BILL FIELDS

Bill Fields spent four decades becoming one of the world’s premier retail merchandising executives. In his twenty-five year career at Wal-Mart, Bill Fields’ career mirrored the growth and success of the organization. From humble beginnings as an Assistant Store Manager, Bill graduated into positions in senior management, serving as SVP of Distribution and Transportation, and finally as President and CEO of the Wal-Mart Stores Division. Bill directed operations, merchandising, marketing and direct import sourcing during his career at Wal-Mart, overseeing over 2,000 stores and 600,000 employees with annual sales of more than $50 Billion. He also directed the development of Internet e-commerce for Wal-Mart.

Mr. Fields has also served in other notable retail merchandising organizations, as President and CEO of Hudson's Bay Company, a 328 year-old Canadian retail corporation, which included Zellers department stores and The Bay. Prior to that, Bill served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Blockbuster Entertainment Group.

"START MOBILE has created a DIGITAL gallery of emerging artists, and their artwork is currently available through hundreds of mobile carriers, MVNOs, and mobile content aggregators globally," according to Mr. Fields. "My experience in sourcing and developing new retail categories and distribution networks will help START MOBILE bring this NEW ART to the world in a number of innovative ways."



STEVE WATERHOUSE

Steve Waterhouse is a technology and business consultant, specialising in advising high growth companies. He was recently an Entrepreneur in Residence at Foundation Capital in Menlo Park, California and continues to advise on investments in early stage companies for Foundation and other venture capital firms. He is also on the advisory boards of a number of venture backed companies including Jumpcut which was acquired by Yahoo in September of 06. In addition Steve consults in the areas of intellectual property and product development.

Steve has a long experience of working with and starting high growth companies. He was a Director at Sun Microsystems responsible for the Honeycomb product line of clustered highly available storage systems which he was responsible for inventing. Before Sun he was VP Engineering at Infrasearch, a provider of distributed, peer to peer search engine and networking technology which was acquired by Sun in 2001. Steve also started and ran a successful data analytics consulting firm, Ultimode, in Berkeley, CA.

Steve holds a PhD, MPhil and MA from Cambridge University. He specialized in speech recognition and data analytics during his PhD. He is the publisher of over 30 international research papers and one of the first books on Intranet technology. He is also an author on 30 pending patents in speech, distributed systems, search and storage technology.

In his spare time, Steve is a resident DJ in San Francisco and runs an action sports photography company (voodochop). He has traveled extensively, completing a 6 month round the world trip in 2005.



EDDIE KESSLER

Eddie Kessler specializes in high-performance systems to find, manage, and distribute digital media and communications. Most recently the Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer of Napster, Kessler led the operation, design, and implementation of the Napster software and service, and was the Technical Expert for legal matters.

Prior to Napster, Kessler was Founder and Vice President of Engineering at pioneering DVR set-top box and software developer, ReplayTV. During this time, Kessler led the development of the first hard-disk-based personal digital video recorder. Eddie was also the Vice President of Engineering at Infoseek, an Internet search and portal pioneer. Prior to Infoseek, Kessler served in various positions at notable Silicon Valley startups, including the Vice President of Software Development post at Frame Technology. He is the inventor of 5 issued patents, with 1 patent pending.

Kessler received an A.B degree from Harvard University. His degree was in Special Concentrations "The Psychology of Musical Perception" an interdisciplinary course of study in the departments of Music, Psychology and Philosophy at Harvard and MIT. Kessler continued his studies and research in a Ph.D. program in Cognitive Psychology at Stanford University, focusing on computer graphics, visual processing and music perception.

Kessler's interests include music, long-distance cycling, gourmet cooking, and collecting handmade textiles from around the world.



SIMON WESTBROOK

Simon Westbrook brings extensive company-building, operations, and finance experience to the nascent START MOBILE Board of Advisors. Throughout his career, Mr. Westbrook has been involved in three initial public offerings, two secondary public offerings, multiple M&A transactions, and countless rounds of venture capital and angel financing.

