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NYTM Election Ends Tonight. Here’s Who’s Running

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By Henry Krempels and Stephen Duffy 12/20/11 8:40am

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New York Tech Meetup, now 19,619 members, last year incorporated as a nonprofit 501c(6), giving it the power to lobby government, among other things. Another change: four seats on the board of directors were designated “community board seats,” to be allocated to members of the organization by popular election. “This ties us directly to our membership and holds us accountable,” NYTM board chairman Andrew Rasiej said of the board seat.

NYTM held its first election for its governing board last year, when proto-blogger Anil Dash and NYU computer science professor Evan Korth won the vote. A few things are different this year: only one position is open, and there are four women running while last year there were none.

Since Dec. 6, 21 candidates have been electioneering. Voting closes at 3 p.m. Check out the candidates and their platforms.
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Ben Kessler - Director of Marketing at Crowdtap

Mr. Kessler, who was previously at SeatGeek, has behind him more than five years of experience in product marketing and public relations. He has also worked with various startups in the technology sector. His primary aim for the NYTM is to "connect the dots beyond the meetup and build sub-groups to support each other. Whether it's teaching people how to hack, or bringing together women in tech."
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Brandon Diamond - Startup-Minded Engineer

Mr. Diamond has already spent two years voluntarily co-organizing the NYTM. His platform states: "I don’t run a business school, I haven’t grown a startup to 100 employees, and I certainly haven’t raised a billion dollars— but I have spent 2 years writing code, co-organizing the NYTM, and getting to know the community." His website believes he is the person "to bridge the gap between the membership and the Board."
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Charlie O'Donnell - VC and Founder of nextNY

Mr. O'Donnell was one of the first 100 members of the NYTM, dating back to February 2005. He was also part of the original board and participated on it until last year when he "offered to step aside to bring a few more faces." Now he wishes to return with the intention of finding "more ways to expand the reach of our community well beyond the island of Manhattan. We have a community of makers and extremely creative talent right across the East River in Brooklyn, but there exists a social and mental barrier to increased involvement in my favorite outer borough’s tech resurgence."
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Courtney Bolton - Digital product designer, web strategist, interaction & UX /user experience specialist.

Ms. Bolton has more than eight years of interactive design experience, with extensive hands-on problem-solving in concept creation, brand strategy, information architecture, interaction design, visual/user interface design, usability and user research.
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Dan Healy - Director of Business Development at Prolific Interactive

Mr. Healy (who is much less pixelated in real life) founded SloopyMenus.com in 2005, and sold it in 2008. He managed client relations for Brazen Careerist helping companies understand how to recruit and retain young people through social media tools and strategies, and has also worked in the agency world, managing New Media for Mason, Inc.
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David Tisch - Managing Director of TechStars

Mr. Tisch was recently named to Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology. He also serves as a judge for HackNY and BigApps Hackathons and participates in many other local startup events. He is "very excited about the opportunity to get more involved with NYTM" and if he was elected would hope it "can play a monumental role in strengthening the bonds within the existing tech community and opening up avenues to grow and enrich new the boundaries of the ecosystem."
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Eric Friedman - Director of Business Development at Foursquare

Formerly at Union Square Ventures, Mr. Friedman, also spent three years working at Reprise Media, a full service SEM, SEO, and social media agency startup. In his opinion he would be an asset to the board "by identifying great candidates, understanding company culture, and knowing about openings and needs."
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Evan Schreiber - Vice President, Video Strategy and Partnerships at AOL

Mr. Schreiber overseas AOL Huffington Post Media Group’s video programming, development and partnership strategy and team. Prior to AOL, he was VP of Content Strategy and Acquisition at 5min Media, the leading independent video distribution platform.
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Greg Schnese - Head of Product Marketing, User Acquisition Initiatives at kikin

Prior to kikin, Mr. Schnese co-founded Hapnin.com, a “hyper-local things to do” platform. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and New York University, now also heading kikin’s usability lab. He has been part of the NY Tech community since 2007. He believes: "The NYTM could help startup companies by providing or endorsing official events/services such as a jobs newsletter or a jobs fair."
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Jack Welde - Founder & CEO at Smartling

Jack Welde is a seasoned CEO, COO, CTO, product executive and entrepreneur. His background is in software technology, localization, social media, word-of-mouth marketing, digital media, leadership and management as well as over 20 years of entrepreneurial and technology experience and for nine years he served as an Air Force officer and pilot. His LinkedIn profile lists his specialities as, amongst other things: Entrepreneurship, operations, management, technology. Mr. Welde’s campaign is based on the idea of finding “ways to involve more people,” in the NYTM. He says, “I’ve been an entrepreneur, I’ve started companies and I’ve raised money…I’d be happy to serve.”
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Jalak Jobanputra - Tech VC

"The tech sector is critical to NYC’s future as a city and we must harness this collective power to establish tech as the dominant 21st century industry in the city," says Ms. Jobanputra, who is starting a new NYC-based VC fund after leaving her role as a director for Omidyar. Prior to Omidyar, she worked at the NYC Investment Fund, building out the tech ecosystem from 2007-2010, and spearheaded the formation of NYCSeed in 2008. Prior to her role at Omidyar she started microfinance programs, consulted for charter schools throughout the country, advised large telcos and media companies on mergers and acquisitions and helped launch a web 1.0 startup.
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Jesse Landry - Business Development Manager, iTechArt

