Chris Tsakalakis

Last updated
Chris Tsakalakis
Chris Tsakalakis 2018.jpg
Born
Chicago
Citizenship United States and Greece
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania (B.S.)
OccupationBusiness Person
TitleManaging Partner of Trefo
Board member ofAunt Bertha dba findhelp
SpouseKatharine Brunt Tsakalakis (married 1999-present)
Children2
Website ChrisTsakalakis.com

Chris Tsakalakis is a Greek-American technology executive, advisor and board member. He is currently the managing partner of Trefo, a boutique consulting firm focused on helping technology companies. Previously, Tsakalakis was the CEO of Kiva, an international nonprofit that crowdfunds loans for underserved people in over 70 countries. Tsakalakis previously served as the chief executive officer of Vivino, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital, the president of StubHub, an executive at eBay and a consultant at Bain & Company. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Contents

Career

Tsakalakis with Michael Birch and April Dembosky in 2012 Michael Birch (Monkey Inferno), April Dembosky (FT) and Chris Tsakalakis (StubHub) (7986580372).jpg
Tsakalakis with Michael Birch and April Dembosky in 2012

Early career and eBay

Tsakalakis graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. [1] He worked as a consultant for Bain & Company for six years before beginning a career in e-commerce in 1996. [1] He was a manager of two newly founded e-commerce start-ups before starting consulting firm Trefo, which served high-technology companies. [2] Tsakalakis began working for eBay as an executive in 2003. He was the vice president of the Advanced Solutions Group, which provided services to advanced eBay buyers and sellers and included eBay Stores, ProStores, Trading Platforms, Seller Marketing and Tools, the eBay Developers program and Shipping. During his time at eBay, the eBay Stores subscriber base grew from 50,000 to over 260,000. He was also involved in the establishment of eBay subsidiary ProStores, which provided the ability for small business to set up ecommerce websites. [3]

StubHub

Tsakalakis was appointed President of StubHub in 2007 and played a key role in its growth and development, helping it grow into the largest ticket marketplace in the world. Soon after his appointment, in an interview with The Economist, Tsakalakis stated that StubHub was enjoying "very stellar growth". [4] Tsakalakis contributed several articles to the Huffington Post blog. [5] On July 12, 2010, Tsakalakis contributed an editorial in which he defended ticket resale. He argued that "those that benefit the most from the ticket resale are the devoted fans". [6] In a 2010 interview with Billboard , Tsakalakis said that "StubHub helped rebrand an often-vilified vocation by pushing ticket reselling out of the shadows and providing "a very clean and well-lit place for people to buy tickets, with consumer guarantees that we stand behind." [7] Tsakalakis left StubHub in November 2014, [8] and was replaced by Scott Cutler.

Ticket News cited Tsakalakis as "one of the most influential executives in the ticketing industry." [9] In 2011, 2012 and 2013, he was listed in Sports Business Journal ’s list of the 50 most influential people in the sports business. [10] [11] [12] Tsakalakis was also on the Billboard Power 100 lists in 2012 and 2013, and the Huffington Post Sports Game Changer lists in 2010 and 2011. [9]

Later positions

In 2016, Tsakalakis joined Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur in residence (EIR) "to explore new business opportunities in the areas of e-commerce, marketplaces and health tech.". [13] Tsakalakis left Benchmark after his one-year stint as an EIR concluded in 2017.

In March 2018, Tsakalakis joined Vivino as chief executive officer, taking over the reins from Vivino’s founder, Heini Zachariassen. [14] Tsakalakis left Vivino in October 2019.

In April 2021, Tsakalakis joined Kiva as its chief executive officer, picking up the baton from Neville Crawley. [15] He left Kiva in July 2022. [16] Tsakalakis joined the board of directors of the public benefit corporation, Aunt Bertha, doing business as findhelp, in June 2021. [17] He restarted his consulting firm, Trefo, to become a full time advisor and consultant in August 2022.

