Corporate Bios
Josh Grotstein, CEO
Josh brings 24 years of significant experience and subject-matter expertise as a senior digital media and marketing executive and strategist, and as an investor in digital media and technology companies. He has held leadership roles across the spectrum of company sizes and stages, including NBC, where he founded and ran the company's digital unit in the mid-90's; Citigroup where he oversaw the corporation's global electronic banking and Internet and e-Commerce programs; CNBC, where he headed up business development and affiliate marketing; and Prodigy, where he led all Content and e-Commerce programs. He has also had significant Marketing and Business Development experience across multiple technology and communication sectors working at CNBC, J. Walter Thompson, and McKinsey and as the president of the NY chapter of the Cable Television Association for Marketing (CTAM).
Prior to Motionbox, Mr. Grotstein was the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of SAS Investors, a venture capital firm created to grow the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast's most promising seed- and early-stage high-technology ventures.
He currently serves on the Boards of Motionbox, PermissionTV, Backfence.com, SAS Investors and the NYC Seed Fund. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Brown University.
Chris O'Brien, Chairman, EVP Corporate Development and Co-Founder
Chris’s experience with Internet product development and video goes back to the beginning. Before starting Motionbox, Chris founded and acted as the CEO of SoftCom, Inc. He then served as President of Business Development at Interactive Video Technologies, the leading software provider for corporate webcasting. Chris also worked at Bellcore on early Internet product development projects, such as commercializing search engines and video conferencing.
As the EVP of Strategy and Corporate Development, Chris will work closely with CEO Josh Grotstein on critical business issues.
Chris is a U.S. patent holder with Motionbox’s Andrew Wason, for a cross-platform media synchronization abstraction layer. He graduated from Brown University.
Andrew Wason, Chief Architect & Co-Founder
Andrew has a long history of inventing and developing new technologies and the products that stem from them. Here, he is responsible for the design and architecture of key Motionbox technologies. Before Motionbox, he was responsible for architecting and implementing a number of systems at Vonage. He then worked with Chris O'Brien as Chief Scientist at Softcom. He also worked with Chris at Bellcore, where he received the BellCore President's Recognition Award for his work on early Internet Application development. Andrew co-founded and was Chief Developer for Photica, where he invented, architected and developed revolutionary photo sharing software. He has a Masters in computer science from USC, and a B.A. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin.
Chris Brown, VP Engineering
Chris is responsible for building and delivering all the features of Motionbox, and leading the engineering team. Chris has extensive experience running software R&D teams, including over 12 years at Microsoft Corporation as an engineering team manager. At Microsoft, Chris spent several years building products in the embedded devices space, including Pocket PC, Smartphone, and later, Microsoft Automotive. Chris was an early member of the Internet Explorer team, and a senior contributor to the Microsoft bCentral Small Business web services venture.
Chris has a B.S. in Computer Science from Brown University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, with honors.
Board of Directors
Liza Boyd
Liza Boyd is a Managing Director with Constellation Ventures and has been with the firm for over eight years. Ms. Boyd focuses on both online media and software and services.
Ms. Boyd is responsible for initiating, evaluating and structuring, transactions in these sectors for Constellation. Ms. Boyd has worked extensively with her companies on navigating Bear Stearns IT and has assisted her portfolio companies in garnering contracts. She is also an active member of several audit and compensation committees. Ms. Boyd currently serves on the Boards of Widevine Technologies, Fathom Online, Siperian, Avolent, Orchestria and K12. Ms. Boyd was formerly a board member on Webify and involved with Capital IQ and ActiveHealth Management, all of which the firm has successfully exited.
Prior to Constellation, Ms. Boyd was an investment banker with Patricof & Co. where she focused on private placements. Ms. Boyd began her career at First Union as an investment banker.
Liza received her degree in Mathematical Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from Colgate University.
Warren Lee
Warren Lee is a Principal at Canaan Partners. Warren brings significant operational experience and proven investment talent to Motionbox, with expertise in communications, digital media, and software. His current investments at Canaan Partners include Motionbox and Tremor Media.
Warren joined Canaan Partners in August 2005 from Comcast Interactive Capital, where he led its investments in and served as a director or observer on the boards of Arbor Networks, Arroyo Video Solutions (acquired by Cisco in August 2006), Broadbus Technologies (acquired by Motorola in July 2006), CommunityConnect, Counterpane Internet Security (acquired by British Telecom in October 2006), netForensics, ReefEdge (acquired by Symantec), and Tripwire.
Before joining the venture community, Warren worked as an engineer and project manager at Solectron Corporation, a corporate development manager at Sun Microsystems, a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, and an investment banker in Alex Brown's technology group.
Warren holds a B.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in Economics with honors from Stanford University, and an MBA from The Wharton School.
Kathy Timko
Kathy Timko is the Chief Operating Officer of IDT Telecom and Executive Vice President of Technology of IDT Corporation. As COO at IDT, Kathy is responsible for Product Management and all commercial, technical and administrative operations. She also oversees several of the business units within the Telecom organization. Ms. Timko began her career with IDT, a multinational carrier, telephone and technology company, in 1998 as Vice President of Engineering and Operations and served as the Chief Technology Officer and Director.
With more than 24 years of industry experience as an engineer, computer scientist and senior manager, Ms. Timko has spent the past sixteen years in Telecommunications. Prior to joining IDT, Ms. Timko was with Call Sciences where she worked on personal number services and with Bellcore where she worked on telecommunications and advanced technology systems. She has also worked with Bolt, Berenak and Newman (BBN) where she worked on leading edge military projects. In addition, she has held technical and management leadership positions in a variety of technology-based companies focusing on the development of energy systems and robotics.
Ms. Timko holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a M.S. in Computer Science from Boston University
Outside Counsel
Kenneth McVay
Ken is the founding partner of the New York office of Gunderson Dettmer, the nation's leading business law firm for entrepreneurs, emerging growth companies and venture capitalists. Ken's practice focuses on the representation of fast-growing private and publicly held technology companies, including companies within the following industries: telecommunications software and services (wired and wireless); semiconductors and optical components; financial services and software; Internet; networking; and life sciences. Ken also represents many of the leading venture funds in their investment transactions in these high-technology industries.
By virtue of his nearly twenty years of experience as both a lawyer and an entrepreneur—first in Silicon Valley and subsequently on the East Coast—Ken has extensive experience in venture capital financings, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate partnering transactions and strategic alliances.
Ken's entrepreneurial career includes serving as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of a publicly-held telecommunications company and as Vice President of Finance and Strategic Planning at Zip2 Corporation, an Internet start-up, which was purchased by Compaq Computer.
Ken graduated magna cum laude from UCLA and cum laude from Harvard Law School. After receiving his J.D., he served as a law clerk to The Honorable Cynthia Holcomb Hall on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then commenced his corporate law practice at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.
Ken is the author of Sarbanes-Oxley and Venture Capital-Backed Companies (PLI 2005) and a co-author of Formation and Financing of Emerging Companies. Ken is an active member of the California and New York State Bars.
