2013 Club Pitch Commerce Keynotes

Opening Keynote

Brian S. Cohen Investor/Entrepreneur/Author

As an angel investor and mentor to entrepreneurs, Brian now serves as Chairman of the New York Angels who has invested over $53 million into more than 70 early stage technology companies. Brian was the first investor in Pinterest and numerous other industry leading startups.

As a new author, Brian‘s book entitled “What Every Angel Investor Wants You To Know: An Insider Reveals How To Get Smart Funding For Your Billion Dollar Idea” will be published and released by McGraw Hill in April 2013.

As a social entrepreneur, Brian is the founding Board member of Center4, NYC’s first technology accelerator devoted to serving the non-profit community. Center4 is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2013 in Hudson Square, New York.
As a disruptive media entrepreneur, Brian believes that all new products, services, and ideas should be easy to discover, find, share and buy. As a result, Brian co-founded Launch.it, with his son Trace in May 2012, the first direct-to-customer, self-publishing PR news platform.

As a social medial specialist, Brian created iFluence PR in 2009, a strategic behavioral-based communications consultancy for the new earned influence / social media community.

As a technology media strategist, Brian is considered one of the fathers of science & technology strategic communications, and co-founded Technology Solutions, Inc. with his wife Carol in 1983.  TSI’s client list read like an entrepreneurial Who’s Who of startup technology companies in computing, communication, software, education, and entertainment. For more than a decade, Brian maintained a broad strategic communications partnership with Sony & IBM Corporation providing counsel to dozens of their intrapreneurial new technology divisions. Notably, TSI received the Gold CIPRA Award in 1998 for the IBM Deep Blue/Gary Kasparov Chess Match Concept and Communications Program. In 1996, TSI was recognized as the #1 fastest growing agency in the United States. Brian sold the company to The McCann Erickson World Group in 1997 and became the Vice Chairman of their Technology Division.

As a researcher, Brian created Focus Technology, an organization that provided qualitative research and instituted the RPM model of integrated strategic communications providing ultra-competitive technology clients the ability to quickly discover and leverage their key strengths, as well as mitigate their destructive weaknesses.

As a publisher, Brian was a pioneer in helping start a number of the first computing publications, to include Computer Systems News and InformationWeek Magazine.

As an educator, Brian created the AIMS (Advanced Internet Media Studies) Program, a college semester program where students will be trained to use the internet smartly and professionally. He also advises entrepreneur students at NYU and Columbia University.

As a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, Brian holds a Masters Degree in Science Communications from Boston University’s School of Public Communications and currently serves on the Dean’s Board of Directors.

Closing Keynote

Doug Alexander President, ICG

An original member of ICG’s advisory board, Doug joined the company full-time in September 1997 as Managing Director, and was appointed President of ICG in January, 2009. Doug has had many roles at ICG including CEO of WiseWire Technologies, which was acquired by Lycos; Chairman of Verticalnet through its IPO; CEO of ICG Europe; CEO of Traffic.com, which was later acquired by Navteq and CEO of Channel Intelligence, which was acquired by Google. In addition to these roles, Doug’s primary focus at ICG has been to sponsor and oversee several partner companies that have included Blackboard (Nasdaq: BBBB), Verticalnet (Nasdaq:VERT), eMerge Interactive (Nasdaq: EMRG), Arbinet-thexchange (Nasdaq: ARBX), WiseWire (acquired by Lycos), LinkShare (acquired by Rakuten), CreditTrade (merged with Creditex Group), Creditex (acquired by IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE)), StarCite (Acquired by Active (Nasdaq: ACTV)), Traffic.com (acquired by Navteq), ClickEquations (acquired by Channel Intelligence), Channel Intelligence (acquired by Google) and Investor Force (acquired by MSCI (NYSE: MSCI)).   Additionally, Doug serves as the co-Chairman of NFTE Philadelphia, is a member of the President’s Advisory Board for Eisenhower Fellows, a member of the Wharton Future of Advertising Global Advisory Board and is Chairman of the Management & Technology Executive Board at the University of Pennsylvania.

Prior to joining ICG, Doug co-founded Reality Online in 1989. Reality Online was an early innovator in the development of award-winning financial planning tools and online services aimed at the individual investor. With the advent of the Internet, Doug transformed the company into a leading provider of Internet solutions to the retail brokerage industry, and then sold the company to Reuters in February 1994. Over the following 3 years, Doug became a key contributor to Reuters’ many Internet initiatives and a frequent speaker on the Internet and its impact on the financial services industry. Prior to co-founding Reality Online, Doug was a partner with Strategic Management Group, a corporate training firm and three-time Inc. 500 company.

Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.S., Electrical Engineering; Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, B.S., Economics
Board Seats: myList, GovDelivery, Procurian, SeaPass, WhiteFence