Cunningham advises iSpot.tv and Madhive on measurement and CTV products among his activities.

Arturo Duran is Chief Innovation Officer at Digital First Media. Previously, Arturo held management positions at MNG and Journal Register Co., where he led the implementation of their digital first strategy.

Arturo has a long and distinguished career in the online field. Arturo has served as Chief Executive Officer of ImpreMedia Digital, LLC and President of Interactive and Business Integration for Canwest Mediaworks. There, he led the growth of online revenue of that organization to a record level and converted it into the largest Canadian news and information network with more than 50 sites. He has also held multiple executive roles in AOL Mexico, AOL Canada and AOL Latin America.

Arturo is also Managing Director at the investment arm of DFM, Digital First Ventures.

Arturo Duran was born in Mexico City. He has lived in Canada, China, Spain, France, New York City, and recently moved to Silicon Valley.

As VP Platform Solutions, Alex Gardner is responsible for helping a roster of top online publishers increase traffic and maximize earnings using online display. Alex’s leadership has played a key role in developing Index, Casale Media’s supply side management technology, and establishing MediaNet, as one of the largest online advertising networks in North America. Prior to joining Casale Media, Alex established himself in the heart of Toronto’s financial sector, starting his career at AIM Trimark Investment and then moving on to the TSX Group. This strong background in analytics and finance has enabled Alex to successfully provide publishers with strategic solutions that maximize earnings and operational efficiency.

Alanna is Head of Advertising Technology at ConsenSys, a blockchain company focused on the adoption of decentralized networks and economies. She is also the CEO of the Digital Asset Trade Association (DATA), an advocacy group formed in Davos in 2018 for Distributed Ledger Technology. DATA helps to shape public policy issues to support the growth of digital assets, digital identity, smart-contracts and digital currencies and worked extensively in Wyoming and Colorado on blockchain and cryptocurrency legislation. Prior to DATA, Alanna was Global CRO at MetaX where she oversaw product creation, strategy, and go-to-market including the adChain and adToken dApps on Ethereum and the first Token Curated Registry on the Ethereum Mainnet. Before she entered the blockchain sphere, Alanna ran global advertising standards General Manager of the IAB Tech Lab. Alanna had senior roles at Accuen/Omnicom Media Group, Condé Nast and at Admeld (acquired by Google) where she helped grow Real Time Bidding from an idea into an advertising industry mainstay.

As head of revenue for IBM Watson Advertising, Jeremy Hlavacek is responsible for all global advertising sales efforts – including direct sales, programmatic sales, agency partnerships and data partnerships – across Watson Advertising’s portfolio of media, data, and AI-powered technology solutions, which includes The Weather Company’s consumer platforms such as weather.com and The Weather Channel apps. Watson Advertising’s offerings help agencies and marketers improve decision-making and reduce costs across key facets of the marketing lifecycle – from media planning through measurement.

Previously, Hlavacek was the head of global automated monetization. In that role, he oversaw all programmatic monetization efforts globally as well as the data partnerships team, which drives off-property data and inventory partnerships with platforms and other publishers. Hlavacek was promoted from vice president of programmatic, where he was responsible for all domestic programmatic sales efforts, platform relationships and programmatic operations. Under his leadership, the programmatic business grew 500% over a 3 year period to become one of the largest and most sophisticated sell side programmatic businesses in the industry. In 2017, AdExchanger ranked The Weather Company’s programmatic business as #2 in the industry among all publishers in media and broadcasting. Hlavacek joined Weather in early 2013 as vice president of operations and strategic partnerships for the company’s WEATHERfx division, where he oversaw technology partnerships and business operations to support the WEATHERfx business.

Prior to Weather, Hlavacek was vice president of strategy and business operations at Varick Media Management, where he helped to build one of the first programmatic trading desks on the agency side. He was responsible for strategic platform partnerships in the ad tech/real-time bidding ecosystem, as well as the business and financial operations of the company.

Hlavacek’s previous experience includes building out digital marketing and gaming experiences at LEGO Toys, directing advertising strategy and business development at Dotmenu (an online food ordering startup acquired by GrubHub and now part of Seamless), and building out digital experiences for entertainment programming at CBS Television. On the agency side, Jeremy has held senior strategic roles at Ogilvy and Cadient Group, where he advised clients in healthcare, financial services and technology.

