Meet the Team
Shahir Ahmed
Chief Executive Officer, Founder, and Chairman
Visionary, creative and decisive professional with leadership experience championing profit growth for Fortune 500 companies.
Idea generator, salesman, patent holder and all round good guy.
Bruce Guidotti
Advisor
Bruce Guidotti has spent his career solving difficult brand problems. He has a proven record of success in both turning around troubled established brands and in helping create and successfully introducing new brands. He has unusually broad client and brand experience across consumer packaged goods (food and HBC), telecommunications, technology, restaurant (QSR and CDR), pharmaceutical, retail and service businesses.
Bruce grew up in Cleveland, was educated at Harvard and Wharton, and has spent his entire career in the advertising business solving difficult problems for clients.
He has had as much success in helping to turn around languishing brands as he has had in helping introduce new ones. He has also helped move many healthy brands to new plateaus in terms of both image and sales. Prior to joining the Next Gen marketing team, he was a veteran of big agency account management – He held senior account positions at Foote, Cone & Belding (twice); BBDO; DMB&B; Grey; and Jordan, McGrath, Case & Taylor.
Over his career Bruce has led teams working with major clients including: Bristol Myers, Frito-lay, PepsiCo, Unilever, Gillette, M&M Mars, Kaiser Roth, Quaker Oats, TCI, Darden, MobilCom, and others.
Bruce has worked on positioning, marketing, and advertising brands in almost every category. Some include: Libbey-Owens-Ford, B.F. Goodrich, MaterCard, Loving Care, Miss Clairol, Balsam Color, Wisk, The Dry Look, Soft ‘n Dri, Fritos, Grandma’s Cookies, Pepsi, Quaker Oatmeal, Life Cereal, Quaker Toasted Oatmeal (he invented this brand), Aunt Jemima, Gatorade, Propel, Snapple, Hefty, One Zip, Pritikin, Weight Watchers, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Milky Way, Twix, Mazola corn oil, Arnold Bread, Lifesavers, TCI cable, STARZ!, Encore, MobileComm, Novartis, Effidac, Doan’s, Desenex, Dulcolax, CitySearch.com, Ticketmaster.com, Myteam.com, Happy Paws.com, ABCNews.con Earthgrains, Dairy Management Inc, Dannon Actimel, Sara Lee Coffees, Gerber, Smokey Bones, Red Lobster, Mugg & Bean (SA), Bic, Scotties Tissues, Hallmark Crown Stores, Parmalat Esker Waters, Aircell. Co-marketing programs for Cargil: Cattleman’s Collection Beef, P&G; Kraft; Dannon, Smuckers.
Bruce has also done a substantial amount of work with start up organizations including a number of internet companies and with helping start ups secure start up and second stage capital.
The work Bruce has done and has lead has been variously recognized in the marketing and advertising industries. The AMA Effie is the pinnacle in that category. Bruce was the architect of the Quaker Oats campaign that won not only the Category Gold Effie (2x), but also the Grand Gold Effie in 1989, the best campaign of the over 5000 submitted that year. He was also involved in Effie wins for Life Cereal, Quaker 100% Natural, and Hefty One Zip. Other industry awards for work he directed include Clios, Addy’s, Andy’s, Ad Age Annual Presenter, Mobius, and Edison.
Roger Entner
Advisor
Roger Entner is the founder of Recon Analytics responsible for all aspects of Recon Analytics’ research, consulting and operations.
Roger was the Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Insights for the Telecom Practice of The Nielsen Company from the beginning of 2009 to the end of 2010. Roger was responsible for advancing the research and thought leadership position of The Nielsen Company in the world of telecommunications. In early 2007, Roger joined IAG Research as Senior Vice President, Communications Sector and was part of the senior leadership team when IAG Research was acquired by The Nielsen Company in April 2008. Roger was responsible for helping telecommunications providers to improve the effectiveness of their advertising expenditures. Building on IAG’s traditional strength in television advertising, Roger was involved in several successful engagements expanding IAG’s traditional television advertising effectiveness measurement to radio, the Internet, and mobile advertising. Prior to joining IAG Research, Roger was Vice President, Telecom for Ovum. Roger launched the North American coverage for Ovum and was able to establish Ovum as one of the leading telecom research providers in North America. Before joining Ovum, Roger headed the wireless carrier research group at the Yankee Group. During his time at the Yankee Group, Roger also designed, built, and commercially launched the first of the Yankee Group’s quantitative research products that seamlessly combined historic data with forecasts.
Roger is also frequently quoted in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today and many other publications. He has appeared on national and local television on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNBC, and CNN . He is also often interviewed on National Public Radio and other business radio stations.
Tom Weigman
Advisor
Tom Weigman is a seasoned executive with proven success in consumer communications services and product companies. A thought leader with strong strategic, brand marketing, and problem solving skills. An exceptional ability to quickly sort complex market, technology, and execution issues to identify key business drivers and impediments, and formulate new strategies and growth plans. Able to smoothly integrate marketing solutions into the whole business, and help align departments, systems, and business processes.
Experience :
EVP Wireless Services at Aircell - Drove early development and growth stage of breakthrough new Gogo In-flightInternet service, bringing high speed internet access and cached content services to US airlines.
