Management
Frederick (known as Fred) Robert Krueger (aged 48), CEO, Executive Chairman
Mr. Krueger is a serial entrepreneur who has started a variety of successful software and internet companies.
Mr. Krueger began his career as a proprietary fixed income trader at Salomon Brothers and Grenwich Capital from 1986 to 1992. He left finance in 1992 to start a graphic design software company, Fauve Software, which was acquired by Macromedia (Nasdaq: ADBE) in 1995. Following this, he started Random Noise, a Java tools provider, which was sold to Vignette (Nasdaq: VIGN) in 1997.
In 1999, Mr. Krueger turned to the Internet sector, and started iwin.com, one of the 50 largest internet sites at the time. The company was merged with Uproar Inc. and sold to Vivendi Universal. He also started Traffic Marketplace, a top five advertisement network; the company was also sold to Vivendi Universal. Mr. Krueger subsequently founded TagWorld, a social network that was acquired by Viacom, and Adconion, an internet advertisement network based in Munich, Germany that serves over 6 billion ad impressions a month. Fred serves on the board of Adconion.
Mr. Krueger received a BA in Mathematics from Cornell University and a PhD in Operations Research from Stanford University.
Antony Edward Van Couvering (aged 48), Chief Operating Officer, Director
Antony Van Couvering has been working with domain names and Internet infrastructure since 1996. He has played a substantial role in Internet governance issues and acted as a consultant to many of the world’s top companies.
Mr. Van Couvering has founded and run several companies, beginning with NetNames USA, the first firm to handle the domain name needs of larger companies, which he sold in 1999 to Group NBT (AIM: NBT) after helping launch several country-code top-level domains and assisting many others. In 2000, he founded NameEngine, began working with many of America’s top companies and intellectual property law firms, and pioneered the corporate domain name services model still in use today. He sold NameEngine to VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) in 2001, and helped VeriSign with strategy, marketing and software design until 2004. Until recently, he operated Names@Work, a consulting company specializing in domain names and the Internet-related areas of financial services and literary publishing.
Mr. Van Couvering founded Minds + Machines in 2009 to provide a low-cost, full-service alternative to existing registry options. Originally from Los Angeles, Mr. Van Couvering grew up in England and Kenya. He has a B.A. from Columbia in Comparative Literature and lives in New York City.
David de Jongh Weill (aged 51), Chief Financial Officer, Director
Mr. Weill started his professional career with Salomon Brothers in 1983 in derivative products sales and trading. He subsequently became active in proprietary trading for Salomon Brothers in International Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange. Mr. Weill left Salomon in 1989 to develop an international proprietary trading activity with Greenwich Capital Markets.
Thereafter, in 1992, Mr. Weill developed his own fund management activity with funds under management growing to over US$1.2 billion. From 1998, he has focused on private equity investment, predominantly in media and technology companies. Mr. Weill has acquired considerable experience in proprietary trading in international financial markets, investment management, corporate finance, and corporate governance.
Mr. Weill holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, magna cum laude in International Business from the University of Georgia, a Masters of Business Administration from the London Business School, a Masters of Science in Law and Accounting from the London School of Economics and is currently reading for a Masters of Science in Decision Sciences at the London School of Economics. Mr. Weill was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.
Non-Executive Directors
Guy Elliott (aged 50), Deputy Chairman, Director
Mr. Elliott is founder of F3 Capital Management, LLC, an independent alternative asset management and advisory firm. Mr. Elliott currently serves as senior non -executive director of Polo Resources an AIM listed mining investment company. Additionally Mr. Elliott is a director of Red Dragon Resources listed on the Toronto Venture exchange and privately held Direct Petroleum. Prior thereto, Mr. Elliott was president and co-founder of Croesus Capital Management, a specialist emerging markets hedge fund manager, which grew over several years to over US$800 million under management. Additionally, Mr. Elliott was President of Rothschild Emerging Markets and managed a variety of funds for them. Previously, he was Manager of Proprietary Trading at HSBC New York (1992 to 1993) and a Portfolio Manager at EBF & Associates (1990 to 1992). He worked for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets (1986 to 1990) and Cargill Inc (1980 to 1986). He has almost 30 years experience in capital markets and investment management. Mr. Elliott is a graduate of the London School of Economics B.Sc. (Econ), 1980.
Michael Eric Mendelson (aged 43), Director
Mr. Mendelson is a Senior Vice President with the investment bank of Anderson & Strudwick where he leads a team focused on cross-border public financings, private placements, and M&A transactions. Prior to joining Anderson & Strudwick, Mr. Mendelson served in the same capacity with Ferris, Baker Watts, Inc., where he was involved in over 30 public and private financings which raised in excess of $4 billion.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Mendelson served as founder and CEO of Align360, a general management and information technology consultancy which serves property and casualty insurers, banks and credit card issuers in North and South America, Europe and the Caribbean. Over the course of nearly 15 years, Mr. Mendelson provided the strategic direction to lead his firm to both rapid growth and industry leading levels of profitability. He sold his business to a publicly traded consultancy in 1997, but repurchased it in early 2001. The business was sold a second time to a large privately held consultancy in mid-2003. Mr. Mendelson was a recipient of the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002.
Mr. Mendelson holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree from the University of Richmond and an MBA from the Wharton School. He has served on the executive committee of the University of Richmond’s Board of Associates.
Clark William Landry (aged 31), Director
Mr. Landry is an experienced entrepreneur, having been involved in the establishment of seven companies with a focus on the online advertising and consumer internet sectors. Mr. Landry began his career at Barrington Associates as an investment banking analyst. He subsequently joined online games company iwin.com as the director of marketing. Mr. Landry was then an initial founder and investor of Traffic Marketplace, and co-wrote the business plan for this online advertising network. Mr. Landry also managed marketing and publisher relations for Traffic Marketplace. Traffic Marketplace was acquired by Uproar, which was subsequently sold to Vivendi Universal. Mr. Landry co-founded and managed marketing efforts for TagWorld, a social networking website, prior to its sale to Viacom. Mr. Landry is a co-founding investor of Adconion (formerly Euroclick), a leading international advertising network. Mr. Landry is currently a non-executive director of CityMommy, a leading social networking site for mothers with a presence in 35 cities. Mr. Landry is a co-founder, director, and shareholder of DotEco LLC, applicant for the “.eco” top level domain, and Minds + Machines, a registry services and consulting company. Mr. Landry graduated from Yale University with a BA in Economics.