MEF Americas
The Americas division of MEF was conceived in April 2002 to empower the entertainment industry and all relevant players to identify the best technology, legal content usage protocols and demonstrable revenue opportunities for fulfilling the promise of the growing mobile market. The founding board included EMI, Moderati, AG Interactive, QPass, Warner Music Group and Qualcomm and was led by Ralph Simon.
MEF Americas has established itself as a thought leader at entertainment and technology conferences, such as CTIA, Digital Hollywood, NATPE and others, by co-programming panel tracks on mobile industry trends. Invitation-only events, such as the networking party at CTIA IT & Wireless 2006, bring together the “who’s who” of mobile and entertainment in an exclusive, informal setting.
Moving forward, the Los Angeles-based division is turning an eye towards regional issues as they arise in the marketplace and in government. Child protection, content advisory labels and copyright protection are all matters central to Hollywood and critical to successfully adopting entertainment to the mobile platform. MEF Americas works closely with major entertainment trade associations RIAA, AFI and MPAA and technology-focused groups DiMA and the Digital Watermarking Alliance to lend support on mutual concerns and unify both industries.
MEF Americas has localized and is leading key initiatives. The Ad-Funded Mobile Entertainment Initiative produced a VIP panel event at Digital Hollywood Santa Monica and is working to conduct a case study of the viability and consumer acceptance of content funded wholly or in part by advertising. The Education Initiative specializes in producing events that increase the traditional entertainment industry’s understanding of the mobile platform.
The diversity of companies represented on the MEF Americas board reflects the membership at large and places the Americas division at an advantage to address the concerns of all constituents. Through initiatives, policy and events, MEF Americas continues to bridge the divide between traditional entertainment companies and the leaders in the mobile industry who will help shape their future.
MEF Americas
Mariya Smith
Member Relations and
Operations Manager
Prior to joining MEF as the Americas Member Relations and Operations Manager, Mariya specialized in executive search and conducted numerous searches in the digital media and entertainment space. She brings a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a strong background in marketing and client management, having worked on several grass-roots and multi-platform marketing campaigns. She is also well versed with new technologies in digital entertainment.
Mariya holds a BA in Communications from Cal State University, Sacramento. She is based in Los Angeles.
John Glennon
Business Development Director
John has been in the mobile industry since 2000 working, and spent half of the last decade building SMS aggregator - mBlox - from a 7 person team when he joined to a 300 person organization straddling 12 countries with 7 figure per month revenues. John personally headed up Sales and Account Management in the UK and managed the roll out to Europe. He was then subsequently promoted to VP, Sales US, and grew the organization in America with similar vigor and success.
John left mBlox in 2005, and set up his own mobile consultancy, working with a focus toward operations and sales for organizations that specialized in SMS, WAP, Voice and an MVNO. With a successful track record of working in the European and US markets and having worked within aggregation, wireless ASPs and MVNOs, his history and expertise is exceptionally well rounded, if not unique in the mobile space. His accomplishments have included successfully winning and managing campaigns in wide ranging groups for clients such as Obama for America, MTV, NBCU, NPR and Madonna.
Laura Silvers
Policy and Initiatives Manager
Laura joined MEF in December 2009 as Policy and Initiatives Manager, Americas. She brings over 20 years experience in telecommunications operations and technology and has worked for a number of early stage and established companies including AT&T, T-Mobile, SunCom, Nuance, Visto (Good Technology), TELUS, GreatCall/Jitterbug, Cox Communications and others.
Some of her accomplishments include serving as the Team Lead to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluation both the Test Desk and DBA departments at Cox Communications for the Hybrid Fiber Coax Network launch; serving as the Program Manager to lead both the Retail and Web product launches at GreatCall,Inc (Jitterbug); and, working as a liaison between the business and IT for the successful insurance subscriber migration for the SunCom acquisition.
Laura received her BS in Mathematics from University or Arizona and a MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management. She currently works as a Telecommunications Consultant and is based out of Seattle.
MEF Americas Board of Directors
James J. Beddows
MEF Americas Chairman
Motorola Representative
Jim is the MEF Americas Chairman since 2008 and is presently representing Motorola on the board. His cross platform and digital media experience began in 1996 as Managing Director for Disney Interactive Asia. In 1998, he launched Disney’s first mobile services in Japan with Bandai Networks and NTT DoCoMo and partnered with Square Soft producing the multimillion console franchise, Kingdom Hearts. He was relocated to LA in 2000 as Director of Global Business Development for Disney Interactive working with leading mobile, console and broadband publishers and pioneers around the world.
