Koko: Team
Management TeamMichael Lannon, Founder & CEO
Mike Lannon is an experienced entrepreneur and marketing executive with over 25 years of experience. Most recently, Mike was CEO and Founder of Send.com - a company financed by five of the industry's premier venture capital firms including: Highland Capital Partners, Greylock, Benchmark, Charles River Ventures and Tudor Ventures.
Under Mike's leadership, Send.com quickly became one of the Internet's leading e-commerce businesses. The company was featured in hundreds of TV and newspaper stories including The New York Times, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, USA Today, Business Week, Time, Forbes and Fortune. The company's unique business model also became a Harvard Business School case study on innovative business growth strategies.
Prior to Send.com, Michael was both Vice President of Marketing and Sales and Vice President of Western Operations at MicroFinancial, a specialty commercial leasing business which he helped to grow profitably from 30 people to nearly 300 people in 5 years prior to the company's successful IPO (ticker: MFI). Mike was also CEO and Founder of The Lannon Group, a full-service advertising/media relations agency specializing in launching new businesses and new product lines.
Since 2004, Mike has also served as a Director on the Board of Estateworks, an innovative estate planning and settlement software company serving many of the country's largest banks and law firms.
Michael received a B.A. from St. Michael's College.
Mary Obana, Co-Founder & SVP Design and Customer Experience
Mary Obana is a seasoned marketing executive with over 20 years of experience successfully creating and managing widely recognized products and brands for numerous companies and industries, including the sporting goods/footwear industry.
Mary brings to Koko extensive experience in creating uniquely powerful customer experiences and brand relationships resulting from an in-depth knowledge of customer needs and detailed market research.
Most recently, Mary had her own marketing strategy consulting firm advising CEOs of clients such as H&R Block. Prior to that, Mary was Senior Vice President and CMO for Send.com, Vice President of Marketing and New Business Development for The Keds Corporation, Director of Strategic Planning for The Coca Cola Company's Corporate Marketing Strategy Group in Atlanta and Director of Worldwide Advertising for Converse, Inc. during the company's successful turnaround period in the early '90s.
Mary started her career in advertising working on numerous high-profile brands such as American Express, Hershey and Taco Bell for Ogilvy & Mather in New York City and Foote, Cone & Belding in San Francisco.
Mary earned her B.A. from Stanford University.
Michael Wood, CFO (Chief Fitness Officer)
Michael Wood, CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist), is widely recognized as one the nation's top fitness specialists. Founder of the Sports Performance Group, a fitness consulting company, Michael's recent honors have included receiving the coveted Boston Magazine "Best of Boston" title in the For You Training category, as well as being named twice consecutively to Men's Journal Top 100 Trainers list (Wenner Publisher, December 2005 and December 2004). In the December 2004 issue, Men's Journal also included Michael on their trainer "Dream Team," comprised of the nine best trainers in the U.S.
His professional experience includes Director of Business Development at Velocity Sports Performance, Fitness Director at New England Sports Academy, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Connecticut and Senior Exercise Physiologist at the Nutrition, Exercise Physiology and Sarcopenia Laboratory at the USDA-HNRC on Aging at Tufts University. Michael also consults to Sage Strategies, LLC, a premier management consulting firm specializing in the health, fitness and educational industry.
Michael has taught undergraduate strength and conditioning courses at Boston University and the University of Connecticut where he also attended graduate school.
Michael Wood attended Springfield College on an athletic scholarship before earning a B.S. in Exercise Physiology from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
Josh Roman, VP Product & Technology
Josh has over 10 years of experience developing user-centric technology platforms in a variety of industries, as well as building the agile, high-performance teams that underpin business success.Josh was most recently Director/Vanguard Relationship Manager for Upromise Investments. While there, Josh oversaw implementation, operations and technology enhancements for the company's 529 Plans, helping the company grow from start-up to industry giant with over $6B in assets under management in 3 short years.
Prior to Upromise, Josh designed and managed the customer care, transactional and online systems for Send.com as the Director of E-Commerce Applications. He also co-founded a company that created and sold pioneering online sporting goods retailer Sportscape.com.
Josh holds an A.B. from Princeton University.
Linda Tenda, VP Finance & Operations
Bringing more than 20 years of corporate finance and manufacturing operations experience to Koko, Linda has responsibility for the company's finances and oversees all supply chain and sourcing operations.
