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Richard Bangs

Richard Bangs is commonly known as the “father of modern adventure travel” and pioneer of fostering travel with a purpose. He is a recognized travel expert, writer and producer around the globe with over 1000 magazine articles, 16 books, and scores of documentaries to his credit.

Richard spent many years at Microsoft in various senior executive rolls including: founding executive team member and editor-at-large for Expedia.com, Great Escapes, a Microsoft Travel initiative, and Expedia Travel Magazines. Richard also founded Sobek Expeditions and served as President of Outward Bound.

Richard is currently producing and hosting the new PBS serves, Richard Bangs’ Adventures with Purpose.

Merrill Brown

Merrill Brown is the founder and principal of MMB Media LLC, which provides clients with management and strategy consulting, corporate, editorial and program development, business analysis and marketing services. Brown was recently named Senior Strategist for Journalism Online, the startup online publishing subscription services company founded by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz. Brown is also a partner in Propeller LLC, a New York consultancy, and served from 2005 through December 2007 as National Editorial Director of News for the 21st Century: Incubators of New Ideas (News 21), part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.

Before establishing MMB Media, Brown served as Senior Vice President, RealNetworks’ RealOne Services from August 2002 through August 2003. Brown became the first Editor in Chief of MSNBC.com in August 1996 after serving as acting managing editor for the July launch of the service. He became Senior Vice President in August 2000.

Brown currently serves on the boards of Smashing Ideas, Inc., New West Publishing, the International Women’s Media Foundation, Project Agape, and the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. Brown is a member of the advisory boards of three advertising firms, Media 6 Degrees, Mixpo and TRA Global, where he recently became Advisory Board Chairman. Brown is also an advisor to Evri.com, a content discovery company funded by Vulcan Capital and has served as advisor and the Chairman of the Board of NowPublic, the leading citizen journalism company in the world which was recently sold to Examiner.com.

Brian Goffman

Brian is CEO and founder of Optify, an online B2B lead generation company. Prior to launching Optify, Brian was a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group where he worked with companies in the digital media and software-enabled services sectors which included: Mixpo, AdReady, and Bevy.

Brian spent several years at Microsoft leading business development as part of the launch of unified communications business group. Prior to Microsoft, Brian was a principle at Austin Ventures, lead business development at PointCast, a product manager at Reuters, and consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Brian holds both an AB and MBA from Harvard University.

Scott Greenberg

Scott Greenberg is currently SVP of Advertising Services at Marchex, and responsible for their search marketing assets which includes TrafficLeader as well as its Enhanced Interactive network.

Prior to his role at Marchex, Scott held various sales and business development management roles at RealNetworks, a leader in Internet media delivery, and Front Porch Classics, an award winning lifestyle entertainment company.

Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in Speech Communication from the University of Washington.

Nikesh (Niki) Parekh

Niki is CEO of Bio Architecture Lab a biotech company that works to create synthetic biofuels and renewable chemicals. Niki was most recently a Vice President of Corporate Development at HouseValues, a leading online marketing partner for the real estate industry where he was responsible for new product initiatives, consumer marketing, strategy, business development, and corporate development.

Prior to joining HouseValues, Niki worked in venture capital for Second Avenue Partners and held positions at CVC Capital Partners and CSFB in private equity and investment banking.

Niki holds degrees in biochemical sciences from Harvard College and from the Harvard Business School.