Overview

Team

Executive Team	Board of Directors
Laurent Gil » Chief Executive Officer Jason Mitura » Chief Product Officer Prof. Mikhail Schlesigner » Lead Scientist Dr. Yuriy Musatenko » Chief Technology Officer Dennis Melentyev » General Manager for Ukraine Andrey Yatsunenko » VP of Engineering Marisol MacGregor» Head of Product Management	John Albright » Yuri Frayman » Brian Mesic » Kuk Yi »

Executive Team

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Laurent Gil

Chief Executive Officer

Laurent leads the company's technology, marketing, business, and corporate development strategy as the CEO of Viewdle. He has a seasoned background in Finance and Computer Science, with accomplishments ranging from technology investment banking in Asia and the US to mobile and internet entrepreneurship in Latin America and Africa.

Laurent spent over 5 years in investment banking as a Senior Investment Banker in corporate finance and capital markets at the French investment bank Credit Agricole, with assignments in New York, Tokyo, and Paris.

During his MBA at Wharton, Laurent co-founded a boutique investment bank in Brazil which completed large transactions in the telecom sector in Latin America. Through this experience, he co-founded and served as CFO of TAHO, a wireless internet service provider in Rio de Janeiro, which raised US $10MM in 2001 to develop a broadband wireless internet network in Latin America. Before leaving Brazil, he co-founded IdeaValley, the leading provider of electronic paper in Latin America.

Most recently, Laurent spent 2 years in West Africa deploying wireless networks in high schools, for a non-profit organization he founded.

Laurent has a MBA from the Wharton School of Business, Philadelphia, USA (2003), a Master of Science degree in Mathematics and Signal Processing from the French graduate Engineering school, Supelec; a post-graduate degree in Management from the College des Ingenieurs in Paris, France, and is a Summa Cum Laude graduate from The University of Bordeaux in France with a B.S. in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science.

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Jason Mitura

President

As Viewdle's President, Jason focuses on finding new opportunities for Viewdle's technology in consumer applications — from desktop to mobile phones. Jason was previously the CEO of Blogstar, a white label provider of content management, video social networking, and e-commerce solutions for large-scale content owners and brands. Blogstar worked with celebrities such as Bam Margera and Kelly Slater to build interactive fan experiences.

Prior to Blogstar, he was the Co-Founder and President of Operator11 Exchange Corporation, a leading-technology video social network, which was sold one year after its founding. Operator11 developed a browser-based multi-user video broadcast and syndication platform as its core technology. Core innovations included low latency switching between multiple video streams, a community-based live video production environment, and social syndication tools that pushed the stream live throughout the web. He grew Operator11's production studio in Hollywood to having tens of thousands of hours of videos viewed in a day and more than 40 shows produced per week; from nightly concerts to a web news desk.

At the start of his career, Jason founded Featured Publications which published a quarterly magazine and restaurant-focused mass mailers. Featured's content was licensed from publishers like Conde Nast, and was complemented with high-profile national advertisers and local business. This was an offshoot of his experience working with the online music and video startup Ruckus Networks, where he built and managed its new customer acquisition and marketing teams. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of Southern California, and studied in the highly selective Business-CinemaTelevision program.

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Prof. Mikhail Schlesinger

Lead Scientist

Prof. Mikhail Schlesinger is the lead scientist and a head of Viewdle’s SAB (Scientific Advisory Board), a board which plays a key role in defining and implementing core algorithms of Viewdle products. Currently Prof. Schlesinger is Chief researcher for the International Research and Training Center of Information Technologies and Systems, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Professor of National Technology University of Ukraine. Prof. Schlesinger received his MSCS degree in 1962 with thesis in "Unsupervised Tuning of Control Systems", and a PhD degree in theoretical cybernetics in 1968 for the development of theory and algorithms for unsupervised pattern recognition. Prof. Schlesinger is recognized in the worldwide scientific community as a leading researcher in the area of unsupervised pattern recognition algorithms, application of 2D-Grammars to image recognition and optimal labeling problems. These theories and algorithms play a key role in processing and syntactical analysis of graphical images (music scores, maps, drawings), texture analysis, image segmentation, and binocular stereovision. In 1988 and 1997 Prof. Schlesinger received the State Award of Ukraine for outstanding achievements in science and technology. As a recognized leader in scientific circles, Prof. Schlesinger took membership in several program committees for international conferences such as: CAIP ’01 "Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns" (Warsaw, Poland, 2001), CAIP ’99 "Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns"(Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1999), Joint IAPR International Workshops on "Syntactical and Structural Pattern Recognition" (SSPR ’2000) and "Statistical Pattern Recognition" (SPR ’2000, Alicante, Spain, 2000), International Workshop on "Statistical Techniques in Pattern Recognition" (STIPR ’97, Prague, Chech Republic 1997), International Workshop on Structural and Syntactic Pattern Recognition (SSPR ‘96, Leipzig, Germany). Prof. Schelsinger published more than 50 papers dedicated to pattern analysis and computer vision problems and authored a series of lectures "Statistical and Structural Pattern Recognition". These lectures are used in leading European Universities where Mikhail Schlesinger worked as an Invited Professor, - Czech Technical University (Prague, Czech Republic), Dresden Technical University (Germany), Masarik University (Brno, Czech Republic). Mikhail Schlesinger summarized (together with Prof. Hlavach) his methodical presentation of lecture material in the book called "Ten Lectures on Statistical and Structural Pattern Recognition, Computational Imaging and Vision", Dordrecht/Boston/London., 2002, 520 p.

