Management Team

• Matthew Heist, CEO

  

  Matthew Heist  is responsible for day-to-day operations as well as general corporate strategy. Prior to joining High Gear Media, Heist was senior vice president and general manager of Sidestep.com, where he was responsible for the company’s core vertical search product. Sidestep was acquired by Kayak in December 2007. Prior to Sidestep, Heist was vice president of business operations at Yahoo!, responsible for driving strategy and operations for Yahoo’s vertical search and commerce listings properties, including Yahoo Autos, Shopping, Travel, Real Estate and Local.

• David Armitage, Chief Revenue Officer

  David Armitage oversees all revenue initiatives at High Gear Media with a particular focus on accelerating the growth in brand advertising on our fast growing owned and operated network of automotive destinations.  Most recently, Armitage served as VP and GM of the automotive group at Blue Kai.  Previously he was VP of Advertising at Autobytel and Executive Director of Advertising & Sales for Edmunds.com. Before that, Armitage was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for PRIMEDIA’s Digital Automotive and Motorcycle Groups.

• Jeff Birkeland, VP of Product

  

  Jeff Birkeland leads product development at High Gear Media. Previously, Jeff was senior director of product in Yahoo!’s Media Group, leading product teams building such properties as Health, Tech, Food and Yahoo! Shine. Prior to that he spent four years leading product management for Yahoo! News, the world’s largest news site.

• Gilad Dayagi, VP of Engineering

  Gilad Dayagi is responsible for everything technical at High Gear Media, overseeing the execution of new projects and the health of existing systems. Gilad has been with High Gear Media since nearly day 1, and before his current position, served as the lead developer. Prior to joining High Gear Media, he was a senior developer at HBR Labs, developing aspects of its web collaboration product. Before that, Gilad served as a technical officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

• Andrew Braccia, Accel Partners

  Andrew joined Accel in 2007, bringing with him a decade of operational and leadership experience. Prior to Accel, Andrew held a variety of senior roles in business development, general management and operations with Yahoo. Most recently he served as vice president of Yahoo Search, where he was responsible for all business and operational aspects of Yahoo’s consumer search business. In this capacity, he played a key role in helping to lead the company’s entry into the social search arena with the launch of Yahoo Answers and the acquisition and integration of Del.icio.us. Andrew also had served as vice president and general manager of Yahoo’s Marketplace division, which includes Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Real Estate, and Yahoo Autos – all leading commerce sites in their respective categories under his leadership.

• James Slavet, Greylock Partners

  James joined Greylock in April of 2006. He is focused on investing in the consumer internet, software, and digital media markets. James currently serves on the board of directors of Auditude, High Gear Media, Kongregate and Revision3. He is also a board observer for Greylock’s investments in Digg and LinkedIn, and was actively involved in Greylock’s investment in Farecast (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to Greylock, James worked in operating roles in both established and startup consumer technology businesses. He was a vice resident and general manager in the Search and Marketplace business unit at Yahoo. He was founder and COO of Guru, on online recruitment company acquired by Unicru – Kronos (KRO); he worked out of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers as the first employee of online commerce company Drugstore.com (DSCM); and he served in product management and new business development roles for Wired, an internet/media company, acquired by Conde Nast and Lycos.

• Rob Solomon

  Rob Solomon is President of Groupon, a social commerce startup based in Chicago.  Previously, he was a Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, which he joined in October 2008.  Rob is also the former CEO of Sidestep.com, a vertical travel search engine that was sold to Kayak in 2007. Prior to Sidestep, he spent six years at Yahoo where he managed the company’s commerce businesses as vice president and general manager of the Yahoo Shopping Group. He also has worked at Electronic Arts and travel services powerhouse Cendant Corp. Rob serves on the boards of directors of HomeAway.com, Mpire and WidgetBucks.

• Chas Edwards

  Chas Edwards is chief revenue officer at Pixazza. Previously he was the publisher and chief revenue officer at Digg, the site that lets its 38 million readers organize content from across the web by voting on what they consider to be the best. For the four years prior to joining Digg, he was the co-founder (with John Battelle), publisher and chief revenue officer at Federated Media (FM), a next-generation media and publishing company that connects the highest quality conversational content (eg, Boing Boing, Mashable, Inhabitat, Dooce, NOTCOT and The Pioneer Woman) with leading brand marketers.

  Prior to co-founding Federated Media in 2005, Chas was vice president of sales and marketing for CNET Networks’s B2B Portfolio, managing the team representing News.com, ZDNet and TechRepublic to business-to-business marketers. Chas also served posts as VP for CNET’s broadband & webcasting unit and as VP of business development for mySimon, CNET Networks’s comparison-shopping portal. Prior to joining CNET Networks, Chas was the National Sales Manager for TechTV, a 24-hour cable TV channel and Web site dedicated to computing and the Internet (now owned by Comcast and called G4).

  Chas maintains a daily blog on digital marketing trends at chasnote.com.

• Nicholas Pianim, DAG Ventures (Observer)

  Prior to joining DAG Ventures in 2007, Nick was Vice President of Corporate Development at Juniper Networks where he was responsible for acquisitions, commercial transactions and venture investments.  Previously he was CFO for Ensemble Communications where he oversaw corporate development, and CEO of iAsiaWorks, a NASDAQ listed datacenter and managed services company.  He also worked with Enterprise Partners Venture Capital on a variety of development and investment assignments and with Morgan Stanley International.  Nick received a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

• Hesky Kutscher, Founder and Chairman

  Hesky Kutscher is a serial entrepreneur who has always been interested in giving consumers a better way to research before they shop. His last company, DailyShopper.com, became ShopLocal after a merger and then sold to a consortium that included Tribune and Gannett in 2004. Hesky founded High Gear Media in 2007.

• Matt Heist, CEO

  Matthew Heist  is responsible for day-to-day operations as well as general corporate strategy. Prior to joining High Gear Media, Heist was senior vice president and general manager of Sidestep.com, where he was responsible for the company’s core vertical search product. Sidestep was acquired by Kayak in December 2007. Prior to Sidestep, Heist was vice president of business operations at Yahoo!, responsible for driving strategy and operations for Yahoo’s vertical search and commerce listings properties, including Yahoo Autos, Shopping, Travel, Real Estate and Local.