Scott Gatz

Current

CEO, Founder at GayCities Inc.

Past

Senior Director, Advanced Products Group at Yahoo!
Senior Director, My Yahoo! and Personalization Products at Yahoo!
Senior Director / General Manager, Search & Directory Products at Yahoo!

Director, My Yahoo! and Core Technology at Yahoo!
Director, Product Management at CompassWare
Director, Product Management at Reuters
Associate Producer at Lifetime Medical Television

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Education

Hofstra University

Recommended

8 people have recommended Scott

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

My Blog

Scott Gatz’s Summary

My blog is here:
http://www.scottgatz.com/

Throughout my life I’ve managed to turn my hobbies into my career; first I was a news junkie and became a TV News producer (NBC, Good Morning America and Lifetime) and then I turned my passion for the Internet into this chapter of my career.

I’ve worked at Yahoo! for the last seven years now, and I’m currently the Senior Director of the Advanced Product Group at Yahoo!, my (OLD) official bio is below…

Scott Gatz is Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Advanced Products. In this role, he runs a "startup" within Yahoo focused on delivering new "version 1.0" products into the marketplace. Scott and his team put products into the market and gather feedback, adapt and grow new business opportunities for Yahoo. Two recent successes include Yahoo! Podcasts and Mixd, a mobile social network for college students.

With Yahoo since 1998, he became widely known as Yahoo's "RSS Guy" by chanmpioning and launching RSS in My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail and across the network. He integrated the GeoCities technology and users into the Yahoo! platform after that acquisition, and went on to lead the team that negotiated and launched the relationship with Overture.

Immediately prior to joining Yahoo!, Scott served as an independent consultant building solutions for clients interested in using the Internet to increase productivity and strengthen customer and employee relationships.

Scott’s early career was diverse, ranging from television production at the Lifetime channel and NBC to product development and management for major information providers. In the early 90’s, he spent two years at Reuters where he managed a team that developed and marketed educational and online news products for the healthcare industry.

Scott Gatz’s Specialties:

Innovation, RSS, Personalization, My Yahoo!, Search, Product Management, Design, Technical Architecture, Social Media

Scott Gatz’s Experience

CEO, Founder

GayCities Inc.

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

February 2008 — Present (1 year 10 months)

Founder & CEO of Gay Travel community site GayCities. GayCities connects LGBT travelers to find where to go, where to eat and where to stay in cities across North America. Our users write reviews, share photos, and chat in forums about their favorite places. On teh wweb, facebook and the iPhone.
Senior Director, Advanced Products Group

Yahoo!

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; YHOO; Internet industry)

July 2006 — January 2008 (1 year 7 months)

I led a "startup within a big company" focused on creating and launching innovative new products. I built a large team in San Francisco and led them to conceive and launch Mixd (a mobile social messaging product targeted at college students), Kickstart (a professional network for college students) and TBD ( a product that is just about to launch).
Senior Director, My Yahoo! and Personalization Products

Yahoo!

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; yhoo; Internet industry)

May 2003 — July 2006 (3 years 3 months)

Led product management and strategy for personalization and RSS across Yahoo’s network of properties and on My Yahoo!. Built product roadmap, business case, and a team to relaunch My Yahoo and to better leverage Yahoo’s personalization and RSS assets as the company refocused on its core portal functionality.
Senior Director / General Manager, Search & Directory Products

Yahoo!

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; YHOO; Internet industry)

February 2001 — April 2003 (2 years 3 months)

Led product management and product strategy for Yahoo! Search and refocused Executive Management on its potential. Proposed and sold internally, then negotiated and launched relationship with Overture to drive significant portion of Yahoo’s annual revenue. Served as spokesperson/evangelist in the press and at conferences. Managed and renegotiated relationship with Google and Inktomi and later conducted due diligence and integration planning for search acquisitions. (Inktomi, FAST, Altavista and Overture)
Director, My Yahoo! and Core Technology

Yahoo!

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; YHOO; Internet industry)

September 1998 — February 2001 (2 years 6 months)

Started as lead PM for My Yahoo and re-launched it with many features it is still known for (themes, multiple columns, 100s of modules, multiple pages). Led a team to launch or grow products like Corporate My Yahoo, Yahoo Wallet, Yahoo Toolbar, Message Boards, Polls, Companion, Alerts, PageBuilder. Integrated GeoCities technology after that acquisition.
Director, Product Management

CompassWare

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

October 1996 — November 1997 (1 year 2 months)
Director, Product Management

Reuters

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; RTRSY; Internet industry)

June 1994 — October 1996 (2 years 5 months)
Associate Producer

Lifetime Medical Television

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Broadcast Media industry)

September 1992 — October 1993 (1 year 2 months)