Management & Board

Karen C. Francis joined AcademixDirect in 2009 and serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. She brings a valuable combination of marketing, technology and educational experience to the education marketing company. She was most recently Chairman and CEO of Publicis & Hal Riney, an advertising agency based in San Francisco and owned by global holding company Publicis in Paris, France. Prior to that, she held senior executive positions with Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Internet Capital Group and Bain & Company management consulting.

Karen serves on the Board of Directors of Mamapedia.com and has contributed as an advisor to technology companies for the last ten years, including comScore, XL Tech Group, Redloop Media and Scanscout. She also served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Dartmouth College for nine years, honing her expertise in the trends and issues facing higher education today.

The owner of a zinfandel vineyard in Healdsburg, California, Karen is an avid wine collector and is a member of the Napa Valley Vine Trails Coalition. She enjoys hiking and cycling.

Karen holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College. She studied at l'Université de Toulouse, France and speaks French.

 

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Al Abhari founded AcademixDirect in 2004 and currently serves as a Board Director. An innovative entrepreneur, he has a successful track record of growing Internet businesses to profitability.

Al honed his unique combination of technical expertise, marketing know-how and industry insight during a decade of business-building in the online media space. In 1999, he founded Streetline, a digital marketing company specializing in online advertising services for the leading insurance carriers across the U.S. He built Streetline into one of the top three online media providers serving 500+ insurance carriers and agents. In 1996, Al founded Trade Connections, a B-to-B barter exchange that leveraged technology to manage systematic barter transactions between manufacturers, retailers, and service providers. Trade Connections was subsequently sold to the American Trade Association in 1998.

Outside the office, Al has a passion for endurance sports, including cycling and running, along with high performance and classic cars. He loves spending time with his wife and two daughters.

Al holds a BS in Management Information Systems from San Jose State University. He speaks Farsi fluently.

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Bruce Onder

Chief Technology Officer

Bruce brings 20+ years of business, IT, software development and project management experience to AcademixDirect. He honed his skills in a variety of industries, including finance, mortgage, insurance and ecommerce, working for both start-ups and large corporations. Prior to joining AcademixDirect, Bruce served as COO and Vice President of Information Technology for HT Endeavors, a lead generation and social marketing services company based in Los Angeles, Calif. He has also held executive positions at LoanWeb, ThinkCash, Neudesic, and Countrywide, among others. An experienced agile delivery leader, he has studied, tested and optimized the best practices, including Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), Pair Programming, and Scrum. Bruce earned a Bachelor of Science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, located in Indiana, Pa.

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Philip brings more than 24 years of financial management and reporting to the AcademixDirect management team, having served as CFO for a number of high-growth Silicon Valley technology companies. He was most recently CFO of newScale, Inc. a leader in self-service, service catalog, and lifecycle management software for enterprise IT and private/hybrid cloud computing, with more than 140 Fortune 500 customers and 2 million users. When newScale was purchased by Cisco Systems in April of 2011, Philip joined Cisco as Finance Director, helping to oversee the integration process. Prior to newScale, Connolly held CFO positions at Purfresh, Inc., Real Clear Technologies, and Sanrise Inc. Before launching his career in finance, he served as a Captain in the United States Army from 1982 to 1987, earning a B.S. in Engineering from the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY. Philip is the Treasurer of West Point Class of 1982; President and Head Coach of the Diablo Scorpion youth lacrosse club; and Vice President and Board Member of the Northern Californian Junior Lacrosse Association.

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Jamie Claire joined AcademixDirect as its second founding member and brings significant experience in operational organization and contract development to the Board of Directors.

Prior to joining AcademixDirect, Jamie was responsible for contracts development and corporate compliance at Toshiba International Corporation in San Francisco, California. During her tenure at Toshiba, she was responsible for contract formation of the company's largest sales, the implementation of corporate policy, and cross-functional execution involving sales, finance, administration, engineering and aftermarket departments. Before Toshiba, Jamie worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers' corporate finance group and the law firm of White & Case in Tokyo, Japan.

Jamie earned a Juris Doctorate and Certificate in International Law from Golden Gate University and a BA cum laude in Asian Studies and Political Science from Tufts University. She speaks Japanese fluently.

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Javier Rojas has led Kennet's U.S. investment activities since 2000. He is a specialist in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Internet business models, and is an experienced coach to young companies as they seek to scale their market reach.

Javier's influence can be seen in the success of companies like project management software vendor Daptiv and healthcare analytics business Medefinance. He has also been instrumental in a number of successful exits for founder-led businesses, including most recently NetPro and Adviva. He also serves on the boards of Kapow Technologies and IntelePeer. He lectures regularly on entrepreneurship and bootstrapping.

Before joining Kennet, Javier led investment bank Broadview's West Coast software and services practice and specialized in helping founder-led bootstrapped businesses achieve high exit values. He has invested and/or advised on a number of successful companies including Etek, Webex, Looksmart, Blue Mountain Arts, When.com and Rightworks. Javier has also been an entrepreneur himself, having founded a software company targeting the financial services market. Previously, he gained international experience in corporate finance and capital markets at Morgan Stanley in New York City and London.

Javier holds and MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS/BA in Finance and Computer Science from Georgetown University. He speaks fluent Spanish.

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Mark Bradley was part of the founding team at NexTag, a high growth Silicon Valley start-up known for its popular consumer website providing price comparison shopping information. NexTag grew rapidly to over 350 employees operating in 9 countries.

Providence Equity invested in the company in 2007, resulting in one of the highest valued buyouts in media. Though the company was venture capital funded when it was created in 1999, the team restarted the company in late 2000 with only $1.6 million of capital and the business was cash flow positive thereafter. The core business was built around the most advanced SEM and Display retargeting platforms on the market today. As a result, Mark developed a strong technological, analytical and entrepreneurial focus on capital efficiency. Mark played several key roles in the company's development including President, SVP of Global Product Shopping, SVP of International, and SVP of Operations and led several acquisitions. Prior to co-founding NexTag, Mark worked within the Technology sector for over 10 years, where he held several executive positions at public companies in Marketing, Product Management and Business Development. Mark graduated from Southern Methodist University with an undergraduate Business Degree in Finance. Mark has served on several company boards and is currently on the boards of AcademixDirect and Next Performance, both Kennet III portfolio companies.