|
Jeffrey
Makoff is the
Co-Chairman of DigitalCustom Group, Inc.
Mr. Makoff graduated cum laude from U.C.L.A. in 1981 (A.B., Political Science,
Comparative Government emphasizing South and Southeast Asia). He studied the politics of developing nations in India during the Fall Semester 1980. He received his
J.D. degree in 1985 from Hastings College of the Law, where he was an
editor of the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review. He is a member of the California, Ohio and District of Columbia bars, and has practiced at the international law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher
& Flom and Makoffs LLP. Mr. Makoff was named one of Northern California's "Superlawyers" in August 2005.
Barnabás
Takács, Ph.D. is the Managing Director - International Operations,
Chief Technology Officer and Co-Chairman of DigitalCustom Group, Inc.
Dr. Takács is an internationally
recognized computer scientist in the fields of computer vision, humanoid
animation, face recognition and security systems. Dr. Takács has published
over 40 technical papers, and regularly speaks at international scientific
conferences.
Among his achievements,
Dr. Takács designed an image compression algorithm that is capable of
encoding a complete face photograph in a single barcode. Dr. Takács also
was part of a team contracted by the U.S. government to create a large
and standardized facial data set for testing face recognition systems.
Dr. Takács co-founded Telemedia, LLC (Hungary) and designed the first
speaker-independent voice recognition solution for interactive voice response
applications.
Dr. Takacs received
his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston, his MS in
Electrical Engineering from Technical University of Budapest and his Ph.D.
in Computational Sciences from George Mason University. Dr. Takács is
a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, IEEE, IAPR and MATE.
Jeffrey
Bacon has over 20 years experience in domestic and international
marketing of entertainment, retail and online products and properties.
Mr. Bacon is a founding partner and Creative Director of the Hollywood
entertainment marketing and design firm Cimarron/Bacon/O'Brien (known
as CBO).
Mr. Bacon has worked
directly on many assignments for the top creative talent in the entertainment
industry. His long list of motion picture projects includes Gladiator,
True Lies, The X-Files, There's Something About Mary, Terminator 2, Home
Alone, as well as the home video re-release of Star Wars, UPN's initial
launch and the 1998 Lexus automobile full-line launch.
In 2002, Mr. Bacon joined Creative Domain, a leading integrated entertainment marketing and advertising agency. His clients include Warner Bros., Disney, Nissan, Fox Sports, LucasFilms, Universal, The Special Olympics, HBO and Sony.
Mr. Bacon is a board member of The Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards and Chairman of The Key Art Awards Student Competition. He has staff teaching positions at Art Center College of Design, UCLA
Extension and California State University at Fullerton. Mr. Bacon received
his B.A. from California State University at Fullerton.
Frank
Beddor is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Automatic
Pictures, Inc., a film, television and interactive game production company.
Mr. Beddor's film production credits include "There's Something About
Mary" (1998), "Wicked" and "Dizzy" (currently in pre-production). Mr.
Beddor also is the Executive Producer of a video game in development,
based upon the world-recognized golf artwork of painter Loyal H. "Bud"
Chapman.
Mr. Beddor graduated
from the University of Utah.
Michael
Chin is a former Associate Senior Designer with Jerde & Associates
and now a partner in his own Los Angeles-based architectural and design
firm. Jerde is the foremost architectural firm handling entertainment
retail projects in the US and overseas. Mr. Chin worked on Jerde commercial
projects in Japan and China, and on many commercial and residential projects
in Southern California. Recently, Mr. Chin has been involved in the major
"Roppongi 66" project in Tokyo.
Mr. Chin is skilled
in high-end digital design, and uses the AutoCad 14, Photoshop, Corel
Draw, Quark and 3-D Studio Max design systems.
Mr. Chin received
his BA in Environmental Design from San Diego State University, and his
Masters in Architecture from Sci-Arc in Los Angeles.
Chris Early is a technology industry consultant who
brings more than 25 years of business experience to DigitalCustom. As President
and COO of GameSpy Industries, Mr. Early was responsible for the company's revenue
growth and operations, and the management of GameSpy's expert teams. Mr. Early
joined GameSpy through the acquisition of the Mplayer business unit from HearMe
and is credited with successfully managing the merger of the Mplayer online games
service with GameSpy Arcade and the smooth integration of the two businesses. As
Vice President and General Manager of the Mplayer online games service at
HearMe, Mr. Early managed business operations of the Mplayer Internet
entertainment community and network, which included driving revenue,
technology development and business development. Mr. Early joined HearMe
in 1996, and in his five years with the company held several management
positions, including Vice President of Mplayer.com, Director of Content
Acquisition and Manager of Business Development for Mplayer.com.