He is currently a founder and Chief Financial Officer of Amber Networks,Inc, a Silicon Valley company specializing in VoIP and wireless communications. Prior to joining Amber, Mr. Westbrook was CEO of MessageSoft, a messaging software business, and the Chief Financial Officer at Sage, Inc. (NASDAQ: SAGI), a Silicon Valley company specializing in flat panel displays. Before joining Sage, Mr. Westbrook held a number of senior financial positions at Creative Technology (NASDAQ: CREAF), a leading PC multimedia company, and Atari Corp (AMEX: ATC), the video game and home computer company both in the USA and overseas. At various times, he has held positions as an advisory board member of the Silicon Valley Financial Executives institute, and various technology start-up companies where he has assisted in strategic planning, fund raising and team development. Simon is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Masters in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge University.



CHANDRA MICHAELS

Chandra Michaels is the creative force behind the pop art brand, Sugarluxe. Invited to debut her work to an international audience during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week 2005, her portfolio of products quickly garnered her endorsements from the celebrity jet-set and retailers alike.

Michaels’ technical execution and innovative design capabilities set in motion a whirlwind of offers to pair her artwork with collectible gift items, technology gadgets, home decor, cosmetics and fashion accessories - making her Sugarluxe products available today to her loyal fans in 1000+ stores.

In addition to licensing her images, Michaels also develops and manufacturers her own line of accessories and wall decor, many pieces of which have been designed for top name celebrities like: Miley Cyrus, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Fergie, J Lo, Beyonce and Christina Aguilera.

The approach by which Michaels would apply her creativity was not always clear. She is a self-taught artist who consciously avoided the stifling traditional instruction found in many formal art institutions. Instead, Michaels earned her first degree in Psychology to gain an in-depth understanding of human behavior. Her initial education led her to dig deeper and inspired her to enter a specialized Master’s program to concentrate on Educational Cognitive Psychology. This is where Michaels first began to connect the dots. She had a better grasp of how the brain responds to color and how learner retention could be enhanced through effective and simplistic visual cues.

Today, Michaels makes the most of her education by applying these principles to her work. This is most apparent when you consider that in less than two years, people from around the world started to recognize Sugarluxe art.

Sugarluxe has been featured in/on the following: InStyle Magazine, T-Mobile’s Sidekick, MTV, Helio, CMT, Bong Spirit Vodka, START Galleries, VH1, Virgin, Danger, Z Gallerie Stores nationwide, Woman’s Day Magazine, Playboy, Brides Magazine, LA’s Daily Front Row, CLEO Australia, Us Weekly, Bed Bath & Beyond stores nationwide, AOL Hometown Hero, Girlfriend Magazine, Allure, Hooter’s Magazine, the Hotel Des Arts and more...



PHILIP J. KAPLAN

Philip is the co-founder and CEO of AdBrite, the Internet's Ad Marketplace. AdBrite helps more than 2,000 websites connect with thousands of advertisers. Philip has founded and sold several leading Internet-based businesses and speaks regularly to corporations and universities on how to build and grow Internet businesses. Philip is the bestselling author of F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts. Philip founded Fuckedcompany.com, which was Yahoo! Site-of-the-Year, and #6 in TIME Magazine's "Best of 2000" list, among other accolades. Previous to FC, Philip founded PK Interactive, a 6-person Internet consulting company that was sold in 2001. At 21-years old, Philip was the youngest Senior Consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, a top management consulting firm with more than 12,000 employees. Philip holds a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, from Syracuse University.



VULCAN

Vulcan’s street art has graced literally thousands of walls and trains in his native New York over the years, and his artwork appears in pretty much every book on the history of spray can and urban art. Yet the term "graffiti" hardly does his oeuvre justice. Vulcan's murals have shown in museums, his art can be found on platinum-selling album covers, and his abstract canvases hang in countless private and corporate collections. But this is just the beginning.