Business development manager with iTechArt, Jesse Landry, isn’t shy when stating his intent. "I am one thousand percent dedicated to everything that I commit to," he said. Mr. Landry’s professional background is in HR, spending nearly three years with Administaff, a human resource provider to small and medium business. One of his major roles was planning the sales cycle and presenting to the venture capital backed start-ups in the New York region. In his current role at iTechArt Mr. Landry works with corporations in Europe and North America, aiding the development of individual software solutions.
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Jonathan Askin - Professor of Law

“My goal is to ensure that law and policy evolve in the most efficacious manner to advance the needs of tech entrepreneurs,” said Mr. Askin, who believes that archaic laws can get in the way of new tech entrepreneurs, and wants to help. To further this goal he founded the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic. The clinic provides pro bono services from himself and his students to startups that may not have the resources for such legal help. Mr. Askin acted previously as General Counsel to pulver.com, and was General Counsel and President of Assessment, Learning and Technology Solutions (ALTS).
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June Cohen - Executive Director of TED Media

June Cohen is a master of events. As Executive Director of TED Media she helped in attracting 600 million viewers to TEDTalks. She said her passion lies in being a connector: "I love to build bridges between great ideas and the collaborators, companies, funders and media outlets." In her past she was Editor-in-Chief of The Stanford Daily and VP of content at hotwired.com, which syndicates cars, hotels and flights. In the second last sentence of Ms. Cohen’s candidate statement, she said, “Also, I’m a very nice person. And that’s a useful trait in a Board member.”
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Luke Hasseloff - "Freelance BizDev Guy"

Luke Hasseloff is a man with a big passion for each of the ‘big three’ sales, networking and connecting people. A native New Yorker, he graduated from Stanford and calls himself a "freelance biz dev guy." His candidacy statement goes down the somewhat bolder route of including two specific ideas; to create more one-on-one connections and more specialty events. It is his belief that the grassroots of running a company is often neglected at New York tech events. Interestingly, he also calls for more involvement from other industries, but his answer as to which exact industry, hints that he wouldn’t which particular one it was "such as fashion, finance, healthcare, etc."
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Matthew Knell - Social Media Director at AOL

Calling himself a 'community evangelist,' Matthew Knell says: "New York is the greatest city in the world, with the greatest people," he said, "and together we can work together to make a difference for ourselves." Indeed, Mr. Knell’s career has seen him at the fore of online marketing. Mr. Knell developed the patented advertising system for About.com. He is AOL’s current Social Media Director and teaches Web Marketing at NYU.
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Michael Liebow - CEO of Foretuit

Michael Liebow is one of the more experienced candidates on the NYTM nominee list. His resume includes 10 years at IBM as Business Development for Global Services and CEO of Dexterra and Antenna Software. At IBM he created a new portfolio of solutions. He has held positions in high-tech, consumer package goods and media. He grauated from the University of Wisconsin with a science degree. His current role is that of CEO of Foretuit, which he co-founded. Foretuit is a data analyzing program that claims to combine your social feeds like email etcetera, together automatically, creating a end “deal dna” result. That will then predict whether your deals will be won or lost.
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Murat Aktihanoglu - MD of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator

Mr. Aktihanoglu is the MD of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, so yeah, everyone is pretty much trying their best to be his friend. He co-wrote the book “Location Aware Applications” and was an original founder of centri.com. He advises on numerous different funds and forums, helping mainly in a advisory role, from the more modest; The Startup Foundation to the World Bank. He has managed engineering teams at Silicon Graphics in Mountain View and Sony Corporation in Tokyo, Japan.
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Shai Goldman - Tech VC

Mr. Goldman sees a gap between the investors and the entrepreneurs currently serving on the NYTM board. And he thinks he, as a "tech/VC guy for the past 10 years," is the very man to bridge that gap. He gives three reasons why he should be the chosen candidate, in the process trumpeting how far a strong handshake and slap on the back can help. "I recently relocated to NYC, so I have unique perspective of what it means to move to a new community with limited contacts." Said Mr. Goldman, "A lot of people are now moving to NYC to be part of the startup community and we need to make sure they have smooth transition to NYC and are feeling welcomed." Mr. Goldman wants more diversity at the meetups – he wants committees formed from sub-sectors like ecommerce, fintech, enterprise software, mobile, healthcare IT amongst others.
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Wei Zhao - Managing Director and Founder of Seatig Inc.

Everyone on the nominee list, not surprisingly, wants to bring his or her area of expertise to the NYTM. Wei Zhao’s expertise is possible the most topical for this year out of all nominees. Being a previous hedge fund manager, and investment banker on Wall Street, she firmly believes that Wall St. have as big an alliance with NY Tech as it could do. She thinks her background, being born and raised in China, educated in the US, is an advantage, having organized various ‘China conferences’ at different Universities in the north-east. “China is immature” said Zhao, referring to the tech/finance mixture, but "immaturity gives opportunity and innovation." That's something she believes she can tap into.
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Whitney Hess - Independent Consultant

Ms. Hess tells companies how they can make their customers' lives easier, so its no wonder she wants to make the lives of tech meetup attendee’s easier too. “We need to make them feel like it was the best $10 they’ll ever spend.” She said, speaking about the ticketing troubles that have plagued the meetup in the past. In the past she has worked on designs for American Express, The New York Times, Tropicana and Allstate in her roles at Digitas and Tribal DDB. She now works solely as an independent consultant in New York City, working predominantly with startups, markedly Boxee, House Party and Seamless.

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