Online Media Executive, Internet Entrepreneur, Angel Investor
Greater Chicago Area
- Current
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- (Former) Vice President, General Manager Yahoo! News, Tech, Education at Yahoo!
- Past
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- Founder, CEO at Participate Media/BuzzTracker
- Publisher at RealClearPolitics.com
- President, Participate Systems Division at Outstart
- CEO, Chairman, Founder at Participate Systems
- VP, Strategic Business Development at eShare Technologies, Inc.
- VP Business Development at FreeLoader, Inc./Individual, Inc.
- Qualified Case Leader at The Boston Consulting Group
- Associate Engineer; Central Engineering at Kraft General Foods
- Education
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- Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- Tenafly High School
- Recommended
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5 people have recommended Alan - Connections
-
500+
connections
- Industry
- Online Media
- Websites
Alan Warms’s Summary
Currently evaluating several investment, executive management, and startup opportunities.
Versatile executive with proven track record in moving the needle in organizations ranging from large ($100MM plus) to startups.
Most recently worked at Yahoo! as Vice President, General Manager Yahoo! News, Tech, and Education from the sale of BuzzTracker in September, 2007 through completion of earnout in November, 2008. While there, led turnaround in performance of News, including: development of the first major site redesign in 3.5 years; implemented BuzzTracker into every News story page as a Most Blogged About feature; extended Yahoo! News lead as the number one News site for Reach in the world according to Comscore; and grew revenue and operating cash flow double digits percentage-wise on a year to year basis through innovative application of monetization techniques while consistently and significantly beating budget targets.
Current angel investments include Stocktwits,Trada, AdGooRoo, Directory of Schools, DOS Partners, and Moving Station. Previous angel investments include Wallstrip (sold to CBS).
In January 2007, successfully exited investment I led in RealClearPolitics and stepped down as Publisher as part of transaction. Summary of deal can be found here: http://www.participatemedia.com/2007/03/13/realclearpolitics/
Sold last company, Participate Systems, to Outstart in November 2004 after founding it 1997.
Alan Warms’s Specialties:
online revenue generation, display/performance/branded/dr, online media, startups, user-generated content/online community, new media, sales, marketing, positioning, business development, general management, product management, capital formation, turnarounds, publishing, blogs, news, publishing
Alan Warms’s Experience
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(Former) Vice President, General Manager Yahoo! News, Tech, Education
Yahoo!
(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)
September 2007 — Present (1 year 11 months)
General Manager of news.yahoo.com, tech.yahoo.com, education.yahoo.com from 2007-2008; left after completion of earnout from sale of BuzzTracker to Yahoo! in December, 2008. Led the development of the first major site redesign in 3.5 years; implemented BuzzTracker into every News story page as a Most Blogged About feature; extended Yahoo! News lead as the number one News site for Reach in the world according to Comscore; and grew revenue and operating cash flow double digits percentage-wise on a year to year basis while consistently beating budget targets.
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Founder, CEO
Participate Media/BuzzTracker
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
September 2005 — September 2007 (2 years 1 month)
Founder of Participate Media, online publishing company. Invested in RealClearPolitics from 9/05 to 3/07, also acted as Publisher. Created BuzzTracker.com and associated technologies in 1/2006 and sold to Yahoo! in September 2007. Participate Media was entirely self-funded.
Participate Media was publisher of BuzzTracker. BuzzTracker provides custom filtered content feeds culled from over 100,000 web site sources on topics ranging from Colon Cancer, to Chicago Cubs, to Software as a Service. Current focus is on BuzzTracker both as destination web site and also as provider of custom content feeds to partners across the internet ecosystem. Check it out at http://www.buzztracker.com.
All Participate Media employees now are Yahoo! employees. -
Publisher
RealClearPolitics.com
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Online Media industry)
September 2005 — March 2007 (1 year 7 months)
Served, along with staff, as Publisher of RealClearPolitics.com, owning all aspects of technology, business development, and monetization (ie, not content). Information about experience there can be found here:
http://www.participatemedia.com/2007/03/13/realclearpolitics/
From the post above (which includes the links)
During our time as Publisher:
– we launched a new site built on Movable Type (Fred Wilson talked about it here)
– we executed distribution deals with Yahoo!, OpinionJournal, Forbes, FoxNews, and Time Inc.
– we developed key new technologies used by RealClearPolitics including BuzzTracker, ReaderArticles, and a myriad of Polling tools
– Page views and unique visitors more than doubled
– we signed up additional web sites to be repped by RealClearPolitics
– Revenue quintupled -
President, Participate Systems Division
Outstart
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
November 2004 — April 2005 (6 months)
Helping to complete the integration of Participate into Outstart to create the leader in formal and informal knowledge and learning technologies.
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CEO, Chairman, Founder
Participate Systems
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
November 1997 — November 2004 (7 years 1 month)
Participate Systems was the premier provider of online community software and services to the Global 2000 market. Customers included GE, AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, TiVo, Logitech, palmOne, Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, and many many others.
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VP, Strategic Business Development
eShare Technologies, Inc.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
January 1997 — October 1997 (10 months)
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VP Business Development
FreeLoader, Inc./Individual, Inc.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)
January 1996 — December 1996 (1 year)
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Qualified Case Leader
The Boston Consulting Group
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Management Consulting industry)
June 1991 — December 1995 (4 years 7 months)
Summer Intern 1991; Full Time 1992-1995 in Los Angeles, Chicago offices. Provided consulting on reorganizations, reengineering, growth strategies, cost cutting, partner optimization in the retail, manufacturing industries
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Associate Engineer; Central Engineering
Kraft General Foods
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Consumer Goods industry)
June 1988 — August 1990 (2 years 3 months)
Investigated new technologies and their applicability to manufacturing. Implemented projects using expert systens, robotics, vision, supervisory control systems. Assistant systems integrator on $37MM state of the art Material Handling Center.
Alan Warms’s Education
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Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
M.B.A. , Marketing, Finance , 1990 — 1992
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
B.S.E.E. , Electrical Engineering , September 1984 — May 1988
- Activities and Societies:
- Rensselaer Society of Engineers
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Tenafly High School
1980 — 1984
Additional Information
Alan Warms’s Websites:
Alan Warms’s Interests:
Skiing, sailing, baseball, politics
Alan Warms’s Honors:
Recognized as World Economic Forum 100 Technology Pioneers in 2001
Crain's Chicago Business 40 under 40
Alan Warms’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