Next as Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Entertainment at 20th Century Fox, Jim launched the studio’s most iconic TV and theatrical properties on mobile, including The Simpsons, Family Guy, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fight Club, Predator & Aliens.
Jim next worked for MSN Mobile (Microsoft) through 2009 where he was Head of Content & Application Partnerships. In 2007, MSN Mobile was launched as an ad-supported browse experience and has ramped to over 15 million off-deck users in the USA and is live in over twenty markets globally.
Jim is based in LA and has a BA in Economics and MA in East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia, and a MBA from Darden.
John Orlando
MEF Americas Vice-Chair
2ergo Americas, Managing Director
John Orlando is responsible for market and service strategies, corporate branding and marketing programs for LiveWire Mobile, a leading provider of mobile personalization services that include ringback tones, ringtones, full-track music and videos. LiveWire Mobile is redefining mobile personalization services by bringing together the power of entertainment with today’s in-demand services, and then pulling them together in an integrated storefront designed to engage mobile subscribers and drive higher ARPU. At LiveWire Mobile, John leads several global teams that define and create the next-generation of mobile personalization services supported by a content merchandising, and lifecycle marketing services.
Having been at the forefront of the ringback tones market, John has worked with mobile operators around the world to define and enhance their ringback tones service that today represent a $3B and growing service revenue stream. Focused on ways to drive improved service adoption and usage, John is passionate about advancing the way mobile services are marketed to end consumers.
John is the former CMO of NMS Communications, a leading applications and media processing provider.
Gary Schwartz
MEF Americas Vice-Chair
CEO, Impact Mobile
As CEO of Impact Mobile, a leading Canada-based mobile marketing solution provider, Gary has long recognized the value of deepening the footprint of MEF Americas into the Canadian mobile industry. His positions as chair and founder of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association's Mobile Content Committee and the Interactive Advertising Board's mobile committee in Canada and the US afford him a unique opportunity to move between each country with ease.
Recently, Gary has been developing policy and educational strategy and presented at the Federal Trade Commission town hall in Washington, DC.
Ron Czerny
Founder & CEO
Playphone
As founder, chief executive officer and board member, Ron Czerny (pronounced “Cher-nee”) serves as the visionary and driving force behind PlayPhone’s corporate strategy. His more than 14 years of experience in the digital entertainment industry has allowed Czerny to help establish PlayPhone’s dominance in the mobile media industry and has positioned the company to compete and thrive on a global scale.
In 2000, Czerny founded Atrativa, a mobile and Internet consumer entertainment company with operations based mainly in Latin America as chief executive officer, Czerny led Atrativa to its current status as the premier Web game provider in South America, powering several major ISPs including UOL (South America’s largest ISP), Yahoo! Brazil, AOL Brazil, MSN Brazil, Ibest (Telecom Brazil), Terra Networks (North and South America) and many others. RealNetworks, Inc. acquired Atrativa in 2006.
Czerny also played an important role in Latin America’s video game industry between 1992 and 1999 as the co-founder of the Brazilian Entertainment and Video Game Association. He also served as the president of Romstar and Sports Arcade, companies with strategic and exclusive partnerships with Capcom for video game distribution in Latin America.
Czerny holds a degree in business administration with an emphasis in international business from San Jose State University in California.
Gavin Kim
Vice President, Content & Data Services and
Enterprise Mobility
Samsung Telecommunications America
Gavin Kim is Vice President of Content & Data Services and Enterprise Mobility for Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile). Gavin has responsibility for incubating Samsung’s content/developer partnerships, and leading strategy and development of Samsung Mobile’s software products and services for wireless devices. He also has responsibility for building Samsung’s Enterprise (B2B) business in the United States.
Prior to joining Samsung, Gavin held the role of Vice President at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), an early-stage venture fund, where he focused on investments in mobile and media software companies. Gavin came to ATV from Motorola where he was responsible for product planning and operations for mobile devices with Sprint Nextel. Gavin has also held business development and management positions with PacketVideo Corporation and Ascend Communications.
Gavin holds an M.B.A from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s Degree in engineering from Cornell University.