Prior to HearMe, Mr. Early was President of Corporate Computer Rental
and previously was National Sales Director for Interactive Systems.
In earlier experience, Mr. Early held various management positions
with Paramount Pictures. Mr. Early holds B.A. degrees in Economics
and International Management from Claremont Men's College. Mr. Early
currently serves as an Executive Director on the Board of Directors
for Horizon, A Glimpse of Tomorrow, a software technology development
company focusing on middleware for massively multiplayer games.
Andrea de Polo is based on Florence, Italy where he heads the Digital Imaging Department at Fratelli Alinari, the oldest photography business in the world (est. 1852). Fratelli Alinari has an archive of more than 3.5 million historical and heirloom images.
Mr. de Polo is an international speaker and writer on digital imaging technology and ethics, and has made formal presentations on IPR-watermarking, data encryption-image security, compression, image archiving/retrieval and photo preservation and restoration.
Wanny
Hersey is an educator with significant creative interests and
creative instruction background. She is a fluent speaker of Chinese (Cantonese).
Ms. Hersey taught
piano and theory at the ARCT and the Toronto Conservatory of Music, oboe
for the Vancouver Youth Orchestra and violin and trumpet for high school
orchestras and bands. She has taught ballet at the Royal Academy of Dance
and modern dance at Dance 2000 in New York. Vocally, Ms. Hersey has led
concert, swing and jazz choirs for both high school and college.
In musical theater,
Ms. Hersey directed, choreographed and produced the Childrens' Theatre
plays Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and The Mikado. She also
has produced Annie and The Wizard of Oz, and directed Bye, Bye Birdie,
The Runaway Snowman and numerous other productions for the Childrens'
Theatre. Ms. Hersey has performed in the plays Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls,
Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, South Pacific, My Fair Lady,
Mame and West Side Story.
Ms. Hersey received
her Bachelors of Education from University of British Columbia in 1984,
her M.Sc. in Administration from Pepperdine University in 1991 and her
Tier II Administrative Credential from Azusa Pacific University in 1996.
She has been the Principal of Bel Aire Elementary School on the Tiburon
Peninsula (Bay Area) since 1996, and has been involved with the Reed Schools
District Technology Advisory Committee, District Strategic Planning Committee
and the District Action Team Committee.
Steven
Kam is the Managing Director of the San Francisco office of
Cogent Valuation. Cogent Valuation provides financial
opinions, securities valuation and corporate advisory services to corporations,
institutions, agencies, fiduciaries, partnerships, and individuals requiring
expert opinion on pricing, structure, fairness, or solvency in connection
with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, recapitalizations, equity allocation,
LBOs, ESOPs, taxes, litigation, intellectual property, intangible assets,
and fraudulent transfers.
Mr.
Kam has originated and processed a wide variety of corporate transactions
and financial advisory assignments since 1980 for Fortune 500, middle-market
and small companies, including leveraged buy-outs, mergers, acquisitions
and divestitures, public offerings, exchange offers, and private placements.
Among
other publications, Mr. Kam co-authored an eighteen month study and the
related article, The Pricing of Successful Venture Capital-Backed High-Tech
and Life-Sciences Companies, published in the September 1998 issue of
the Journal of Business Venturing, and republished in the spring 1999
issue of The Journal of Private Equity. The study examines nearly 500
venture capital financed companies in six industries that went public
between January 1993 and June 1997, and identifies pricing drivers and
explains the changes in the corporate valuations between various financing
rounds and the initial public offering. During November 1999, Mr. Kam
was invited by the Korean government to lecture on the subject of the
valuation of technology and the evaluation of emerging technology companies.
Mr.
Kam has an M.B.A. from the University of Houston and a B.B.A. from Florida
Atlantic University.
William
Pack has
been a commercial photographer for 19 years, and owns the Road Trip Productions
studio. His work has won national awards from AdWeek Magazine, Communication
Arts Magazine and SF Art Directors Club.
Mr. Pack shoots diverse
subjects, from people to food and automotive. Mr. Pack's client list includes
many high technology, automotive, clothing, financial institution, food,
travel, and other business segments. He has worked for all of the major
advertising agencies.
Mr. Pack received
photography training at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara.
Michael
Stallman is a partner at Stallman & Pollock, a San Francisco law firm specializing in intellectual property matters. Mr. Stallman has extensive experience
in the area of patent evaluation, litigation, business counseling and strategic planning.