Hlavacek holds a master’s degree in business administration from Cornell University, a master’s degree in media and communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary.

George is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Media Rating Council (MRC), a not-for-profit industry organization created in 1963 at the request of the U.S. Congress to assure high ethical and operational standards in audience measurement services. His background includes almost 30 years of experience in media research auditing, oversight, and consulting. Prior to being appointed the Executive Director of the MRC in January 2000, George was a partner at Ernst & Young and their lead representative and advisor to the MRC, conducting all MRC audits and interacting with MRC management and member organizations. George has a thorough knowledge of research best practices, operations, controls, and information systems in internet, multimedia, print, radio, and television measurement services.

As the first Chief Data Officer ever at a media agency, Bob Ivins leads the advanced analytics group, Marketing Science. In addition he is responsible for the continual enhancement and leverage of data assets and partnerships to creating actionable consumer insights for clients. A real-time–a philosophy Mindshare has termed “Adaptive Marketing.”

As one of the leaders of THE LOOP, a proprietary operating system for the agency, Bob architects partnerships that fuel the system with data, including BuzzFeed and The Weather Channel. The system is the first of its kind to impact paid media as well as earned and owned, whereby media dollars are quickly shifted and redeployed to leverage opportunities uncovered by data.

Bob comes to Mindshare with decades of experience in the data and information space. Most recently Bob was vice-president of Comcast Business Intelligence Group where he was responsible for generating insights from first-party data collected by Comcast. He also supported Comcast’s advanced advertising initiatives including addressable advertising and ROI analytics.

Previously Bob held senior roles a comScore, Yahoo, Nielsen and I/ PRO – an early mover is server log analytics.

Bob is a recognized innovator in data and analytics space and has been quoted widely in the trade and top-tier press, including Financial Times, The Economist, and CNBC, among others.

Carl Kalapesi is VP, Industry Initiatives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). He leads IAB initiatives on programmatic marketing which focusses on bring together publishers, buyers & ad tech to discuss key business issues in making programmatic and automation work for all. He is also responsible for overseeing IAB industry product portfolio through its Committees and Councils including Native Advertising, Programmatic, Audio, Digital out of Home, Social Media, Games, Data and more that help solve operational inefficiencies, grow the marketing and media industries and attract and retain 700 IAB member companies. He is responsible for ensuring IAB’s best practices development, thought leadership seminars, whitepapers, research and other market making activities are of the highest quality and deliver value for money for IAB member dues.

Carl has over 15 years global experience in digital, management consulting, public policy and economic research. Prior to joining IAB, Carl was a Project Leader in BCG’s Digital Economy practice area specializing on the technology, internet, digital innovation and big data. He also ran the WEF’s Personal Data project on how best to unlock the value of personal data and address privacy concerns.

Bob is IBM Senior Vice President, The Weather Company and Alliances. He is responsible for driving growth within the The Weather Company, Watson Advertising, and TradeLens – a blockchain-based platform that is digitizing the global supply chain and transforming trade. In addition, Bob is responsible for driving IBM’s strategic partnership transactions to enable the company’s growth and focus on embedding its hybrid cloud and AI technology platform.

In his previous role as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems, Bob successfully launched IBM’s global ecosystem model, guided by an unwavering commitment to open innovation within the ecosystem. He transformed how the company engages with partners and developers to ensure client success using an open hybrid cloud approach infused with AI.

In his role overseeing IBM’s ecosystem of developers, Bob launched Call for Code, the largest and most ambitious effort to bring together the world’s software developers to take on pressing societal issues by using the latest advanced technologies to problem solve and create cutting-edge solutions. Winning solutions are successfully incubated, field-tested, and deployed in communities where they can make the greatest impact, driving immediate and lasting humanitarian progress. To date, more than 500,000 developers and problem solvers across 180 nations have answered the call. Bob joined IBM in 2016 as the company’s first Chief Digital Officer with a mission to change how IBM innovation is delivered and consumed by the world’s leading organizations.

Prior to IBM, Bob served as President of AOL, leading the company through its evolution into a leading, global advertising platform. He also served as CEO of Razorfish, a pioneering digital transformation consultancy helping companies like Cisco, Condé Nast, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Pfizer redefine their brands for the digital age.

