CTO at iVillage
Greater New York City Area
CTO at iVillage
Greater New York City Area
Jon is the CTO at iVillage, a division of NBC Universal.
Jon's past experience as a technology executive include Kaplan, Grey Healthcare, Time Warner, Scholastic, Oxygen Media, News Corporation, CDnow and 24/7 Media.
Jon was born in Australia, and moved permanently to the USA in 1986. He is a member of InfoWorld magazine's CTO advisory council, and is the co-founder of the New York CTO club, an eight-year-old group of CTOs who meet and collaborate on a regular basis.
Software development, technology architecture, project/process management, e-commerce, business process automation, technology strategies. Extensive in both Unix/Java and Windows platforms.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; IVIL; Online Media industry)
April 2008 — Present (1 year 4 months)
Manages technology for iVillage, a division of NBC Universal. iVillage is the first and largest media company dedicated exclusively to connecting women at every stage of their lives. Ranked the #1 online destination for women with 31.4 million unique visitors (comScore MediaMetrix).
(Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 2000 — Present (9 years 2 months)
The New York CTO Club is an independent, not-for-profit, invitation-only group of senior technologists. We meet monthly to share ideas and expertise. Among club members are CIO/CTO's from Aegis, Amerada Hess, Forbes.com, Business Week, Princeton Review, Warner Music, Kaplan (and many more companies).
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; WPO; Education Management industry)
May 2004 — April 2008 (4 years)
- Managed all aspects of technology for Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions, a division of Kaplan, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO). Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions is the first and leading provider of exam preparation and admissions services worldwide.
- Reporting to CEO, led 85-person technology team, supporting 160 training centers across 44 states.
- Indirectly supported Kaplan divisions:- K12, Score in Chicago, Aspect in London and Kidum in Israel.
- Member of Kaplan corporate IT governance committee, along with other division CTOs.
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; GREY; Pharmaceuticals industry)
November 2001 — April 2004 (2 years 6 months)
- Managed all aspects of technology for Grey Healthcare Group, the world's fifth largest healthcare communications company, with over 700 employees in 40 offices in 16 countries.
- Reporting to CEO, led 18-person technology team in support of both client and internal technology projects, across all divisions and locations.
- Built Grey Healthcare’s e-business division from scratch, with revenue of $900K in 2002 and $1.4 million in 2003, with a 20% profit margin, far exceeding management’s expectations. Recruited entire e-business team, installed project management processes, and created sales approach.
- Pitched interactive projects directly to pharmaceutical clients, including GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Forest Laboratories, Bayer, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim, Allergan, Unilever.
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Information Technology and Services industry)
November 1998 — November 2001 (3 years 1 month)
Independent technology architect working with dozens of clients, including AOL Time Warner, Scholastic, Oxygen Media, Bigfoot Interactive, Bluefly.com, Art Technology Group. Also worked with many startup ventures and performed many technology reviews and due diligences.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Music industry)
December 1996 — November 1998 (2 years)
- Managed the development and operation of www.MusicBoulevard.com, a pioneering e-commerce site on the Internet selling music (since acquired by Cdnow/Bertelsmann). At its peak, Cdnow web sites did $1 million per day in sales (before being folded into Amazon.com).
- Led 40-person technology staff, setting a common vision for technology groups to facilitate rapid development of Music Boulevard and other music-related sites, including rocktropolis.com, jazzcentralstation.com and classicalinsites.com
- Planned scaling of web systems to meet 10-times annual traffic growth.
- Led multiple fulfillment efforts, designing EDI interfaces with partner warehouses. Researched and deployed international fulfillment offerings in Europe and Japan.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; TFSM; Online Media industry)
July 1996 — December 1996 (6 months)
- Managed technology for www.riddler.com, a top gaming site, and the Commonwealth Network, an ad banner delivery system that later became 24/7 Media’s ad delivery system (aka Interactive Imaginations).
- Led 25-person staff in Software Engineering, Database, Network, and Project Management.
- Redesigned a static ad banner server as a dynamic ad delivery system, which served 3 million ad impressions per day, on a second by second basis, with real-time changes and reporting.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
December 1992 — July 1996 (3 years 8 months)
- Co-founded and grew technology consulting company to $2.5 million annual revenues within 2 years, with no outside capital.
- Led 15-person software engineering staff.
- Engaged by News Corporation to design, develop and implement client/server travel system, entitled Middlegate (which became BizTravel.com). Awarded “Best Product” at DEMO ’95 Trade show.
(Privately Held; Newspapers industry)
December 1982 — December 1992 (10 years 1 month)
- Lead programmer of client/server newspaper publishing system sold to metropolitan newspapers throughout Australia, UK, North & South America.
- Personally wrote 500,000 lines of C code in 4-year period for newspaper publishing system.
- Project manager for newspaper publishing system installation process on-site
B. Sc. , Computer Science , 1980 — 1983
Matriculation , Math, Physics, Chemistry , 1976 — 1979
guitar, tennis, geocaching, snowboarding, people-networking