Management

Shani Higgins

Chief Executive Officer

Shani Higgins joined Technorati in 2007 to lead strategy and day to day operations for the company’s advertising sales, business development and the Technorati Media advertising network. Under Shani’s leadership, Technorati Media’s network was launched in June of 2008 and has since become the largest social media advertising network, with more than 3,000 sites and a US reach of 183 million. Shani was a driving force behind the Technorati Media acquisition of SV Moms in 2010 and BlogCritics in 2008, and directed the development of the Technorati Media Exchange– the first private exchange for brand-safe independent and socially engaging publishers– launched in April 2011. Previously, Shani held senior management roles at Infoseek/GO/Disney, Ziff Davis, Benedek Investment Group, and Tacit Software. She earned her B.A. in Communication (with Art History and Economics minors) from Rutgers University.

Charles Black

President and Chief Strategy Officer

Black will play a key leadership role in developing Technorati Media’s strategy and identifying market opportunities to support the company’s continued growth. Black brings with him years of business development and online media experience. Over the past 2 years he drove Epic Media Group/Traffic Marketplace’s business development initiatives, including strategic partnerships, acquisition and data mining, platform creation and optimization, product formulation and execution and M&A evaluations. Prior to his position at Traffic Marketplace, Black served as Director of Business Development at Specific Media where he spearheaded large scale data acquisitions and was a driving force behind efforts to improve network efficiency and performance. There, he also established the company’s sales training program that focused on company and industry insights, lead successful efforts to streamline the media buying process, developed a real-time data analytics platform for current and future clients, and launched a search retargeting platform, among many other significant contributions. Black earned his B.A. in English Literature at Pepperdine University and a J.D. from Quinnipiac University School of Law.

Abderrezak Kamel

Chief Technology Officer

Abderrezak Kamel (fondley referred to as “AK”) is responsible for spearheading Technorati Media’s Social Rich Media advertising products, including Conversational Ads that have already been run by 40+ top brand advertisers, Technorati Media’s audience targeting technology, and the Technorati Media Exchange. AK brings almost two decades of experience in Online Advertising, Information Retrieval, and Natural Language Processing. For the past 3 years he directed the development and enhancement of LucidMedia’s DSP, contextual analysis and RTB offerings. Prior to his position at LucidMedia, AK held integral roles at Autonomy and Verity. AK was a Computational Semiotics PhD student at Leonardo da Vinci University, Paris, France and earned his MS in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Montpellier, France.

Karin Marke

Vice President of West Coast Sales

Karin Marke has more than 20 years of Sales Management experience across media, technology and retail industries and a track record of building first class media sales organizations while delivering record revenue growth. Most recently Karin was Vice President of Sales for lifestyle hub Glam Media.  Prior to that she was Vice President of Sales for MySpace where she was the 3rd member to join the sales organization, and was instrumental in building the business to record revenue growth and profit levels. Prior to her role at MySpace, Karin held key sales and sales management positions at FastChannel Network and Terra Lycos.   Early in her career, Karin gained experience at Hearst Magazines in the Sales department for Cosmopolitan, House Beautiful, Harper’s Bazaar, Connoisseur and Esquire Magazines. Karin graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in Political Science.

TJ Stalzer

Associate Vice President of Ad Operations

TJ Stalzer joins Technorati Media as AVP of Ad Operations, from Monser Worldwide. During his tenure at Monster Worldwide, TJ served as Sr. Director, Lead Generation Operations and Director, Advertising Operations, Europe, and Director of Product Management. Previously, he was Director of Advertising Operations for Kontera.com where he developed and oversaw execution of all processes for the effective management of online advertising campaigns and support of the publisher network. Stalzer has also held operations and HR roles with Bikesmart.com and Organiz.com. Stalzer has a BA in Industrial Organizational Psychology from San Francisco State University.