Prior to Koko, Linda was Director of Finance for Segway, Inc. Linda joined the spin-off of Dean Kaman's Deka Labs prior to the company's high-profile product launch and helped the company navigate through 4 turbulent years of growth. Over the course of her career, Linda has also held senior finance positions at Bemis Associates, Inc. and Osram Sylvania, among others.
Linda holds a MBA from Southern New Hampshire University and a B.A. from Rutgers University.
Arthur Anderson, Legal Counsel
Mr. Anderson, of the law firm Fish and Richardson, PC, is the Chief Legal Counsel for Koko Fitness.
Fish and Richardson is an international law firm and one of the largest in the United States practicing intellectual property, litigation and corporate law. Since its founding in 1878, the firm has represented some of this country's most important innovators including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright Brothers. Today, the firm continues to represent great innovators working in cutting-edge technologies such as Microsoft and Bose. In fact, Fish represents 11 of the top 25 "World's Most Innovative Companies", as identified in a Spring 2007 Business Week survey.
The firm has also ranked #1 in patent litigation for six out of the sevenyears and was ranked as the Best Intellectual Property Practice in the 2007 edition of The Vault Guide to the Top 100 Law Firms.
Strategic AdvisorsSteve Williams
With over 30 years of senior level experience in both the fitness and consumer electronics industries, Steve Williams brings an invaluable wealth of industry knowledge to the Koko Fitness business team. Among his many roles, Steve has served as the president of Technogym USA, as well as vice president of Cybex, both fitness equipment industry leaders. Steve was responsible for launching the Cybex Fitness Division which grew from $0-$60M during his tenure.
Steve's consumer electronics industry experience is equally rich having served as CEO of Carver Corp., Vice President of International Operations for Onkyo, and Director Marketing and Product Development for Harman International.
Kim B. Blair, Ph.D.
As the Founding Director for the Center for Sports Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. and as technical advisor on sports equipment design for the US Olympic Committee, Dr. Blair is a recognized expert in sports technology, and innovation.
A frequent industry lecturer, Dr. Blair is a member of Golf Digest's Academic Advisory Panel, the International Sports Engineering Association, the American Society of Biomechanics, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Sports Engineering.
Dr. Blair has extensive experience in patent litigation having served as expert witness in numerous patent infringement cases within the sporting goods industry.
A former Aerospace Engineer for NASA, Dr. Blair has competed in more than 75 triathlons including the Hawaii Ironman Championship, the US Nationals, and the World Championship Qualifiers.
Board of DirectorsMichael Lannon, Chairman & CEO
(See Management Team)
Mr. Sung Park, Director
Sung Park has been directly involved in launching and financing dozens of high-technology companies mostly in the 128/Boston area.
After founding and serving as CEO of Custom Clothing, a manufacturing software technology company which he sold to Levi Strauss and Company in 1996, Sung has served on several Boards of Boston-area technology companies.
Currently, Sung serves as the Managing Director/Partner for two private investment funds: Perpetual Motion Ventures and Umagination, a joint financing venture with Ideo, Inc., the leading industrial design firm in the U.S.
Rob Schiller, Director
Rob Schiller is a private investor and consultant to start-up and emerging companies. Recent examples include Conley Corporation of Cambridge, MA which was acquired by EMC, and Insession Inc. of Boulder, CO, which was acquired by Transaction Systems Architects Inc.
From 1993 to 1995, Schiller was President and COO of Discreet Logic Inc., a publicly traded, Montreal-based company. During Rob's tenure revenues grew from approximately $750k to $65M. Prior to Discreet, Rob served as Corporate Counsel at Thinking Machines Corporation, and as Vice President of Administration at Rise Technology Inc, which went from start-up to initial public offering. Rob holds a BA from Columbia University and a JD from Boston College Law School.
Louis Page, Director
Louis Page is the president and managing general partner of Window To Wall Street, Inc., an investment firm specializing with early stage financing. Louis was an early investor in Andover.Net, Inc. where he served on the Board through their successful IPO in 1999 and helped negotiate their sale to VA Linux Systems in 2000.
Prior to starting up Window to Wall Street, he served as Investment Advisor at EasCorp where he was responsible for the management of the investment portfolio of five credit unions totaling $1.5 billion dollars. Louis earned his undergraduate Finance degree from Bryant College, is a CFA and completed the Canadian Securities Course (CSC). Louis currently serves on the Board of Directors of VistaPrint (NYSE VPRT), and has also held Board seats at Dovetail Software, Inc. (acquired by Ardent Software 1998) and the J.-Louis Levesque Foundation, Inc.