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Dr. Yuriy Musatenko

Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Yuriy Musatenko is responsible for defining the Viewdle system architecture and ensuring the ultimate accuracy of metadata produced by Viewdle products, as Viewdle's CTO. Yuriy also drives research efforts, which currently target transferring the best available computer vision algorithms into the Viewdle production environment. Before the start of his software architect career in 1999, Yuriy worked in Taras Shevchenko University (Kiev, Ukraine) where he achieved a PhD degree in physics, won Taras Shevchenko award for PhD students and won a Young Scientist award from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1998. After obtaining his PhD degree, Yuriy went into commercial software development. While working for International Scientific Research Inc. for 3 years he specialized in development of math-intensive computational algorithms requiring complex optimizations. Yuriy also worked 6 months on the customer side in Detroit (MI, USA) in 2001. Overall, Yuriy achieved his guru level of knowledge and skills in signal processing, image and video compression, algorithms optimizations for real-time execution, and software development environment (C/C++, Assembler for x86, TMS320x67x, Mitsubishi M32R) for Windows and Unix platforms. Since 2003, Yuriy joined Miratech as a Project Lead, and Senior Software Engineering positions (C++/C#). Yuriy brings to Viewdle important experience of large projects, leadership, best practices and paradigms of mature software development process. Yuriy has vast experience in the development of massive document workflow systems, in particular, automated document OCR processing serving 25,000 document pages a day per server. Most recently Yuriy lead a team of 6 developers, which accomplished a project for NetworkD where the team developed a distributed software application (5 servers) serving 20,000 users. Yuriy graduated with MS degree in physics from Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Dennis Melentyev

General Manager for Ukraine

Dennis Melentyev oversees Ukrainian research and development center operations, allowing talented scientists and engineers to be concentrated on their creative and challenging tasks. Being a primary contact point in Kiev, Ukraine, Dennis represents Viewdle in CIS region, maintains relationships with academic and IT communities.
With experience ranging from web development to desktop and embedded products in the financial, telecom and automotive industries, he has managed team development and engineering processes in small and large companies since the mid-90s. Prior to joining Viewdle, Dennis served as a Technology Director at the Kiev office of Dynamo Development, Inc and Head of Embedded Center of Expertise at Luxoft Ukraine. He has a Bachelor's degree in Finance and broad practical experience in software development for local and international customers.

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Andrey Yatsunenko

VP of Engineering

Andrey Yatsunenko leads Viewdle's Mobile department, driving company efforts to port Viewdle technologies to mobile platforms. His responsibilities include research projects targeted at mitigating poor mobile sensor quality and leveraging processing capabilities of all available subsystems of mobile devices like on-chip DSP kernels and GPU co-processors, among others. Prior to Viewdle, Andrey held the roles of Lead Engineer and Project Manager in projects related to networking, communications, and image processing in commercial software development. His efforts we focused on high-load networking for companies such as CRight, Flextronics, DSPG, and Aricent. During these projects, he successfully delivered and implemented high-load network server applications capable of maintaining more than 100,000 connections over 4+ network interfaces, running in a single thread on a one core CPU (for P2P networks advertisement pushing and copyrights protection); and re-created TCP parts of the network stack on Bluetooth sockets to maintain more than 100-200 delivery-guaranteed connections over one Bluetooth dongle (designed and integrated for Bluetooth proximity advertisement pushing kiosks). Andrey initially entered the computer vision industry by joining Videoscan LLC, where he developed image processing algorithms for industrial and scientific image acquisition devices. He has a postgraduate Degree in Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

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Marisol MacGregor

Head of Product Management

Marisol MacGregor leads Viewdle's consumer insights, go-to-market strategy, and corporate positioning, aiming to make computer vision a recognizable concept. She is responsible for the company's customer-facing operations, including product and market research, user experience optimization, and product development.

