Robert Smith
Chairman and Co-Founder
Robert Smith is Chairman and Co-Founder of Bright Hub lending his more than 20 years of experience creating and managing interactive community-based businesses to the role. His extensive experience in general management, business development, sales and marketing and product development has helped Bright Hub establish a strong foothold in the marketplace. He has served as Chairman of the Board since 2006.
Smith is currently the CEO of iBelong Networks, a community publishing company enabling organizations to create viral networks of people and content, which he also co-founded. For several years prior to his involvement with Bright Hub and iBelong Networks, Smith led one of the first internet business incubators in the nation, Vector Development, LLC, where he worked directly with Internet-based start-up companies as both a strategic advisor and investor. He helped found and guide companies in e-government, e-commerce, identity monitoring/management, community-based widget design and nonprofit, community-based mapping.
Smith was a member of the AOL management team where he helped large media companies such as the New York Times and the Tribune Company create their first online community ventures. He went on to serve as General Manager of all of AOL’s community programming operations. He was founder of AOL’s Digital City, the first nation-wide city guide service, growing that business to over $100 million in sales.
Smith is a retired United States Naval Officer and holds a MBA in Marketing Concentrations: Advertising and Electronic Publishing from George Washington University and a BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California.
Bill Phelan
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
As CEO and Co-Founder, Bill Phelan brings more than 20 years of operational, technical and financial experience to Bright Hub. Phelan is an accomplished entrepreneur and leader having led several ventures through the start up years and successfully managing them through significant acquisitions by large public companies. He has spearheaded the creation of Bright Hub’s vision and positioning and established a business model that is driving the next-generation of social commerce networking.
Prior to co-founding Bright Hub, Phelan was founder and CEO of OneMade, an “eBay like”
e-commerce marketplace exchange that was successfully sold to America Online in May 2003. He also served as the Chief Strategist and COO of the technology and network services business for Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD™), the world’s largest floral technology services organization connecting over 20,000 domestic florists and more than 40,000 international florists through an e-commerce floral order exchange, the Mercury Network™, and led the company’s successful acquisition by Leonard Green and Associates in February 2004.
Phelan serves on Bright Hub’s board of directors and is also currently on the board of MTI. He holds degrees from City University of New York-Baruch College and Siena College.
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Tami Olheiser
Chief Finance and Administration Officer
Tami Olheiser has over 14 years of high tech experience spanning software and wireless telecommunications. As a key member of the Bright Hub management team, Olheiser is leading financial planning & operations and administration.
Olheiser joined Bright Hub from IA Systems where she was the Vice President of Finance and Administration where she was responsible for all finance, accounting, human resources and legal functions. Prior to IA Systems, Olheiser was with Microsoft (Business Solutions group) charged with building out the division’s finance team, developing procedures for forecasting and reporting, creating profitability and investment models and overall P&L management.
Olheiser holds an MBA from Sage Graduate School and an undergraduate degree from Minnesota State University.
Kim Su Lloyd
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Operations
Kim Lloyd brings more than 18 years of experience in product marketing and management in the software industry to her role as Vice President, Marketing and Community. In this capacity, Lloyd oversees the Bright Hub freelance writer and editor network consisting of hundreds of members. She is responsible for managing all aspects of the web community, including the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) team. Lloyd leads Bright Hub corporate communications, including branding, product strategy and marketing, marketing communications programs, maintaining the website along with the user/consumer experience and building market thought leadership. Lloyd serves as a key member of the executive leadership team contributing to the company’s business model, growth plans, revenue plans and operational aspects of the business.
Prior to joining Bright Hub, Lloyd led product marketing for MapInfo Corporation. She was responsible for the product marketing and launch team averaging 50 product launches per quarter. She also drove the rebranding and market positioning of the company’s entire product portfolio. Lloyd also held positions at GlobalSpec where she was Director of Enterprise Solutions.
Lloyd holds a BS in Information Systems Management from the State University of New York, College at Buffalo and an MBA in Management and Technology from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Lally School of Management. Lloyd is actively involved in the RPI Women in Entrepreneurship and Severino center events and has been a speaker panelist at its Women in Entrepreneurship event.
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Tracy Sabattis
Vice President Community
Tracy Sabattis has more than 12 years of experience in Internet marketing. She is responsible for directing Bright Hub’s strategy to consistently increase search engine visibility. Sabattis oversees a team of search engine optimization (SEO) experts and applies this expertise to the entire Bright Hub writer community to address the needs of the search user market. Prior to joining Bright Hub, Sabattis was with Mannix Marketing where she helped guide the growth and development of the SEO department as well as led the Internet marketing team in the production and launch of the company's key geodomains, such as Albany.com and Saratoga.com. She has successfully managed hundreds of SEO and Pay per click (PPC) campaigns for businesses in a wide range of industries.
Sabattis began working with Bright Hub on a consulting basis in 2007, joining the company full-time in March 2008. She is responsible for the company's strategy to consistently grow search engine visibility by directing the SEO team and equipping the Bright Hub community with ways to address the needs of the search user market. Her contributions in conceptualizing and tactics in building and working with a freelance editorial community has been instrumental in the success of Bright Hub.
Sabattis is the key laison for the writer and editorial community for Bright Hub and is responsible for Bright Hub University. Sabattis holds a BA in English from the University of Miami.
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Josh McWilliam
Vice President Product and Co-Founder
Joshua McWilliam is the primary evangelist for Bright Hub's product strategy, both in the United States and overseas. Prior to joining the Bright Hub team, McWilliam designed and implemented systems in various industries, including banking, insurance, and customer service. As CTO and co-founder of an online retailer of performance auto parts, he managed the development of an e-commerce system which controlled an inventory of tens of thousands of parts and automatically processed orders from their many manufacturers and distributors. He also managed an online marketing campaign that increased the company's sales by 400%. As a Senior Software Engineer at AOL, McWilliam was responsible for architecting the localization, co-branding, member management and search systems for the AOL Classifieds system. The search system enabled detailed searching and logging of data by an unlimited number of custom attributes per category, and powered all of AOL's Careers and Work channel via its proprietary API.
McWilliam has worn many hats at Bright Hub, beginning as a co-founder of the company. He has a significant amount of experience with both the technical aspects and business use of the software. McWilliam is tasked to work with the development team in Troy and Belarus to manage the website to its full potential for all of the Bright Hub writers, editors, and readers.
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