Mr. Stallman also is experienced in the areas of patent and trademark licensing and spends a significant amount of his time counseling clients on patent and trademark validity and infringement issues. Mr. Stallman also has been involved in helping companies through due diligence evaluations and presentations for acquisitions and public offerings.
Mr. Stallman's technical expertise is in optics and laser based equipment, as well as in medical devices. Mr. Stallman received a BS in physics and computer science from Rutgers University in New Jersey. While at Rutgers, he was a research assistant for the high energy physics group and has responsibilities for designing optical, electronic and computer systems.
Mr. Stallman received his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1978. Mr.
Stallman then practiced patent law in New York City before joining the
Limbach firm in 1981. Mr. Stallman has extensive litigation experience
in both in US and foreign tribunals. His clients include optical metrology
device manufacturers, laser systems manufacturers and a number of medical
device companies. He also now advises a number of Internet related companies.
Mr. Stallman is a member
of the State Bars of New York and California and is registered to practice
before the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Ellen
Fenichel is General Counsel of DigitalCustom Group,
Inc., Executive Vice President and CFO of Poetic Media, Inc., and a partner
of The Fenichel Firm.
From 1987 to 1991,
Ms. Fenichel was with the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts
as a Development Officer, and was a member of the strategic planning team
for the Aquarium's $35 million capital campaign. As a member of this team,
Ms. Fenichel worked with Aquarium trustees, Boston business leaders, local
congressional representatives, city officials and other Boston civic leaders
as well as architects, graphic designers, and financial and marketing
consultants to devise and implement the private/public financing plan
for the new aquarium.
Ms. Fenichel received
her BA in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and
her JD from Hastings College of the Law. While at Hastings, Ms. Fenichel
was Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Women's Law Journal. She is a member
of the State Bar of California, the United States District Courts of California,
and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Aaron
Daru is the Vice President, Operations of DigitalCustom Group,
Inc. Mr. Daru previously was a technical consultant to a major financial
services firm in New York, where he worked primarily on its internal accounting
system and analytics. Mr. Daru, working with internal and PricewaterhouseCoopers
auditors, benchmarked analytics on $24 billion of fixed income securities.
He also established a process to update analytics for $6 billion of mortgage
and asset-backed securities based on the latest market information.
From 1997-1999, Mr.
Daru was a programmer/analyst for a major Wall Street brokerage and investment
firm in New York. In that position, Mr. Daru interacted extensively with
the operations, risk management, research and sales teams, as well as
traders, to develop and enhance a fixed income analytical system, a mortgage
and asset backed trading system and a global debt real estate intranet
site.
Mr. Daru has computer
programming knowledge and skills in languages/databases, including C++,
Perl, Java, ASP, and SQL. Mr. Daru
received his BS in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from
Cornell University.
Jeffrey Busdieker
is Director of Creative Services and manages DigitalCustom's worldwide
service and support center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Busdieker has a background in art and business.
Before joining the Company, Mr. Busdieker was Editor-in-Chief of Intelliseek,
a leading supplier of enterprise intelligence solutions. Mr. Busdieker
oversaw the daily operations of Intelliseek's Web properties and headed a
number of marketing campaigns.
From 1996-1999, Mr. Busdieker worked in all aspects of on-set, pre- and
post-production in the film and video industry. He worked on the Academy
Award-winning film "The Insider" as well as Fortune 500 companies Proctor and
Gamble and McDonald's.
Mr. Busdieker owned and operated a restaurant and retail store, The Mad Hatter
Coffee & Tea Emporium, in the early 1990s. Mr. Busdieker sold the small
business in 1995 and continued to consult in the coffee industry.
Mr. Busdieker received his B.F.A. in painting, with an emphasis in broadcast
communications, from Eastern Kentucky University in 1995.
Tomo Nakagawa is the Director of Business Development for
DigitalCustom in Japan. Mr. Nakagawa's accomplishments include establishing the first branch of
Kaplan, Inc. (a professional license preparation school) in Tokyo, launching an
Applied Psych-Physiology program for Japanese healthcare professionals at San
Francisco State University, and obtaining sales rights in Japan of biofeedback
machines and microwave medical waste processors. Mr. Nakagawa is an independent contractor for DigitalCustom.
Mr. Nakagawa has a B.S. degree in Agriculture from Tokyo University of
Agriculture, studied cultural anthropology at Arizona State University,
linguistic anthology at the University of Idaho, and did linguistic research at
the Central Language Institute in Geneva, Switzerland.
|