Sanjaya Krishna
Principal & US Digital Services Leader
KPMG, LLC
Sanjaya Krishna is a Principal in the Information Communications and Entertainment practice at KPMG LLP. He has over 16 years experience in the telecommunications industry covering a variety of operational areas information systems, billing, network management and business development. Sanjaya has also worked as a Big 4 advisor to the telecom and media industries with project work covering a wider variety of operational areas. He has led projects at companies in the US, Asia and Latin America. Over the last 5 years, Sanjaya’s work has more closely focused on media and telecommunications companies digital content businesses. Sanjaya currently serves as KPMG LLP’s US Digital Services Leader. He has spoken at numerous external and KPMG-client internal conferences on the topic of digital content. He has also been a primary author on the topic of digital content for KPMG-authored and external publications. Prior to joining KPMG, Sanjaya worked at Terabeam, a Seattle, WA-area company providing telecommunications services utilizing leading-edge IP data networking technology in addition to leading-edge free-space optics technology. He also worked in the Advisory practice of Arthur Andersen from 1996 and 2000 and at MIDCOM Communications, a long-distance reseller from 1993 to 1996, both also in Seattle, WA. Sanjaya started his career in 1987 as a Financial Analyst at The Marriott Federal Employees Credit Union in the Washington, DC area. He is happy to have been elected to the MEF Americas board where he can more prominently continue his contribution to efforts supporting MEF’s mission.
Dan Mo
Sr. Program Manager
T-Mobile USA
Dan is a senior program manager at T-Mobile U.S.A. He is managing the carrier’s mobile content system and search platform. He has 19 years experience in telecom, 8 years in wireless. Previously, he consulted at AT&T Wireless and helped managed wireless data, network and IT programs. Prior to that, he helped build 3 software startup companies and launched numerous products from concept to market acceptance. Two of these start-up companies were successfully acquired by larger companies. He holds an MBA and M.Sc. in computer science. He is actively involved in non-profit organizations. He is the president of the T-Mobile Toastmaster Club and also the president of a Seattle high tech professional association of 300 members.
As a board member candidate, Dan would like to help promote win-win partnerships between carriers and content providers by utilizing his carrier, start-up company and non-profit organization leadership experiences. He wants to help content providers understand what kinds of content carriers look for and leverage carriers’ brand names, customer care and billing infrastructure to sell good content to end users through the carriers. He is passionate about mobile content and wants to help grow this industry bigger so all the players will reap the benefits!
Massimiliano Pellegrini
CEO
Dada Entertainment
Recently appointed Managing Director of Dada.net S.p.A., the subsidiary company that manages all consumer business for Dada S.p.A., a leading international provider of web and mobile community and entertainment services, Max Pellegrini has played a key role in the internationalization of the company’s D2C product, in the U.S., Spanish and Latin American markets. At the creation of Dada Entertainment LLC, a joint venture between Dada and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Max was appointed CEO in October 2007 and he still covers this role.
Before joining Dada in May 2000, Pellegrini worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), where as a Senior Manager in the Strategic Services Division he specialized in the planning and integration of complex programs of organizational change. In AC he worked with clients operating in the oil and chemistry industry and the utility sector specializing in Internet Economy as the General Manager of a start-up company held by AC.
Massimiliano Pellegrini graduated from the University of Florence in 1993 majoring in Business Administration. He later specialized in Business Finance and General Management at St. Joseph University in Philadelphia.
Soren Schafft
GM Americas
Fox Mobile
Soren Schafft is General Manager, Americas for Fox Mobile Distribution (FMD), a unit of Fox Mobile Group (FMG), the mobile industry’s largest vertically integrated mobile entertainment company, wholly-owned by News Corporation. Soren is responsible for managing mobile sales and distribution through FMG brands and offering mobile distribution services throughout the Americas.
Soren has spent the majority of his professional career leading organizations in the mobile industry. He joined Jamster from QMobile, a direct-to-consumer mobile entertainment company, where he was CEO. Prior to joining QMobile, Soren was General Manager at Singlepoint (MMC NA/Telenor Mobile Interactive), a wireless services company, where he supported clients like Disney, Fox, Hearst, the Weather Channel, NBC/Telemundo and Sony BMG. He also negotiated the first US aggregation contracts with the Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers, was first-to-market with many premiums sms services, and sent the first commercial premium sms message in the US.
Soren began his career in Europe KPMG and with the Hungarian carrier Pannon GSM. Soren has taught at the Budapest University of Economics (Karl Marx Economics University) and has a MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Maryland.
Joe Waimrin
VP Business Development
mBlox
Joe Waimrin brings to MEF 20 years of telecommunications and mobile messaging experience.
Previously at companies such as AT&T, ClearSky Mobile Media, XO Communications and currently in his position of vice president of business development at mBlox, Waimrin has built a profound and extensive understanding of the mobile entertainment industry.