Team

Scott Barrow

Co-founder, President & CEO

Scott brings over 10 years of global experience in digital media and Internet technologies. Prior to Media Hog, Scott served as Vice President, Operations for digital music service, Napster. During his tenure there he oversaw a broad range of initiatives and responsibilities including the establishment of the company's mobile strategy and product development, international expansion in Europe and Japan, content management and customer support, payment processing, and portable device partnerships.

Previous to Napster, Scott managed day-to-day operations and backend infrastructure as Director, Operations at pressplay, a joint venture between Universal Music and Sony Music (and one of the music industry's first legal, online music services).

Before joining pressplay, Scott managed projects and cross-functional teams in the US, Asia, and Europe for a large Internet consulting firm called marchFIRST (previously USWeb/CKS and later acquired by Divine).

Scott has a B.A. in Communication from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Karl Garske

Co-founder, VP of Engineering

Karl has been working with distributed architectures and large-scale database driven applications for over a decade.

Prior to Media Hog, Karl was a co-founder of 1parkplace Inc., an online marketing suite focused on increasing productivity of real estate agents and brokerages. Karl defined a majority of the system's core infrastructure and nurtured it through its many growth cycles towards a nationwide service. As Chief Technical Officer, he consulted on a broad range of strategic initiatives including the expansion of 1parkplace's line of business through joint ventures, establishment of a core development team and definition of internal development practices. These developments resulted in over 15,000 users and approximately $3M in annual revenue.

Before 1parkplace, Karl served as a software engineer at Internet Strategy Inc., a San Diego based software consulting firm focused on the Internet needs of large companies including First American Financial Corporation. Karl was selected by the CEO to work on a research and development team focused on producing cutting edge solutions vital to the company's consulting capabilities.

Karl holds a B.A. in Mathematics-Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Dave Cortese

Investor & Advisory Board Member

Vice President & Divisional CIO, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

David Cortese currently serves as Vice President and Divisional CIO for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, a multi-billion dollar division of the Los Angeles movie studio. In his role, Dave manages a staff of over 100 individuals and oversees all aspects of information technology that support business operations for Home Entertainment on a worldwide basis. In his seven years with Sony, Dave has implemented a broad array of business applications supporting supply chain, business intelligence, sales and marketing.

Prior to Sony, Dave spent over a decade in consulting spending seven years with consulting firm Accenture. This included extensive project experience across a number of blue-chip clients (Sprint PCS, American Express, General Electric, Marsh & McLennan, Sikorsky Helicopters) working in a diverse number of industries including Telecommunications, Financial Services and Manufacturing.

Lixin Cheng

Investor & Advisory Board Member

Founder and Principal Consultant, ALA Group

Mr. Lixin Cheng has 19 years of experience in telecommunication industry with expertise in the areas of international business development, and supplier development. He has extensive business experience and contacts in 50+ countries all over the world. Among other achievements elsewhere in the world, Cheng introduced the first cellular system production line into China, and signed the first CDMA contract valued at $150M with China Unicom for Ericsson Wireless, formerly Qualcomm Infrastructure division.

Before moving to the United States in 2001, Cheng held the position of Vice President of Sales and Supply at Ericsson Panda Ltd., a China-based Joint Venture of Ericsson. Within three years, he increased annual sales tenfold to $1.6B while localizing the supply chain in China. From 2001 to 2003, Cheng served as Director of Business Management at Ericsson Wireless, a San Diegobased affiliate of Ericsson, responsible for developing Ericsson CDMA business in various international markets. Cheng joined Axesstel (AMEX: AFT) in 2004 as President where he increased the company’s sales from $11M to over $95M within less than two years, and was instrumental in Axesstel’s successful IPO in May 2004.

Cheng now serves on Director Boards of San Diego World Trade Center (www.sdwtc.org), iTouch Media Ltd. (www.itouchmedia.cn) in Beijing, Advisory Boards of Treemo, Inc. (www.treemoinc.com) in Seattle, Media Hog, Inc. (www.mediahog.net) in Los Angeles and Pantek Partners (www.pantekpartners.com) in San Diego. Cheng is also a recognized speaker in telecommunication industry.

In 2006, Cheng founded ALA Group, Inc. to provide strategic consulting, business and supplier development, and financial services to companies whose activities are focused primarily in wireless, internet and other emerging sectors. Cheng travels to Asia frequently and maintains active contacts with high level executives there. ALA’s client list includes electronics manufacturers, telecom operators in China, and venture capital backed start-ups in the United States.

Cheng has effective intercultural communication skills; strong leadership in talent and team development and proven execution capability in creating high growth business. He has an M.B.A. in International Business Management and a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering.

Robert Gage

Investor & Advisory Board Member

Robert currently is involved with a number of web ventures in both hands-on and advisory roles. Robert most recently served as Vice President and Divisional CIO for Sony Pictures Motion Pictures, a multi-billion dollar division of the Los Angeles movie studio. In his eight years at Sony, Robert implemented a number of business-critical international applications in the areas of sales, distribution, and marketing.

Prior to Sony, Robert worked for five years implementing customer care and billing systems for telecommunications firms throughout Europe for American Management Systems, which included the establishment of the firm’s Spanish practice. Prior to AMS, Robert had his own consulting company, providing IT services to a number of Fortune 100 companies.

Robert has a BA in Computer Science from UC San Diego and an MBA from USC.

Laura Goldberg

Advisory Board Member

President, Camaruche

Laura is President of Camaruche, a digital media incubator, overseeing the development of early stage companies in gaming, music, and video. She has a strong background in media entertainment and finance operations. Laura was COO of Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS) overseeing product development, technology and marketing of that $120mm business. Prior to that Laura was the SVP of Operations and Marketing at pressplay one of the original digital subscription businesses. Laura also worked in the hedge fund industry at Avenue Capital Management and in Principal Trading at Credit Suisse First Boston. She holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Industrial Management (with Honors) from Carnegie Mellon.

Sanjay Parekh

Advisory Board Member

Sanjay was a founder of Digital Envoy where he led the strategic vision of the company most recently as the Chief Strategy Officer and previously as the CEO. Sanjay is also the original inventor of Digital Envoy’s patented NetAcuity IP intelligence technology. Digital Envoy was acquired by Landmark Communications in June 2007.

Prior to founding Digital Envoy, Sanjay was a founding employee of Arris Interactive, where he played a pivotal role in various markets throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe for product deployment. His efforts helped secure over $1 billion in client contracts at Arris Interactive.

In 2004, Sanjay was named one of ten Outstanding Young Atlantans by Outstanding Atlanta, one of the "Top 40 Under 40" Georgians by Georgia Trend magazine, and a 2004 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2003, Sanjay was named to MIT’s Technology Review TR100 list as one of the top 100 young innovators of 2003 (actual magazine page here) and one of the "Top 50 Entrepreneurs" in Atlanta by Catalyst Magazine. Sanjay was also named a Technology Pioneer with the World Economic Forum in 2002 and 2003.

Sanjay is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He holds an electrical engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Sanjay writes a blog on startups in Atlanta and the East Coast at bilgistic.com and is the founder of Startup Dinner (startupdinner.com) and Startup Riot (startupriot.com), two events focused on helping entrepreneurs and startups succeed.