Bob’s experience and passion made him an active member of the TED community, board member for the Partnership for New York City and Aqua Finance, a Blackstone Company and former board member for Williams-Sonoma and Screen Vision Media. He is one of CRN’s 50 “Most Influential” channel chiefs and the author of Converge: Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology.

He began his career as an engineer, graduating from Syracuse University with a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and holds an MBA from Harvard University.

Sherrill Mane joined the IAB in 2007 as our first SVP Industry Services. Sherrill has led industry efforts to establish metrics and build measurement systems that facilitate the growth of interactive media. Sherrill is responsible for numerous IAB initiatives, including fostering greater awareness of interactive advertising opportunities in the traditional media agency community. She oversees the creation of market-making research and the collateral materials associated with findings that grow the business. Since 2011, Sherrill has been the IAB lead on the groundbreaking cross ecosystem collaboration with the agencies (4A’s) and marketers (ANA) known as Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS). Previously, she spent 14 years at Turner Broadcasting Sales, holding a variety of senior advertising sales support positions for the News division, most recently as Senior Vice President of Market Strategy. Earlier in her career, she held diverse positions at Nielsen Media Research and Group W Satellite Communications. Sherrill draws on her experience in TV and digital sales marketing to lead IAB’s Sales Executive Council. She holds a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her graduate studies focused on the social psychology of mass media.

In 2012, Sherrill was named a Media Maven by Advertising Age.

Lou Mastria, CIPP, CISSP, is currently Executive Director of the Digital Advertising Alliance, where he leads U.S. and global efforts for self-regulation, consumer transparency and choice in the delivery of interest-based advertising online. The DAA (www.aboutads.info) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (www.youradchoices.com) was launched in 2010 by a consortium of the nation’s largest media and marketing associations. Mastria joined DAA in 2012, and has represented DAA in testimony before Congress, in technology meetings of the World Wide Web Consortium and in other industry and policymaking events.

Mastria also has served as Chief Privacy Officer at both regulated and self-regulated organizations, serving at the Direct Marketing Association, Canoe Ventures, LLC (a joint venture of the nation’s six largest cable companies), and DataLogix Corp., a leading provider of database services.

Mastria is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) through the International Association of Privacy Professionals and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.

Wenda Harris Millard is Vice Chair of MediaLink LLC, a leading strategic advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction to the media, advertising and entertainment industries and to companies and investors that interact with those sectors.

Before joining MediaLink, Wenda was Co-CEO and President, Media for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. She joined MSLO after three years as a member of its Board of Directors. Before MSLO, Wenda was Chief Sales Officer at Yahoo. Prior to Yahoo, she was Chief Internet Officer at Ziff Davis Media and President of Ziff Davis Internet. Wenda was also a founding member of the executive team at DoubleClick, where she served as Executive Vice President responsible for establishing the DoubleClick brand and overseeing the operations of DoubleClick Media. She has also served as President and Group Publisher of SRDS, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Family Circle and Executive Vice President/Group Publisher of Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek magazines.

Wenda has received numerous industry awards including being named in 2012 one of the “100 Most Influential Women in Advertising in the Last 100 Years”; the 2011 Oracle Award from Springboard; the 2009 ad:tech Lifetime Achievement Award; the 2007 John A. Reisenbach Award for Distinguished Citizenship; the 2006 “Advertising Person of the Year” Silver Medal Award from the AAF and the 2005 Matrix Award for “Women Who Change the World”. Advertising Age also acknowledged her as a “Digital Media Master” — one of the 20 most influential executives in interactive media. She was the subject of a profile by Tom Brokaw as part of NBC’s “Women to Watch” series.

David has over 40 years of experience finding new ways of making technologies work for marketers – from the early ad networks to search engine marketing, behavioral targeting and big data. David serves as Chief Executive Officer of BritePool, an emerging company focused on “identity” management in an era of regulation and data resolution. He founded and led 24/7 Media’s (now Xaxis) growth from start-up to a leader in digital marketing and ad technology. David is an ex officio member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He served as IAB’s Chairman from 2009 to 2011 and has been an active member since 2002. David is Vice-Chairman of the Advertising Educational Foundation, serves on the board of Throtle and is an Advisor to Lucidity and Aqilliz, both a blockchain startups in the digital advertising industry.

He is married with two children, Chris and Alexis, and has two grandchildren. He is a triathlete and has completed over 50 races including an Ironman, run 20 marathons and swam the English Channel in a relay with 3 other swimmers. He is hiding in Florida until the coronavirus goes away.

