David Gerster

Current

Principal Program Manager at Microsoft

Past

Consultant at Cloudera, Inc.
Director of Analytics at Yahoo!
Principal Technical Yahoo! at Yahoo!

Manager, Search Monetization at Yahoo!
Independent Professional at David Gerster Structured Finance Services (Self-employed)
Founder and CEO at DeltaClick, Inc.
Intern / MP3 Enthusiast / IRC Bot Writer at Epitonic.com

see less...

4 more...

Education

University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business
Harvard University

Recommended

12 people have recommended David

Connections

485 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

David Gerster’s Summary

I'm an internet veteran with both startup and big company experience. My combination of product sense, business experience and technical knowledge helps me find solutions others might miss. My credo is "think big and execute small".

David Gerster’s Specialties:

Search, sponsored search, bucket testing, A/B testing, clickstream data, cloud computing, shopping, startups, product management, product development, business intelligence, machine learning, data mining, MicroStrategy, entrepreneurship, angel investing.

David Gerster’s Experience

Principal Program Manager

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

May 2009 — Present (3 months)

Find creative ways to improve Bing search relevance and monetization using "big data", including clickstream data.

Use Microsoft's cloud computing platform to experiment with outlandishly large data sets. http://bit.ly/lTbs9
Consultant

Cloudera, Inc.

(Internet industry)

February 2009 — April 2009 (3 months)

Developed and presented pricing model for Cloudera's hosted Hadoop services.
Director of Analytics

Yahoo!

(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)

September 2007 — February 2009 (1 year 6 months)

Promoted to Director of Analytics.

Had my "20% project" approved for launch by the company President.

Managed a team of 14 engineers responsible for analytics across all major Yahoo properties, including Front Page, Search, Mail, Sports, News, Finance, Answers, Shopping, Travel, Autos, Real Estate, Local and Messenger.
Principal Technical Yahoo!

Yahoo!

(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)

March 2005 — September 2007 (2 years 7 months)

Promoted to Principal Technical Yahoo. Managed a team of seven MicroStrategy engineers.

Responsible for "A/B testing" on Y! Shopping. Implemented test process, tested new product features and evaluated impact on revenue and user experience.

Devised and evangelized a method for improving Yahoo's search and sponsored search relevance. Successfully lobbied for resources to implement this "20% project".

Managed business intelligence for Y! Marketplace properties, including bucket testing for Yahoo! Shopping, Autos, Maps and Local.

Managed the MicroStrategy engineering team for Y! Shopping, Autos, Maps, Local, Travel, Personals and Real Estate.
Manager, Search Monetization

Yahoo!

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; YHOO; Internet industry)

April 2003 — April 2004 (1 year 1 month)

Responsible for monetization of Yahoo's main search page.

Evangelized an innovative matching technology over internal resistance. Used bucket testing data to make a clear case for launching this new technology, which today makes Yahoo! tens of millions of dollars each year.
Independent Professional

David Gerster Structured Finance Services (Self-employed)

(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Investment Banking industry)

August 2001 — March 2003 (1 year 8 months)

Created financial models for securitizations. Clients included KPMG, Wells Fargo and DaimlerChrysler. DaimlerChrysler engagement involved securitizations worth more than $20 billion.

Please visit http://www.goCMO.com for more information.

Keywords: Securitization, structured finance, mortgage-backed securities, MBS, asset-backed securities, ABS, commercial mortgage-backed securities, CMBS.
Founder and CEO

DeltaClick, Inc.

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

May 2000 — June 2001 (1 year 2 months)

Raised $2M for Internet startup focused on contextual advertising. More info at http://www.gocmo.com/deltaclick.

Responsible for all product design and feature decisions for both client and server.

VP Engineering and Chief Software Architect reported directly to me.

Product was installed on more than 1,500,000 machines and received high ratings from users.
Intern / MP3 Enthusiast / IRC Bot Writer

Epitonic.com

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

1999 — 1999 (less than a year)

Wrote (relatively innocuous) IRC bots that generated more traffic to Epitonic.com than its partnership with Microsoft.

Created hipster-friendly slogan "MP3 IS NOT A CRIME". As late as 2002, stickers bearing this slogan could still be found on parking meters in Soma.

Hung out with people with names like "Seven" and "Monkey".

Advertised on Goto.com. Later founded a company based on the concept of performance-based marketing.

Attended the MP3 Summit in San Diego, at the peak of the MP3 hype.

Used forged "from:" address to convince public relations lead that company had received a nasty email from the MP3.com legal department, causing her to submit an anonymous tip to Iconocast using their "tell Jaco" feature. Tip was published in the Iconocast newsletter.

Watched eMusic do a reverse merger into a public shell. Watched Riffage launch. Made money on MusicMaker.com stock.

Used Napster for the first time.

David Gerster’s Education

University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business

MBA , 1998 — 2000

Activities and Societies:

Recipient of Price Fellowship in Entrepreneurship.

Semifinalist in first annual UC Berkeley Business Plan competition. Dropped out of competition after receiving venture funding.

Webmaster for first annual Leading Edge Technology Conference.
Harvard University

BA , General Studies , 1988 — 1992