Vulcan is one of those unique individuals whose creativity both reflects and drives popular culture. He first performed at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theatre when he was five, sang in funk and heavy metal bands, worked for years as a DJ in underground clubs, and produced chart-topping electronic music. He has written for VIBE, chronicled the underground motorcycle stunt scene in New York, traveled the world painting live at hip-hop festivals, spoken at NYU and Yale on the history of urban art (before being hustled out the back door to dodge police!), competed in international video game competitions, and is currently working on his second screenplay. Vulcan's art adorns the walls of Danger Labs and Google in Silicon Valley, he was recently commissioned by Sun Microsystems to paint live at their Java One conference, and just completed a mural on the walls of Grey Advertising’s corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Vulcan designed a series of custom labels for the launch of Oronoco Rum, recently completed a series of custom servers for Google, and is currently an artist-in-residence at START SOMA in San Francisco.



JAN LINDNER

Jan Lindner is currently the CTO of Sierra Online, a division of Vivendi Games focusing on the growing internet gaming industry, particularly the genre of casual gaming. Previously, Jan Lindner was the CTO and VP Engineering at Ironport, where he designed and built the Ironport A50 mail gateway, an email appliance capable of delivering more than one million messages/hour. Prior to this, he was VP of Engineering at Scout, a wireless handheld magazine company which integrated complex messaging services together with custom client hardware and server software. Graduating in 1984 from Berlin Technical University, he joined Softhansa GmbH where he built a variety of complex software products before founding Canto Software in 1990, a company building media and optical scanning software which he sold in 1995. He then spent the next 5 years in a variety of increasingly senior engineering positions in the game space (credits include Myst and Panzer General), culminating in his role as CTO and VP of Engineering at Mattel Interactive.



JOSH SPEAR

As one of the youngest brand strategists in the country, Spear is regularly sought out for his fresh perspective and no-holds-barred style of consulting on everything from design and gadgets to authenticity and word-of-mouth. Recently his main focus has been the power of the blogosphere, technology, and the impact social media is having on the brands, people and the world. Josh serves as the Managing Director of his creative brand consulting company, Spear Creative Group, which has already been retained by an impressive select clientele. Spear’s team includes some of the foremost experts on the ’16-24’ demographic, specializing in the integration and develop of authentic and enduring communities. Clients such as Pentax, McDonalds and Leo Burnett have used his services. Josh’s popular blog, JoshSpear.com has been featured in Time Magazine, New York Times, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Flair Italy, and more.



TRICIA CHOI

Tricia is currently the managing Art Director at Crackle, the online arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Here she is responsible for designing the user experience, developing and managing the company brand, and leading the design team.

Before Crackle, Tricia was Creative Director at MobiTV a technology company providing television content and services for mobile devices. Tricia oversaw the creation of the brand identity of the company, including the logo and other brand elements that the company still uses today.

Tricia honed her design skills and developed some of her passion for polished user-experience while a designer at Danger, Inc., the company that invented the T-Mobile Sidekick (and recently purchased by Microsoft). Tricia earned a wide range of experience here, from developing CEO presentations and helping with graphical user interface (GUI) design to building flash tours of Danger's software experience.

Over the years Tricia has participated in numerous creative projects for clients in a wide range of industries and pursuits, including branding and textile design for Neelabags, illustration and branding for CitizenJane, a political advocacy site and Tiny Prints, a company focused on birth announcements and invitations. Her designs have also recently begun to grace album covers.

Outside of her professional life, Tricia has found other ways to thrive creatively. Currently she is performing with the San Francisco-based dance company, Loose Change Dance, and recently she put the finishing touches on a room at the Hotel Des Artes, where she painted a suite alongside Shepard Fairey.

Tricia has a Bachelors Degree in English and a Bachelors Degree in Art from the University of California at Los Angeles.

» back
» TEAM

© 2005 - 2008 START MOBILE, INC.