Leadership

Derek Ball

Derek has been a distinguished leader in the emerging technology industry for more than 15 years. Before Tynt, Derek served as CEO at Sonic Mobility Inc, a mobile software company that was acquired by Avocent Corp (NASDAQ: AVCT) in 2004. In between Sonic Mobility and Tynt, Derek coached dozens of early stage tech ventures as an Entrepreneur In Residence for Calgary Technologies Inc. He has been responsible for raising millions of dollars in capital for his own start-ups and working with strategic partners including: Microsoft, RIM, HP, Lockheed Martin and the US military. Derek has published over a dozen books in emerging technology and has been a noted speaker worldwide for many years.

David Mandelbrot

Dave has spent more than 15 years in the online media business, seven of which he worked at Yahoo as the Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo’s Media and Entertainment Group. As VP, Dave led the team that produced such great Yahoo properties as Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Games and Yahoo Health. Before taking on that role, Dave served as Yahoo’s Sr. Corporate Counsel overseeing the legal efforts behind all of the company’s mergers and acquisitions. Dave has also served as a business development executive and attorney for Electronics For Imaging (EFI), spearheading the company’s investments, acquisitions and strategic partnerships, and an attorney for Netscape Communications Corporation and Venture Law Group. Dave has a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

Cameron Befus

Cameron has extensive experience developing commercial software in a number of diverse industries. In addition to proven skills in software architecture and design, Cameron’s strengths include building and managing teams using agile processes to develop quality software, quickly. Before Tynt, Cameron worked with Avocent Corp in different roles, including Director of Systems Engineering in the LANDesk division, based in Salt Lake City. At LANDesk, Cameron was responsible for development and maintenance of a product that generated $85 million per year in revenue and managed an international team of more than 40 software professionals. Cameron has been involved in several entrepreneurial companies, including Petrowave Solutions Inc., which produced Web-based software for the oil field drilling industry and was acquired in 2002.

Jim Hirshfield

Jim has more than 20 years of high-tech sales and marketing experience in emerging technology and media companies.
Before Tynt, Jim served as the VP of Business Development at Zemanta, a Slovenian start-up backed by Union Square Ventures in the online content creation space. Additionally, Jim was the VP of Business Development at 10gen, (makers of MongoDB) an open source database launched by the team behind DoubleClick. Earlier, Jim headed up sales at Gradience, a software company in the XML Web Services space catering to financial institutions. He founded PledgeBay.com after serving as the Head of Business Development at Wired, WhoWhere.com, and closing high profile alliances on behalf of Lycos. During an 8-year tenure with Reuters, Jim sold multi-million dollar software systems. He received a degree in Engineering from Columbia University.