Jon Williams

Current

• CTO at iVillage
• Member (and co-founder) at New York CTO Club

Past

• CTO at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions
• CTO at Grey Healthcare
• Technology Consultant (Self-employed)

• VP, Technology at N2K
• CTO - Chief Technology Officer at 24/7 Media
• Director, Technology at Zyware
• Lead Programmer & Project Manager at Cybergraphic Systems

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Education

• University of Melbourne
• Melbourne High School

Recommended

6 people have recommended Jon

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Online Media

Websites

• My Blog
• My Photos
• My Music

Jon Williams’s Summary

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.

Jon Williams’s Specialties:

Software development, technology architecture, project/process management, e-commerce, business process automation, technology strategies. Extensive in both Unix/Java and Windows platforms.

Jon Williams’s Experience

• CTO

  iVillage

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; IVIL; Online Media industry)

  April 2008 — Present (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).

• Member (and co-founder)

  New York CTO Club

  (Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  June 2000 — Present (8 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).

• CTO

  Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions

  (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.

• CTO

  Grey Healthcare

  (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.

• Technology Consultant

  Self-employed

  (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.

• VP, Technology

  N2K

  (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.

• CTO - Chief Technology Officer

  24/7 Media

  (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.

• Director, Technology

  Zyware

  (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.

• Lead Programmer & Project Manager

  Cybergraphic Systems

  (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

Jon Williams’s Education

• University of Melbourne

  B. Sc., Computer Science, 1980 — 1983

• Melbourne High School

  Matriculation, 1976 — 1979

  Activities and Societies:

  Army Cadets (CUO, communications in final year)

Additional Information

Jon Williams’s Websites:

• My Blog
• My Photos
• My Music

Jon Williams’s Interests:

guitar, tennis, geocaching, snowboarding, people-networking

Jon Williams’s Groups:

NY CTO Club, Columbia University IT Master's program - Mentor, Infoworld CTO advisory council, International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), JED Foundation - advisor

•    New York CTO Club member
•    NBC Universal Alumni member

Jon Williams’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch