I make things.
Technology Evangelist (I believe this stuff.)
Convergent Platforms (And mix ‘em up.)
Broadcast Experience (Bright lights. Big brands.)
Digital Product Development (A Maker.)

Senior Manager, Business Development – Ecosystems & Platforms
AT&T
March 2013 – Present
Princeton, NJ
After a three-year baptism by fire in “telco” jargon, processes and systems at Alcatel-Lucent it was time to go straight to the source at AT&T. Most of our team shifted into Alexander Graham Bell’s former company with the sole intention of affecting change from the inside-out. As the Ecosystems & Platforms team we’re leading the efforts to transition AT&T into a platform company – ala. AWS, Google, etc. Thus far we’ve released three API-based products for our enterprise customers and educated hundreds of employees and customers on the value of an API-centric approach to new product development.

• Responsible for generating and maintaining a multi-million dollar business development pipeline for our enterprise API products.
• Developed and facilitated AT&T Innovate 2013, a two day customer forum held in Dallas, TX. In partnership with InnovationGames.com, engaged C-Level representatives from traditional AT&T customers in a new and innovative format.
• Created a half-dozen API product demonstration applications for soon-to-be-released AT&T APIs and services.
• Engaged and educated our customers and account teams in a variety of industry verticals – Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare, Government and Security.

Director, Customer Evangelism – Open API Platform
Alcatel-Lucent
May 2010 – March 2013
Princeton, NJ
Alcatel-Lucent is a big, complicated company that sells big, complicated software, hardware and services. Someone’s got to explain what they do – that’s my job. I managed a world-wide, rockstar team of developers and evangelists. We were responsible for delivering the right message at the right time to turn “potential” customers into “paying” customers. Often paired with regional sales teams – who may or may not know the difference between an “API” and an “App” – it was our job to unearth what the customer needed, learn their business inside and out, and tailor our message to their specific needs. We’d often find ourselves standing in front of a room full of “suits” and “geeks,” and we’d need to speak both languages – else we’d lose our street cred. Need an iPad app to demonstrate your wicked cool network API? Done. Need a demo? Tomorrow? On the other side of the world? No problem.

• Executed dozens of proof-of-concept deployments for customers in Europe, Asia and North America, leading to new sales opportunities for Alcatel-Lucent products and services.
• Launched Open API Labs, a site dedicated to exposing Alcatel-Lucent APIs to developers. Intended to generate interest in new APIs and gather feedback from developers to further enhance and refine the final product.
• Conceived and launched “$40,000 iPad Challenge” developer contest, resulting in more than a dozen fully functional iPad applications in less than four weeks that utilized Alcatel-Lucent APIs. Personally demonstrated to executive management teams of “Tier 1″ mobile carriers in the United States.
• Conceived and launched “100 Apps In 100 Days” developer contest, resulting in more than 160 submissions from 200 developers around the world.
• Executive level demonstrations produced and delivered to more than half of the thirty largest mobile network operators globally.
• Spoke on behalf of Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Enablement technology and strategies at events such as Mobile World Congress, CES, AT&T’s Developer Conference, SXSWi, GlueCon and to industry publications and analysts such as RedMonk, RCR Wireless and VanillaPlus.

Director, Product Development – Video Platform
MTV Networks
March 2009 – May 2010
New York, NY
Imagine 400 digital media properties with a variety of online video player experiences – ranging from kids watching Sponge Bob Square Pants on Nickelodeon to grown men watching UFC on Spike. Those sites were powered by more than 30 different content management systems and each had its own customized video player – that was slow to load and a pain to deploy. My team fixed that. Step one – data access (someone else was working on a unified CMS.) I was the product owner for DEXTR (Data Exchange and Transformation) a highly reliable, fault tolerant, unified data access tier for all MTVN digital properties. Bam – there’s your data. Step two – faster player deployment. I was product owner for the MTVN Broadband Media Platform and we built a cross-network online video player and video management system. You know The Platform or Brightcove? Yeah, we built it internally – instead of a costly partnership. (And did the math to prove it was cheaper and better.)

• Developed MTV Networks Player Management Tool, a video platform service for MTV Networks’ brands such as VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and more to deploy customized video experiences across their sites.
• Launched and enhanced a streamlined user experience for FLINT, an internal Flex-based web interface for creating and modifying data access feeds and services.
• Conceived and developed MTVN Player Feed Services, a services-oriented-approach to video metadata generation and standardization across the variety of MTVN digital properties.

Director, Product Development – Digital Distribution
MTV Networks
July 2007 – March 2009
New York, NY
In November of 2007 Sumner Redstone (MTVN’s owner) said, “we need to extend our content beyond our own destination sites.” Which is good, because I was already working on solving that problem for him – since July of that year. Our product development group was split into two teams – onsite and offsite – product strategy and execution for MTV’s Music & Logo group (MTV, VH1, CMT & Logo). My offsite team made widgets, APIs, podcasts, RSS feeds and Facebook Apps happen at MTV for the first time. It was pioneer days – all hands on deck and make it happen quickly. Which we did.

• Developed and launched MTV Networks Content API in conjunction with the launch of MTVMusic.com.
• Designed and managed development of the White Label Widget Framework, an internal Flash widget configuration tool that drastically decreased time to launch and dependency on external vendors for branded widgets.
• Produced over seventy-five embeddable flash widgets for MTV, mtvU, VH1, Comedy Central, The Daily Show, TV Land and more in less than six months, generating over $4 million in advertising sponsorships.

Digital Producer, MTV News
MTV Networks
July 2005 – July 2007
New York, NY
In 2005, online video was small and basically sucked. YouTube had just started and they were changing the game. MTV wanted in on the action and started MTV Overdrive – their first broadband video channel. As an MTV News producer I produced and published daily video news content for MTV.com and its online partners, in a fast-paced dynamic new media environment. I regularly got out the cameras to shoot and edit video packages, podcasts, and interviews with popular musical artists and celebrities. Red carpet events? Check. Celebrity entourages? Check. Hanging with Kanye West? Check. Those were the days …

• Established and launched the first MTV podcasts, blogs and embeddable Flash widgets.
• Enhanced live television coverage of the MTV Video Music Awards, Grammy’s, MTV Movie Awards and breaking news events with time-sensitive online content publication.

PRIOR MEDIA EXPERIENCE
Video Producer
ASAP Productions
June 2002 – July 2005

Video Director / Editor
Creative Media Communications
August 2001 – June 2002

Editor / Camera Operator
The Media Factory, Inc.
May 1998 – August 2001

EDUCATION & TRAINING

• La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA
• B.A. Communication
• Magna Cum Laude – General University Honors