The Booyah Mission

Keith is a veteran of the interactive entertainment industry with a proven track record of helping create best-selling video games, developing compelling experiences, and attracting broad audiences into the gaming space. Prior to founding Booyah, Keith was the Lead Producer for Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo III franchise. The Diablo series has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Before Blizzard, Keith's roles as the Project Manager and Lead Programmer for Insomniac Games helped propel the Ratchet & Clank series to surpass 10 million units sold. Leading up to the games industry, Keith worked at several investment banks, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Keith graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Computer Science and a BA in International Relations and Economics.
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Brian has 11 years of professional experience in the gaming industry, including 6 years at Blizzard Entertainment where, in his roles as Art Lead for World of Warcraft and Art Director for Diablo III, he helped establish the visual style and future art direction of both franchises. He's helped ship over 15 million units worldwide including blockbuster titles such as Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver 2, Spider-Man The Movie, World of Warcraft, and the follow-up expansion World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

Sam has over 8 years of experience in the games industry working across all PC and console platforms. Prior to Booyah, Sam worked at Blizzard Entertainment as a Senior Programmer for Diablo III. Before Blizzard, Sam touched and impacted every aspect of development at Insomniac Games from tools, gameplay, and networking to the proprietary game engine. Previously, Sam led the Xbox development team at Paradigm Entertainment. Besides games, Sam worked at Trilogy Software creating a set of rich user interface widgets for web browsers using Java script and web-based content management system using Java and JSP. Sam graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Computer Science.

Alex has over 12 years of experience in software engineering at various Bay Area startups. Prior to joining Booyah, Alex was the Principal Architect at Jasper Wireless (a pioneer in global M2M services) since its early stage and developed their mission-critical server platforms. Before Jasper Wireless, Alex gained his experience in scalable systems while building eBay Classifieds Kijiji.com and the My eBay 2.0. Alex graduated from Columbia University with a MS degree in Computer Science.

Susan Kuo brings over 8 years experience in the online gaming & social media industry. Prior to Booyah, Susan was the VP of West Coast Sales at Gaia Online and led the growth of strategic accounts, including major entertainment & gaming studios. Prior to this role, Susan was the Director of Sales Development at Gaia, leading the sales operations team and identifying and creating some of the company's top selling integrated sponsorship opportunities.

Prior to Gaia, Susan headed up the Sales Development team for EA Pogo, and was responsible for creating and pioneering some of the industry's first in-game sponsorship offerings and community event integrations. Susan holds a BA in Mass Communications from University of California, Berkeley.

Jim has been an investor in over thirty consumer internet, media, and technology companies that have completed public offerings or successful mergers.

Jim is currently on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (WMT), where he is the Lead/Presiding Independent Director, and Chairman of the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee. He also serves on the board of Marvel Entertainment (MVL) where he is the founding Chairman of the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee, and he serves on the board of Dell Inc (DELL), where he is the Chair of the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee. Jim is currently an Investor/Board Member of privately held companies Booyah, Brightcove, Etsy, Facebook, Global Grind, ModelN, and Prosper.

Matt Murphy is a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; he joined in 1999. Matt manages the iFund at KPCB, a collaborative initiative with Apple and the iPhone platform, which focuses on defining applications for the mobile internet. His expertise is in network communications, compute infrastructure, and mobile applications. Matt is either a Director or works closely with the management teams of AutoNavi, Booyah!, GOGII, Pelago, Shazam, shopkick, Movius, Kodiak Networks, RGB Networks, Stoke, Aerohive Networks, and Ocarina. Previously, Matt was a board observer at Google (from initial investment to IPO), and a Director at Peakstream (acquired by Google) and Dash Navigation (acquired by RIM).

Richard Yanowitch is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, executive, and venture capitalist, with an exceptional track record helping to transform early stage companies into high-growth market leaders, creating millions of customers, billions of dollars in revenue, and multiple billions of dollars in shareholder value. He is founder and CEO of The Entrepreneurs Group, which provides senior advisors and independent board members for private sector, non-profit, and public sector organizations.

Robert Pardo is Blizzard Entertainment's Executive Vice President of Game Design. Leading a group of talented and highly experienced development teams, Pardo is well-known for his creative genius in overseeing the overall design of every Blizzard game, including Starcraft II, Diablo III, and World of Warcraft, the world's most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

As one of Time Magazine's top 100 most influential people in 2006, Pardo has blazed a trail of successful Blizzard games starting in the late 90's. His passion for the business continues with many award-winning games that are experienced by players worldwide, every day, including the StarCraft, Diablo, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft series.

As Vice President of Marketing at Nexon America, Min is responsible for business development initiatives and game operations of Nexon published titles in the US. His current professional and personal goal is the successful introduction and adoption of the microtransaction business model in the US.

Prior to joining Nexon America, Min operated the successful launch of the Global Edition of MapleStory as the Vice President of Global Business Development at Wizet Corp. Today, MapleStory remains one of the world's top online games supported by a microtransaction business model. Min started his career in video games as a senior associate of business development at Nexon Corporation pursuing new business opportunities such as a social networking service, a board game business, and online game licensing.

Dennis Fong is the CEO and Founder of Raptr, the leading social networking platform for gamers. Dennis previously co-founded three companies: Xfire, an instant messenger designed for PC gamers that reaches over 15 million users (acquired by Viacom/MTV for $120 million); Lithium, the leading provider of Social CRM solutions for the enterprise; and Gamers.com, rated the #1 gaming portal by Nielsen in '99.