Marisol has a background in marketing and product management for forward-thinking consumer technologies. Prior to Viewdle, she worked at VC-backed social entertainment network WooMe, where she headed up revenue, among other initiatives. As a member of the founding team at WooMe, she held various management roles including building out the company's marketing operations in user acquisition, retention, and viral channels. She applied an analytics-based approach to product development and marketing, implementing product features and programs that directly influenced WooMe's monetization.

Before joining WooMe, she oversaw product marketing as the Head of Marketing on the founding team of Operator11, a video social network, which was sold a year after its launch. She has founded a content aggregation publishing company and a Denmark-based, art ecommerce platform, YayArt. Marisol has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

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Board of Directors

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John Albright

John is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Relay Ventures, an early stage venture fund exclusively focused on mobile software. Previously, John founded JLA Ventures in 1996. He raised $315 million over four funds from a diverse group of institutional investors. JLA Ventures invested in early stage companies that focused on digital media and SaaS. During his tenure in the venture capital business John gained extensive experience assisting entrepreneurs shape their vision and capital plans into successful long term growth programs which typically involved an aggressive financing strategy. John has a history of assisting entrepreneurial companies through significant growth and eventually to the public markets. His ability to work with and advise senior management of investee companies, as well as his skills in filling supporting roles where existing management lack the experience or skill set, has been vital to the success of past investments.

John currently serves as a director of QuickPlay Media, Nexage, Viewdle, Padopolis, Digby, Achievers, ClearFit and Blue Ant Media. In addition, John serves as a director of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) and is an advisory board member of the North American Venture Capital Association.

John previously served on the board of Fun Technology (IPO 2003, acquired by Liberty Media 2006), Q9 Networks (IPO 2004, acquired by Abry 2008), Descartes (IPO 1997), Triple G (IPO 2001, acquired by General Electric 2003 ), Bioscrypt (IPO 2002) and Sirit (IPO 1998, acquired by Federal Signal 2010).

John is a Chartered Financial Analyst and received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

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Yuri Frayman

Yuri Frayman has over 20 years experience in providing mission critical solutions to the global legal vertical, with each iteration based on pioneering technology. Prior to Frayman Group, Frayman founded LegalKEY Technologies Inc. (LegalKEY), the leading proactive compliance solution provider to law firms. Under his leadership, LegalKEY assisted over 250 law firms to effectively audit their new business acquisition and matter-related processes, apply best practices, develop and implement supporting technologies, and assist with related training and change management before being acquired by Hummingbird Ltd. (Hummingbird) in 2003. Following the acquisition, Frayman was appointed General Manager and managed the P&L for the legal vertical business at Hummingbird and remained in charge until the acquisition of Hummingbird by Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX) in October 2006.

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Brian Mesic

Brian Mesic is a General Partner at Anthem Venture Partners. Anthem is a Santa Monica based venture fund that invests in early-stage technology companies. Anthem is usually the first institutional investor in new ventures, and the firm’s partners are dedicated to working hand-in-hand with entrepreneurs to make good things happen. Since joining Anthem in 2000, Mesic has led successful investments in pioneering companies such as Android (acquired by Google), RF Magic (acquired by Entropic), Planet ATE (acquired by Intersil), and Entropic (ENTR). Mesic currently sits on the board of directors of Blurb, CoCoDot, Meez, Plixi, Viewdle, and Zag.

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Kuk Yi

Kuk Yi is the Managing Partner of Best Buy Capital, the investment team of Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com), the leading global retailer of consumer technology products and services. He is responsible for all investment activities to create a portfolio of opportunities for Best Buy’s growth while encouraging the adoption of new technologies, solutions and services for the consumer technology ecosystem. Yi was also a founding member of Best Buy’s corporate development team when he joined in 2004 where he was responsible for supporting strategic transactions, including acquisitions and investments. Based on his work on his leadership at Best Buy and in the industry, he has been identified as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and is actively engaged in addressing global economic issues. Prior to Best Buy, Yi was a Senior Investment Manager at Samsung based in Korea and a Senior Associate at ABN AMRO Capital.

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