Geoff is a respected online advertising veteran, bringing to Operative more than 15 years’ experience and a firsthand understanding of publishers’ needs for effectively running their business. As VP of Product Innovation, Geoff guides Operative’s market strategy for the software suite domestically and internationally; acts as a liaison between customers, sales and development; and is continually developing solutions to evolving publisher challenges. Geoff is also an active participant in industry-wide efforts, and is currently one of the co-chairs of the IAB Digital Advertising Automation Task Force.

GGeoff joined Operative in 2006 from Interactive Corporation (IAC) where he was Director of Sales Development. There, he was responsible for the online advertising strategy of properties such as Ticketmaster, Match.com, Expedia and Evite. Prior to his time with IAC, Geoff served as Director of Advertising Systems at Edmunds.com.

Ruth Rafalovich is the Director of Supply for Rocket Fuel, overseeing all of Rocket Fuel’s supply and exchange relationships. This includes inventory across display, social, video, and mobile. Ruth has been instrumental at Rocket Fuel in advocating for fair RTB auction practices and policies across the industry.

Ruth is passionate about all things programmatic/RTB. She’s a big supporter of auction transparency and promotes anti-fraud measures across the industry. As an active industry thought leader in efforts to reduce and battle fraud, Ruth promotes comprehensive education among buyers, exchanges, and publishers. She works closely with Rocket Fuel’s Director of Privacy and Inventory Quality to enforce strict brand-safety controls with each partner in order to avoid and eliminate the supply of fraudulent inventory.

Prior to joining Rocket Fuel, Ruth held positions at DoubleClick/Google, TRUSTe, Collective Media, Omniture, and Speedera/Akamai.

Randall Rothenberg is the Executive Chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for digital media and marketing in the United States. Among the IAB’s 750 member companies are such major platforms as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Snap; the nation’s most important ad-supported media companies, including The New York Times, Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal, ViacomCBS, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, Verizon Media, Hulu, Warner Media, LinkedIn, and Meredith; incumbent and disruptor brands, including Coca-Cola, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Hubble Contacts, ThirdLove, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and Citigroup; and scores of technology and data companies, among them Mediamath, LiveRamp, Quantcast, and Pubmatic.

With these members and its 47 affiliate associations on every inhabited continent, the IAB and its sister technology-standards group, the IAB Tech Lab, serve as the digital marketing industry’s public policy and lobbying organization, market and consumer research center, training and development base, and hub for the development of standards and best practices.

Mr. Rothenberg joined the IAB in January 2007 as President and Chief Executive Officer, and led the organization until becoming Executive Chair in September 2020. During his tenure, the organization became one of the largest and most influential media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, and professional development programs to protect consumer privacy, foster brand and media revenue growth, improve data security, and reduce supply chain friction in the digital marketing industry.

Prior to his IAB role, Mr. Rothenberg was the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Director of Intellectual Capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, the international strategy and technology consulting firm, where he oversaw business development, knowledge management, and thought leadership activities, and directed the award-winning quarterly business magazine strategy+business, Strategy+Business Books, www.strategy-business.com, and other electronic and print publications for senior business executives.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Rothenberg spent six years at The New York Times, where he was the technology editor and politics editor of the Sunday magazine, the daily advertising columnist, and a media and marketing reporter. For 10 years, he was a marketing and media columnist for Advertising Age. Mr. Rothenberg has written for a score of major national magazines, among them Esquire, GQ, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, and New York Magazine. He is the author of four books, including Where the Suckers Moon: An Advertising Story (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), a critically-acclaimed chronicle of the birth, evolution, and death of a single advertising campaign.

Mr. Rothenberg, an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer, serves on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Photography and the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review. He received an undergraduate degree in Classics from Princeton and lives in New York City.

Charles Schenck is the VP of Programmatic Sales and Strategy at Meredith Corporation and responsible for organizing and leveraging data and insights across Meredith’s Digital Network, which reaches 50 million unique monthly visitors. In this newly created position, Schenck reports to Carolyn Bekkedahl, SVP/Digital Sales.

Schenck joined Meredith Digital from Pubmatic where he served as VP/Publisher Development and was responsible for overseeing the sales and services team for the company’s publisher-focused Strategic Sales Platform (SSP). His background also includes serving as GM/Strategic Publisher Accounts for Krux Digital, a global leader in publisher focused data management platform products and services.

