Oliver Roup

Current

Founder / CEO at VigLink, Inc

Past

Associate at Founders Fund
Consulting Architect at BBC
Principal Group Program Manager (Director) at Microsoft

Research Program Manager at Vulcan, Inc
Director of Advanced Technology at Echo Networks
Architect and Engineer at Edusoft
Associate at Scient
Research Assistant at MIT Media Lab

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Education

Harvard Business School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Upper Canada College

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Recommended

4 people have recommended Oliver

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

Oliver Roup’s Summary

Currently staffing the founding technical team at VigLink: http://viglink.com/jobs/

Oliver Roup’s Specialties:

Network delivered software

Oliver Roup’s Experience

Founder / CEO

VigLink, Inc

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

March 2009 — Present (9 months)

VigLink is building a unique platform for the real-time optimization of affiliate marketing. The company has some very notable investors and is currently hiring the founding technical team. Job descriptions are available at http://viglink.com/jobs/
Associate

Founders Fund

(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

June 2008 — April 2009 (11 months)

Sourced an opportunity and led investment through successful execution of a term sheet. Participated in all stages of the diligence process across dozens of potential deals. Implemented deal flow management system for improved pipeline visibility. Created financial models to identify fund allocation concerns.
Consulting Architect

BBC

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Broadcast Media industry)

July 2007 — August 2007 (2 months)

Performed end-to-end review of technical and organizational architecture of 5-year, 200-person software effort, driving significant technical, organizational and cultural changes: reorganization from a dozen product teams to three, consolidation of job titles, movement to a monthly release cycle and a common toolset, elimination of non-strategic projects and change of vendors to reduce costs and increase flexibility.
Principal Group Program Manager (Director)

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

March 2003 — March 2007 (4 years 1 month)

Built XBOX Live Video Marketplace and Zune Services teams from
scratch: Secured approval, recruited and managed team, and executed product development from concept to delivery including product definition, design, scheduling and launch across PC, XBOX and Zune platforms. Worked laterally to develop Zune brand, customer promise and strategy. Crafted complex agreements with MTV, all major music labels and vendors like MusicNet. Frequently represented Microsoft in acquisition due-diligence, partner management, recruiting, legal deposition, and internal evangelism. Managed teams as large as 35 and launched numerous other products including multiple versions of MSN Music, Video, Movies, Radio and TV.
Research Program Manager

Vulcan, Inc

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

January 2002 — March 2003 (1 year 3 months)

Worked for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, managing various projects including IP portfolio management, due diligence on technology investments and digital media strategy. Founded and managed Project Halo, a ground-breaking Artificial Intelligence research project in “Question Answering”. Managed multiple teams locally and overseas with multi-million dollar budgets. Presented at DARPA and semantic web conferences.
Director of Advanced Technology

Echo Networks

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

January 2000 — December 2002 (3 years )

Acted as both product manager and core engineer for award-winning online radio product. Led cross-company team through multiple product iterations. Designed and implemented the technical architecture for real-time communication service supporting thousands of concurrent users. Developed formal partner engagement plans and strategy for technology investment and development.
Architect and Engineer

Edusoft

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Education Management industry)

October 2001 — December 2001 (3 months)

Designed, built and deployed core subsystems of the Edusoft platform including automatic grader using custom OCR and commodity sheet-fed scanners reducing per-test costs roughly 100x. In November 2003, Edusoft was acquired by The Houghton Mifflin Company.
Associate

Scient

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

September 1999 — January 2000 (5 months)

Developer responsible for design and implementation of a financial institution messaging system including all PKI and message integrity verification. Scient is now part of SBI Group.
Research Assistant

MIT Media Lab

(Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Research industry)

September 1994 — June 1999 (4 years 10 months)

Founded “Hive”, a popular open-source toolkit for making distributed software systems. Conceived, implemented and oversaw project, which served as basis for three masters theses including my own: Hive: A Software Infrastructure for Things That Think. Routinely briefed sponsors including fortune 100 C-level executives. Presented at Intel Play consortium and Nokia’s “Things That Link” workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Created a hardware and software system for the real-time acquisition and analysis of telemetry from wired athletes, deployed on runners in the Boston and San Francisco marathons in support of sports-medicine research.

Oliver Roup’s Education

Harvard Business School

MBA , 2007 — 2009

Activities and Societies:

Winner John H. McArthur Canadian Fellowship. Participant
China/Vietnam immersion. 2nd place VCIC competition. Member: VC/PE, Tech/Media, Entrepreneurship clubs.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

M.Eng , Computer Science , 1998 — 1999

Activities and Societies:

Coordinator of Nightline, Graduate Resident Tutor at Senior House
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

B.Sc , Computer Science , 1994 — 1998

Activities and Societies:

Member and Rush Chair of Theta Delta Chi, Nightline Staff, Freshman Crew Team
Upper Canada College

Ontario Secondary School Diploma , 1984 — 1994

Activities and Societies:

Crew Team, Board of Stewards, Editor College Times, Little Theater, Debate Team