Board of Directors
Jim Manzi - Chairman of the Board
Jim Manzi served as Chairman, President, and CEO of Lotus Development Corporation from 1984 until 1995, when the company was acquired by IBM. Since 1995, Jim has been involved in the creation and development of a number of technology startup ventures.
In 2000, Jim joined the Board of Directors of Thermo Electron, a scientific instruments company. He now serves as Chairman of the Board. Jim presently runs his own investment company that focuses on technology startups. He also serves on the Board of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and is as an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
William H. Kling - Director
Mr. Kling serves as President and CEO of American Public Media Group (APMG). APMG is the nonprofit parent organization of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), American Public Media (APM) and the sole shareholder of the for-profit Greenspring Company. Mr. Kling serves as CEO of all three companies.
Mr. Kling is the founding president of MPR and is responsible for MPR's two regional networks of 38 public radio stations and its national program production centers in Saint Paul and Los Angeles. MPR is the largest public radio entity in the nation outside of NPR in Washington D.C. American Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programming after National Public Radio (NPR). Greenspring is the parent company for Minnesota Monthly Publications, a diversified magazine publishing company, and The KLBB Company, a commercial radio station. APMG is also the parent company for Southern California Public Radio (SCPR). SCPR operates radio station KPCC serving millions of people in the Los Angeles area.
Mr. Kling currently serves as a director of The Saint Paul Travelers Company, Wenger Corporation, and Irwin Financial Corporation and as a director of five fund Boards of The Capital Group - American Funds mutual funds. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for the JL Foundation in California. Mr. Kling was an incorporator and founding Director of National Public Radio and the founding Chair and President of Public Radio International. He also served as a trustee of the Minnesota Orchestra.
Mr. Kling holds a BA in Economics from St John's University and completed graduate studies at the Graduate School of Communication Arts at Boston University in 1966.
Senator Bill Bradley - Director
Senator Bill Bradley, 62, is a Managing Director of Allen & Company LLC. From 2001 to 2004, he acted as chief outside advisor to McKinsey & Company's nonprofit practice. He was a Senior Advisor and Vice Chairman of the International Council of JP Morgan & Co., Inc. from 1997 to 1999. During that time, he also worked as an essayist for CBS Evening News, and as a visiting professor at Stanford University, Notre Dame University, and the University of Maryland.
Senator Bradley served in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997, representing the state of New Jersey. In 2000, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Prior to serving in the Senate, he was an Olympic gold medalist in 1964 and a professional basketball player with the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1977, during which time they won two NBA championships.
Senator Bradley holds a BA degree in American History from Princeton University and an MA degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has authored five books on American politics, culture, and economy. Currently, Senator Bradley hosts "American Voices," a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio that highlights the remarkable accomplishments of Americans both famous and unknown.
Tom Gerace - Director
Prior to founding Skyword™, Tom launched Gather.com, a demand-driven news and entertainment property reaching more than 6M people each month. Gather remains an owned-and-operated property of Skyword Inc.
Gerace also founded and served as President of Be Free, a publicly traded online marketing services company. Be Free transformed online advertising from pay-per-view (i.e. CPM Advertising, where advertisers paid a fixed fee every time their ads were shown) to pay-for-performance advertising (i.e. Cost-Per-Click and Cost-Per-Acquisition Advertising). Be Free-operated channels often saved customers 80% of their cost of new customer acquisition when compared with other marketing methods.
After Be Free's launch and financing, Tom served as Chief Marketing Officer through the company's initial public offering. As Chief Marketing Officer, he was responsible for creating new and existing products and services, mergers and acquisitions, corporate and product communications, and customer acquisition. Gerace was awarded two U.S. Patents (5,848,396 and 5,991,735) for profiling computer users and targeting advertising based on that profiling. During his tenure with the company, Be Free launched both U.S. and European operations. Be Free served more than 300 leading brands including barnesandnoble.com, Citibank, eBay, AOL, Lending Tree, Bertlesmann, Time Warner, IBM, Dell, and Microsoft.
Prior to founding Be Free, Tom was a senior business analyst at the Harvard Business School. Tom received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1993. Tom serves on the Board of Advisors for Imagitas and on the Board of Visitors for the Fenway Community Health Center. He is also a director of The Open Gate Foundation.