In addition, Schenck has held senior leadership positions with a diverse range of media companies including serving as VP/Integrated Sales & Development for American Express Publishing; Associate Publisher for In Touch Weekly; and Managing Director of Sales and Marketing for Hearst-Stratosfera, the largest lifestyle publisher in Central Europe.

Schenck holds a B.A. from Skidmore College, and resides with his family in Stamford, Conn. He is based in Meredith’s New York City offices on Third Avenue.

Jay Sears is SVP Marketplace Development for the Rubicon Project, working with management, business unit heads and business development across the company to expand Rubicon’s potential market. Sears has also served as GM, REVV Buyer, where he was responsible for global relations with the buy side including ad holding companies, ad agencies, agency trading desks and demand side platforms headquartered in North America.

Prior to joining Rubicon, Sears was General Manager of the PulsePoint Ad Exchange for PulsePoint (FKA ContextWeb, Inc.). At PulsePoint, Sears brought new products to market and drove key strategic relationships resulting in audience and revenue acquisition. Most recently, he focused on the company’s real-time bidding (RTB) initiatives with ad networks, agency trading desks and demand side platforms (DSPs).

Sears joined ContextWeb in 2004 and helped build its media business from inception. He created the company’s original publisher development team and launched the self-service ContextWeb Exchange Selling Desk, in use by over 11,000 web publishers today. He then oversaw the subsequent launch of ContextWeb’s self-service offering for advertisers—the ContextWeb Exchange Buying Desk and its inside sales team. In 2011, ContextWeb merged with Datran Media to form PulsePoint.

Prior to joining ContextWeb in 2004, Sears was SVP Business & Strategy Development for EDGAR Online, where he drove the strategy that took the company from an under $1 million entrepreneurial business to a publicly traded NASDAQ company. He created over 300 partnerships including ones with Yahoo!, The NASDAQ Stock Market and Microsoft. Prior to EDGAR Online, he served as VP Marketing for Wolff New Media, the subject of Burn Rate by Vanity Fair media columnist Michael Wolff.

Sears speaks about internet advertising at various industry events including Advertising Week (New York and London), CannesLions, IAB, iMedia, Monaco Media Forum, OMMA, Search Engine Strategies, UBS, WebmasterWorld and interactive marketing associations including ones in Boston, Chicago and Dallas. He co-chairs the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Advertising Technology Advisory Board and is the former co-chair of the Ad Networks and Exchanges Committee and helped write its Quality Assurance Guidelines. Sears received the 2009 President Award from The Advertising Club. He is the hyperlocal publisher behind the local media site MyRye.com, provides commentary at JaySears.com and tweets from @jaysears. Sears holds a BA in political science from Kenyon College. He lives in Rye, NY with his wife Lauren Rosen and their three boys.

Vivek Shah is CEO of Ziff Davis, Inc., a leading digital media company specializing in the technology market. Shah was formerly group president, digital for Time Inc.’s news, business and sports properties, which include Time.com, Life.com, CNNMoney.com, SI.com, FanNation.com, Golf.com and SIKids.com.

Previously, Shah served as president of the Fortune/Money Group, which included the magazines Fortune, Money and Fortune Small Business and the website CNNMoney.com. Prior to that, Shah served as president of digital publishing of the group where he oversaw the launch of CNNMoney.com, the Web’s largest vertical business site.

Previously, Shah was the general manager of the group, functioning as its senior financial and business development executive, helping to develop and implement strategy and manage day-to-day operations. Prior to that, Shah was the vice president of new business ventures of the group, where he was responsible for launching and managing a portfolio of new businesses.

Shah has been named Online Publisher of the Year by MIN and Innovator of the Year by BtoB’s Media Business. Shah was also named to Folio magazine’s Thirty under 30 list and Crain’s Forty under 40 list. He has a B.A. in political science from Tufts University.

Dr. Bill Simmons is the brain behind DataXu’s core technology, which he developed while earning his PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Bill came to DataXu with true rocket science credentials: he developed and tested real-time flight software for guidance, navigation and control of the Atlas family of space launch vehicles. He is an expert in optimal system design and in developing reliable real-time software — skills he put to use when he co-founded DataXu.