John Linden

Current

• CTO at OpenX

Past

• CTO at Kowabunga!
• CTO at Think Partnership (now Kowabunga!)
• CEO at Litmus Media, Inc. (acquired by Think Partnership)

• EVP Marketing at Positive Networks
• CTO at Adknowledge
• CTO at Virtumundo, Inc.
• Founder at iModules, Inc.
• CEO at Planet Alumni (acquired by Reunion.com)

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Education

• University of Kansas

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

John Linden’s Experience

• CTO

  OpenX

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

  August 2008 — Present (1 year 4 months)

  OpenX is a free, open source ad server trusted by more than 30,000 web publishers in over 100 countries around the world. OpenX is a powerful ad serving solution that allows web publishers to easily manage their display ad campaigns and maximize their CPMs from their own advertisers and from other ad networks.

• CTO

  Kowabunga!

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; THK; Internet industry)

  January 2008 — July 2008 (7 months)

  Kowabunga!, Inc. is the new name of Think Partnership. The company was rebranded in January 2008. Kowabunga focuses on large scale performance advertising technologies (myAP, FeedPatrol) and networks (ValidClick AdExchange, PrimaryAds, KB Network).
  
  I head up the IT teams consisting of over 50 individuals handling the company's product management, project management, software development, quality assurance, help desk, server infrastructure, database infrastructure, and SOX compliancy. I also lead the direction for our product roadmap and strategy.

• CTO

  Think Partnership (now Kowabunga!)

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; THK; Internet industry)

  July 2006 — January 2008 (1 year 7 months)

  Think Partnership acquired Litmus Media, Inc. in April 2006. After the acquisition I became the CTO of Think Partnership, Inc.
  
  I consolidated IT teams from 8 different subsidiaries into one team with two highly scalable product platforms (myAP on .NET / ValidClick on LAMP). We have implemented an SDLC that is SOX compliant and implemented a full QA process. We also centralized database and server teams as well as project management and QA teams across both platforms. We specialize in using technology to build scalable architectures and have built several patent-pending technologies to maximize our client's ROAS (return on ad spend).

• CEO

  Litmus Media, Inc. (acquired by Think Partnership)

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; THK; Internet industry)

  March 2005 — July 2006 (1 year 5 months)

  Litmus Media was a merger of assets between Blue Olive, LLC (owned by John Linden), Disruptive Advertising (owned by Toby Teeter), and ValidClick, LLC (a joint venture between Blue Olive and Disruptive Advertising). Litmus Media grew revenue from its two products, ValidClick Network and Second Bite, to over $20M in 18 months, earning the title of Fastest Growing Company in Kansas City for 2005. Litmus Media, Inc. was sold to Think Partnership, Inc. (AMEX:THK) in April 2006.

• EVP Marketing

  Positive Networks

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer & Network Security industry)

  August 2004 — March 2005 (8 months)

  As EVP Marketing, I helped build a marketing foundation for Positive Networks to drive large numbers of SMB customers via SEM, SEO, and whitepaper downloads. I also worked with industry analysts to get coverage for Positive's managed VPN service.

• CTO

  Adknowledge

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

  2002 — 2004 (2 years )

• CTO

  Virtumundo, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  2002 — 2003 (1 year )

  I headed up the technology teams that were responsible for large scale websites (http://www.treeloot.com) and ad serving technologies - most famous for its "Punch the Monkey" banner advertisements.
  
  Virtumundo was also a pioneer in email marketing. As CTO, I patented a methodology to insert PPC text ads into graphical email creatives dynamically when a user opened an email. This successful technology resulted in splitting Virtumundo (legacy business) and Adknowledge (PPC email) into two separate companies. I remained with Adknowledge after the split.

• Founder

  iModules, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  2002 — 2002 (less than a year)

  iModules (formerly Planet Alumni, Inc.) builds online communities for high schools and colleges. iModules was a result of splitting Planet Alumni into two companies. The other half of Planet Alumni was purchased by Jeff Tinsley and Richard Rosenblatt to create Reunion.com.
  
  I hired Tom DeBacco as the CEO of iModules and I left after we split it off from PlanetAlumni.com.

• CEO

  Planet Alumni (acquired by Reunion.com)

  (Internet industry)

  1997 — 2002 (5 years )

  Planet Alumni, Inc. had two primary products. 1) PlanetAlumni.com, one of the first social networking websites created in 1997. PlanetAlumni.com had over 2 million users and was sold to Reunion.com in 2002. 2) Planet Alumni, Inc. built online communities for high schools and universities, still operating as iModules, Inc.
  
  I was the founder and CEO of Planet Alumni, Inc. We raised nearly $8 million in venture capital, grew the company to over 35 employees before selling the website to Reunion.com. I hired Tom DeBacco as the CEO of the remaining technology licensing company which is known as iModules, Inc. today.

John Linden’s Education

• University of Kansas

  Computer Engineering 1996 — 2000

Additional Information

John Linden’s Interests:

Co-producer - Take starring Minnie Driver and Jeremy Renner - 2007 Advisory Board - Chemidex, Inc. Advisory Board - The Collectors Fund I

John Linden’s Groups:

•    Kansas Alumni
•    OpenX Professionals

John Linden’s Honors:

Patent #: US 2005/0038861 A1
Patent #: US 2006/0136294 A1