We are a privately-funded business based in Silicon Valley, dedicated to helping local businesses get more customers quickly, easily, and cost effectively.
Ben T. Smith, IV, is the Chairman and Co-Founder of MerchantCircle, the largest social network of small business owners online today. Ben is a serial entrepreneur, investor and business advisor in the social networking space with a deep understanding and appreciation for small, family-owned businesses.
Ben is one of the pioneers of the social networking category as the co-founder and current board member of Spoke Software, where he helped architect the business, establish a patent portfolio in social networking, guide the company to its initial customers and through its establishment as the largest public database of business professionals. He has served in advisory and interim executive roles for more than 10 businesses, and serves on the board of directors for a number of early stage companies and is an investor advisor in over 25 internet companies including two recent social gaming exits, Mesmo and Tapulous to Game Show Network and Disney.
Ben began his career as a management consultant at A.T. Kearney, where he was one of the youngest partners in the firm's history, selected as one of the most influential consultants in the world in 2002 by Consulting News and helped spearhead EDS and Kearney's venture development efforts. Ben also served the Bush Administration as the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Planning to the Secretary of Transportation from 2001 to 2002. Ben was the SVP, Corporate Development at Borland Software and lead spin off and then managed the $75MM a year development tools and community spin off, CodeGear.
A native of Fairhope, Alabama, Ben spent the majority of his younger years learning the ins and outs of a number of family businesses - from his first job at Daphne Pharmacy, the locally-owned pharmacy, to learning from his family's experiences running Original Bens Jr., a famous BBQ pit founded by his grandfather that is still one of the best BBQ places in the south.
Ben holds a Master's from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Davis.
Doug Kilponen serves as Senior Vice President of Business Development for MerchantCircle. A native Californian, Doug has lived and worked in the Bay Area for more than a decade. Prior to joining MerchantCircle, Doug was Director of Product Management at Digital Impact, the leading provider of online direct marketing services to the Fortune 500. Doug also served as product manager of e-commerce at RealNetworks, and spent four years with A.T. Kearney, a management consultancy, in San Francisco. Doug holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA from Northwestern University. Doug is focused on helping merchants reach out and connect with their local communities. The day that every small business can easily connect with friends and other local merchants on MerchantCircle will be the day that Doug will consider his work at the company a success.
Darren is the Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at MerchantCircle, bringing over eight years of marketing experience in the retail, internet and software industries. Prior leadership roles include leading Outbound Marketing for VeriSign’s SSL Division and heading up marketing at Offermatica, the marketing optimization platform acquired by Omniture. Darren has also held senior management roles at venture-backed internet companies and at market research firm Gartner, Inc. Darren is passionate about the evolution of internet marketing and aims to accelerate the adoption of the internet as a means of connecting businesses and people everywhere. Darren holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Davis.
Andy is the VP and GM of MerchantCircle’s Local Content Studio platform which he has architected to bring short-format information and expert articles onto MerchantCircle that capture the “local tail” of consumer interest while rewarding contributors for submitting.
A seasoned technology entrepreneur, Halliday brings with him a long history of taking product visions to reality. He was the founder of OurStory.com and Tribbit.com, and most recently worked on several startup initiatives, including the founding of Tagvault.org, an industry member organization formed to provide tools and technology for software ID tags for enterprise software asset management, and a novel cardio-biometric technology.
Early in his career, Halliday played strategic roles as Entertainment Group President for Edison Brothers Stores and as Co-Founder and President of Simon Brand Ventures, a division of Simon Property Group (the nation’s largest retail mall developer). In 1998 he crossed the divide from brick-and-mortar to the Internet, joining Excite@Home as its first VP and GM of the Electronic Commerce Group. Andy was recruited to become the CEO of Contact.com (Accel and Polaris), and then to become the first COO of In-Q-Tel (IQT), the CIA-funded venture capital entity, providing technology to the IC. After leaving IQT in 2003, he co-founded Open Field Software and then was tapped by eventual MerchantCircle founder Ben Smith IV to lead business development for the company he then led, Spoke Software. Halliday’s academic experience boasts an MBA from Harvard Business School along with a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.
Ray serves as Senior Director of Business Development for MerchantCircle. He is responsible for sourcing, negotiating and implementing partnerships that bring value to the millions of businesses and consumers that utilize the MerchantCircle network each month. Prior to joining MerchantCircle, Ray held positions at Viking Asset Management, a private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco, and Fisher Investments, an asset management firm based in the Bay Area. Ray graduated from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Business, emphasis in Corporate Finance.
Ben Smith
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