The Team
Frank Speiser, CEO/Co-Founder
Frank Speiser, CEO and co-founder, is the visionary technologist who has brought a science-based approach to marketing and publishing on social networks. He was one of the first people to understand that in order to win the fight for audience attention, businesses and brands needed to be able to reliably determine the real-time value of their content on the social graph. His approach to using applied mathematics, language analysis and technology helped develop the algorithms that power SocialFlow’s ability to understand data and led to a new perception of the value of attention on social networks. Frank has been exploring the practical applications of science and data since his early childhood when at age 8 he made his first program to translate sheet music into sound via BASIC. Since then, Frank went on to hold the CTO positions for New York based Takkle, Inc. (acquired by Alloy Media+Marketing), and video and social site HEAVY. A self-declared baseball fanatic, Frank has been collecting player cards and memorizing statistics since he was young. For him, the game was always about the data and he uses his passion for the sport to create an analogy for what social media managers face when they publish to the web: “Staring down a pitcher at the plate, you have a split second to decide whether to swing or to wait. The growth of Twitter and Facebook means that companies and brands need to make the same split-second decisions everyday based on millions of interactions. At SocialFlow, such fine-grain real-time decisions are what we do every day for our clients.”
Mike Perrone, COO/Co-Founder
Mike Perrone, COO and co-founder, is a seasoned media executive whose quest to deliver technology solutions that drive business success led him to co-found SocialFlow. Experience in direct marketing and e-commerce has taught Mike that demographics are not the only gauge of what will motivate people to act. His commitment to understanding language, the underlying behaviors it speaks to, and how those behaviors can be channeled into purchase decisions stands behind every technical development SocialFlow makes. Throughout his career, Mike has worked in advertising (JWT), management consulting (KPMG), entertainment technology and direct marketing. He has managed the integration of several high profile acquisitions for a global media giant and implemented strategic efficiencies to positively impact businesses threatened by changes in the digital age. His deep understanding of what drives human engagement with brands and businesses was honed while he was the VP of Operations at Bertelsmann’s U.S. direct-to-customer book, music, movie and game businesses. Able to study the behaviors and purchasing patterns of roughly 20 million customers, Mike became convinced that the holy grail of one-to-one marketing could be found using real-time data. “Once you realize the business value of understanding the truly predictive nature of social media data, you can arm your business with a precision instrument that helps match the right message with the right moment to yield the greatest results. “ Applying the SocialFlow Optimized Publisher™ to organizations like Forbes, Pepsi, Random House and the Economist, Mike leads the way in redefining how social media can be used to enhance ROI and drive audience engagement.
Michael Chin, VP of Marketing
Michael Chin is the VP of Marketing at SocialFlow. Before joining SocialFlow, Michael was SVP, Marketing at KickApps, a leading social media platform. He has worked on a variety of brands in online media and entertainment while at Deep Focus, a leading agency that delivers online engagement, and at Bite Communications, a global communications consultancy serving both blue chip companies and emerging start-up brands, where Michael spearheaded the agency’s New York City expansion. Prior to that, Michael was Director of Marketing at StormPlay Entertainment Systems and an Account Manager at Niehaus Ryan Wong. Michael has worked with numerous well-known brands throughout his career, including Calvin Klein, WeightWatchers, Hearst, Sony Television, Harpo, AMC, Virgin Life Care, BEA Systems, VERITAS Software, Become.com, Creative Labs and Netscape.
Gilad Lotan, VP of Research and Development
Gilad Lotan is the VP of Research and Development for SocialFlow, where he utilizes data driven approaches to draw insight and understanding from social streams. Previously, Gilad served as a program manager at Microsoft’s FUSE labs. Past work includes ‘Retweet Revolution’, visualizing the flow of information during the 2009 #IranElection riots, and a 2011 IJOC study investigating the relationship between mainstream media and social media channels during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Gilad’s work has been presented at TED, IXDA, Summit Series, Berkeley BCNM, Boston Book Festival, and published at HICCS, CHI and Ubicomp.
Paula Batson, VP of Communications
Paula Batson is Vice President of Communications at SocialFlow. An early and ardent new technology adopter, she has spent the majority of her career at the intersection of entertainment and technology. Bringing a unique passion to her experience with music and media start-ups, she has helped tell the stories of clients ranging from Miles Davis to Lyle Lovett, and created value for such iconic brands as Columbia Records, CDNow and Book of the Month Club. An accomplished communications strategist with years of experience in digital entertainment, she was previously VP, communications for the Fox Mobile Group. Prior to this she was senior vice president, communications, for Direct Brands, formerly owned by Bertelsmann, where she oversaw global communications for the company’s various subscription services. She has also served as SVP of communications for Myplay, the first music locker company, and held the same role with N2K Inc., the early Internet music start-up. Prior to working in digital entertainment, Ms. Batson was head of global communications for the MCA Universal Music Group.
Freyja Gallagher, VP of Product Development
Freyja Gallagher is VP of Product Development at SocialFlow. She manages the SocialFlow product roadmap, application development, and user experience. Freyja has worked in digital media for over fifteen years and has held roles in general management, strategy, product management, and technology. Before coming to SocialFlow, she worked with businesses ranging from start-ups like Heavy.com, Lime.com and Automatic Media (Webby Award winning Plastic.com, Feed Magazine, Suck.com) to major international corporations such as AOL, Diageo, sanofi-aventis, and Bertelsmann AG. Her interests include data visualization, life tracking, open data initiatives, and design thinking.
Sam Kaufman, VP of Engineering
Sam Kaufman is the VP of Engineering at SocialFlow and has deep experience in bringing interactive applications from concept to reality honed at major media companies such as Dow Jones, UrbanDaddy and NextNewNetworks. Working with co-founder Frank Speiser at Takkle and Heavy, he was central to the effort of building completely new sites, applications and rich media experiences that helped both companies reach new audiences. Sam develops primarily in Perl at SocialFlow, but has also worked extensively in a professional capacity with Ruby, Python, PHP, ActionScript and JavaScript.
