William Grosso

Current

SVP of Product and CTO at Live Gamer
Advisory Board Member at Various
Board Member at SDForum

Engineering and Management Consulting (Sole Proprietorship)

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Past

CTO / VP Engineering at Twofish (bought by LiveGamer)
CTO and VP of Engineering at Engage (bought by Spark Networks. Amex: LOV)
Co-Chair, Emerging Technology SIG at SDForum

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Recommended

27 people have recommended William

Connections

365 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

William Grosso’s Summary

Startup executive, focused on product strategy, product management, and engineering. Excellent at leadership, alignment, roadmaps, and actually shipping stuff.

(see also: http://www.wgrosso.com)

William Grosso’s Experience

SVP of Product and CTO

Live Gamer

(Privately Held; Computer Games industry)

August 2009 — Present (4 months)

Came over with the acquisition of Twofish and continuing in the same role (think "the complete value chain, from strategy to requirements to customer"). Major difference is the number of people who report to me (lots more, in 4 different locations) and the scope of what we're trying to do.

I'm also spending more time thinking about the future of data these days.
Advisory Board Member

Various

(Privately Held; Myself Only; Computer Software industry)

June 2003 — Present (6 years 6 months)

Provide technical and strategic advice as member of advisory boards for several startups. I limit the number of companies I advise because I like to be a fairly active advisor. Usually this takes the form of:

-- Architectural and technological advice
-- Hiring and interview assistance
-- Help identifying and negotiating with outsourced resources
-- Mock investor for funding pitch preparation
-- Sounding board for strategy
-- Generally opinionated guy.
Board Member

SDForum

(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

June 2002 — Present (7 years 6 months)

Long term member of the board for SDForum. Help to initiate/manage strategic relationships, advise on technology direction and, as chair of the SIG committee, manage the 16 SIGs that meet monthly under the SDForum umbrella. Recent focus has been on redefining the structure of the organization, corporate governance, and compensation.
Engineering and Management Consulting
Sole Proprietorship

(Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Computer Software industry)

June 1997 — Present (12 years 6 months)

Intermittently serve as consultant both to software companies and to companies with a significant software component, usually as an interim Vice President of Engineering.

Recent assignments have included:

-- Performing a software evaluation for one of the larger companies in the valley and helping them make a "repair or start-over" decision.
-- Helping an established company figure out a new
engineering organization structure and product roadmap
after an acquisition tripled the size of engineering
to approximately 120 people.
-- Analyzing engineering processes and software architecture
at an early stage startup looking to grow quickly.
-- Evaluating a newly purchased engineering organization.
-- Helping a late-stage startup re-evaluate its architecture
and software delivery models, with the goal of moving an
installed application to a SaaS product line.