CMO/Business Unit President at Sprint – 10 years leading overall corporate marketing and serving as President of two business units. Also SVP Strategy and Communications.
Management/Marketing Consultant – 5 Years - to technology Co's in converging communications spaces
CEO of Wireless “Community” startup
Sr. Partner, Marketing Consultancy - with specialty/focus in Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Markets.
Early/developmental years in Marketing roles in CPG companies, Including P&G, Beecham Products, and Mars.
Board of Directors – for companies in the Advertising , video compression, wireless services, loyalty ASP, and retail foods arenas.
Advisory board/consulting exposure to retail POS services, broadband, gaming, ITV and international markets.
Specialties - Resolving the strategic direction, and turning around the marketing and business systems of underperforming companies. Leadership, Marketing and product direction are core strengths. Substantial experience in packaged goods and in a broad spectrum of traditional and new subscription services and communications technologies (wired, wireless, VoIP, broadband, video, etc).
David Wood
Advisor
David brings over 25 years of experience and networking from Silicon Valley to the CommutePays team and is
instrumental in developing and growing strategic relationships having previously been Founder / VP Marketing
for Da Carta Software and raising over $50M in venture funding while closing major mapping platform accounts
including Yahoo, Google, Telnav and Networks in Motion. David also helped build the platform Inrix uses
for traffic data which supplements the CommutePays technology Platform.
Rafael Saavedra
Advisor
Rafael is a 3 time mobile start-up entrepreneur who has previously sold his companies to Motorola and Harmin.
Rafael was consulted to work with Qualcomm to develop the traffic data platform licensed exclusively to Inrix
which supplements CommutePays technology. Rafael brings 15+ years of international experience leading
development of products and innovation in software development of Location-based services technologies, GPS,
and Navigation. Rafael is acting in a chief technical role for CommutePays as a recognized provider of world
class thought leadership in the traffic information industry space.
Mark Peden
Advisor
Partner/Member at Keiretsu Forum
Partner at Social Venture Partners
Senior Consultant at Broadband ERA, LLC
Principal at Angel Oregon, LLC
Member, Board of Directors at GMD
Accomplished sales & biz development executive with a 14+ year record of significant achievements and
demonstrated success in the communications industry. Skilled at driving sales strategy,
execution & team performance. Tenacious in creating new business.
Ananth Rani
Advisor
Ananth co-founded Xora, the market leader in GPS Mobile productivity applications.
Ananth raised $11M along with the CEO, led the company to profitability and led the acquisition and integration
of their largest competitor, Gearworks (a company that had raised $65M).
He was responsible for Product Strategy, Product Management, Marketing and Business Development.
Prior to Xora, Ananth worked in software development and implementation roles at Oracle Corporation and KLA-Tencor.
Craig Lauer
Advisor
25 years building world-class technology teams. Most passionate about markets where user adoption is vital. Currently, acting as angel investor and advisor to startups. Most recent investment exit: Rapid Bridge acquired by Qualcomm, Inc.
Has previously worked at Qualcomm as VP Technology leading the commercial development technology team for the strategic focus in Augmented Reality for mobile. As a VP Engineering there as well, Craig led a 450 person technical organization for Qualcomm Enterprise Solutions, including Software, Hardware, Systems Engineering, Program Management, Network Operations, and User Experience. The Business's annual revenue ~$750M.
Bob Utley
Advisor
Has an extensive history in the radio industry as the President/CEO of Cable Car Communications, Inc.
Bob conceptualized the radio show " 25 Years fo Hits " and is a nationally syndicated show on over 100 stations.
Dr. Patrick Boucher
Legal Council, Patent Attorney at Marsh Fischmann & Breyfogle, LLP
Dr. Boucher's practice focuses on all aspects of providing patent protection for clients, including patent prosecution, opinions, licensing, and strategic counseling in portfolio development. He has worked with a diverse range of clients, including well-established Fortune 100 companies, start-ups in early and intermediate phases, and individual inventors. His practice emphasizes cost-effective development of patent portfolios that integrate with the strategic business objectives of clients. He has advised clients in a wide range of technical disciplines that include optics and holography, biometric recognition, acoustics and ultrasonics, semiconductor processing, magnetic materials, satellite design, biomedical devices, geophysical exploration, microelectromechanical systems, nanotechnology, Internet software, and financial business methods, and always enjoys exploring new areas of technology.
Prior to becoming a patent attorney, Dr. Boucher was one of the senior professional editors of Physical Review B, the world's largest research journal devoted to condensed-matter and materials physics. He has published numerous technical papers in peer-reviewed journals, wrote a chapter on legal impacts of nanotechnology in a widely used textbook on nanotechnology for scientific graduate students, and is the author of the book Nanotechnology: Legal Aspects. He has also lectured on different aspects of patent law in different forums, discussing such issues as protection of financial business methods and the value of patent protection for academic research.
He currently authors the JuriScientia™ blog at juriscientia.com where he comments on different topical aspects of the interface between law and science.
Statement of Practice:
Intellectual Property Law: Patent Prosecution, Opinions, Licensing, Strategic Portfolio Counseling
