Management Team
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Dan Cohen, CEO
Dan oversees all aspects of Pageflakes' rapidly growing worldwide business and has an integral role in driving the company's product vision. Dan is a seasoned entrepreneur and startup CEO, and is an expert in personalized homepages. Prior to Pageflakes he was the head of My Yahoo!, Yahoo's personalized homepage, and before that led product management for personalized products at Google, including the Google Personalized Homepage. Previously, Dan was the founder and CEO of two technology companies, Personity and USConnect, and led their acquisitions by Openwave and IKON, respectively. He also held key senior management positions at IKON Technology Services, including Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Director of Applications Development. Dan holds a dual Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dan stays on top of his interests and hobbies using his public Pageflakes page.
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Pat Ransil, Vice President Engineering
Most recently, he was a General Manager at Amazon, leading their (top-secret) A2Z new technology group. Before that, he was VP of Engineering at OpenTV/Wink Communications, a leading provider of interactive TV to over 45 millions international users, including partnerships with leading telecommunications providers. Pat was also part of the management team that took Wink public. Before Wink, he held engineering, research, and engineering management roles at Caere/Calera recognition systems, Intel, Lockheed and Imagic, where he led the engineering team that worked on games for Atari and Mattel video game consoles. On the research side, Pat worked extensively with artificial intelligence, neural networks, pattern recognition and algorithm development. Pat holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.
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Laurence Nathanson, Vice President Business Development
Laurence is responsible for setting business development strategy and oversees all strategic partnership initiatives. He brings to Pageflakes a successful 18-year international background in business development, marketing, and licensing. Prior to Pageflakes, he worked for 11 years in the Internet space for companies including: FriendFinder, GoFish, AnchorFree, RentNet, ShowMeTV, and NetProspect. These firms engaged in a wide range of business models encompassing: eCommerce, advertising, subscription, and affiliate structures. Before this, Laurence worked in Tokyo Japan for Electronic Arts, where he was responsible for software licensing and regional business development. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University. In his free time enjoys many outdoor activities including scuba diving, skiing, tennis, hiking, and bicycling.
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Thanos Diacakis, Senior Director Product Management
Thanos oversees our Product Management team and is responsible for the product vision & innovation that deliver a compelling and engaging experience for our end-users. Previously Thanos served as Chief Technology Officer at Personity, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the product and technology vision. After Personity was acquired by Openwave Systems, Thanos spent the next five years there leading product management and engineering for a variety of new product ideas for the mobile market. Thanos has extensive experience working with standardization groups, such as the Open Mobile Alliance, and is the author of three US patents. Thanos holds a Master of Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon, and a Bachelor of Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College, London.
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Omar AL Zabir, Chief Technology Officer
Omar co-founded Pageflakes and developed the core framework of the service. As the CTO of Pageflakes and the mastermind behind the software architecture, he heads the continued development of the core product. Omar started programming at the age of ten, winning the Best Competitor Award in a nationwide programming contest. Since then he developed projects for companies like HP, Bank of America, Citibank and other companies in the US, Australia, Germany and Bangladesh. Back in the days when AJAX was still known as a washing detergent, Omar was already busy developing ground-breaking interactive Web technologies. Today Omar is one of the world's foremost AJAX experts. Omar holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Sciences from the American International University of Bangladesh and maintains a popular blog on .NET technology.
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Founders
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Christoph Janz, Co-founder
Christoph is a co-founder of Pageflakes and has more than ten years of experience in designing software applications and Internet services for consumers. Back in 1997, Christoph co-founded German Internet startup DealPilot.com, one of the first comparison shopping services which got funded by Bertelsmann and has later been acquired by Shopping.com. Before and after that he was involved in various software projects and Internet startups. Christoph frequently posts on Pageflakes' blog and occasionally on his private blog.
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Ole Brandenburg, Co-founder
Ole, co-founder of Pageflakes, oversees the international development initiatives of the company. He was part of the alando.de team, the German auction site, which was acquired by eBay in 1999. Ole subsequently helped eBay Germany develop the German and UK market. After that, he held marketing and business development positions for several other Internet companies including Jamba, which he co-founded, Dooyoo and MyBet. He also worked for German media giant Bertelsmann. Ole holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a double major in E-Commerce and Management. He also holds a Master of Business Administration with a specialization in E-Business from Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Check out his Pagecast which showcases his favorite NBA team. Ole also holds the (rather questionable) record for most own goals scored for the Salisbury Scorpions Soccer Team.
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