Other roles

Tsakalakis is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and serves on the board of the Western States Region of the American Heart Association.

Related Research Articles

eBay American multinational e-commerce corporation

eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. Sales occur either via online auctions or "buy it now" instant sales, and the company charges commissions to sellers upon sales. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in September 1995. It has 132 million yearly active buyers worldwide and handled $73 billion in transactions in 2023, 48% of which was in the United States. In 2023, the company had a take rate of 13.81%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eir (telecommunications)</span> Irish telecommunication company

Eircom Limited, trading as Eir, is a large fixed, mobile and broadband telecommunications company in Ireland. The company, which is currently incorporated in Jersey, traces its origins to the Ireland's former state-owned monopoly telecommunication provider Telecom Éireann and its predecessors, P&T and before the foundation of the state, the telecommunications division of the GPO. It remains the largest telecommunications operator in Ireland and has overseas operations focused on the business and corporate telecom markets in the United Kingdom. The company was in majority state ownership until 1999, when it was privatised through a floatation on the Irish and New York Stock Exchanges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dignity Health Sports Park</span> Sports complex and stadium in Carson, California, United States

Dignity Health Sports Park is a multi-use sports complex located on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson, California. The complex consists of the 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park soccer stadium, the Dignity Health Sports Park tennis stadium, a track-and-field facility, and the VELO Sports Center velodrome. It is approximately 14 miles (23 km) south of downtown Los Angeles, and its primary tenant is the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer (MLS). The main stadium was also home to the Los Angeles Wildcats of the XFL in 2020. The LA Galaxy II of MLS Next Pro play their home matches at the complex's track and field facility. For 2020 and 2021, the stadium served as the temporary home of the San Diego State Aztecs football team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StubHub</span> American ticket brokering company

StubHub is an American ticket exchange and resale company. It provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater, and other live entertainment events. By 2015, it was the world's largest ticket marketplace. While the company does not currently disclose its financials, in 2015 it had over 16 million unique visitors and nearly 10 million live events per month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eir Sport 1</span> Television channel

Eir Sport 1 was an Irish pay television sports channel featuring local and international sporting events. The channel is available on some basic cable packages in Ireland, while it is available upon direct subscription to the Eir Sport package on other networks across Ireland. Its former sister channel is the subscription based network Eir Sport 2.

Viagogo, stylized by the company as viagogo, is a multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale brand. It is recorded in the United States (Delaware) and has been owned by StubHub since 2021. It was founded in London in 2006 by Eric Baker as an online marketplace for consumers to buy and sell tickets to sports, music, theatre and comedy events.

Arn Herschel Tellem is an American sports executive who is the vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). From 1981 to 2015, he was a sports agent best known for his representation of basketball and baseball players. Tellem was vice chairman of the Wasserman Media Group, a global sport and entertainment marketing agency headed by Casey Wasserman. From 2009 to 2010, he wrote a semi-weekly sports column for The Huffington Post. He has also written for Sports Illustrated, the op-ed page of The New York Times, Grantland, Detroit Free Press, The Hollywood Reporter, The Japan Times and The Detroit News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferran Soriano</span> Spanish businessman (born 1967)

Ferran Soriano Compte is a Spanish businessman who is the chief executive officer of the Premier League club Manchester City He also operates in the same role for Major League Soccer's New York City, and the A-League's Melbourne City. Between 2003 and 2008, he was the vice-president and General Manager of Barcelona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raji Arasu</span> Indian American technology executive (born 1969)

Raji Arasu is an Indian American technology executive. She currently is the executive vice president and chief technology officer of Autodesk, where she drives the company's technology strategy to accelerate connectivity, intelligence, and productivity for customers, partners, and development teams. Previously as SVP of Platform Engineering at Intuit, Raji helped shape the platform strategy and technology culture, led the company's cloud transformation, and expanded foundational core capabilities that amplified innovation for customers.

TicketIQ is a no-fee event ticket search engine, aggregator and mobile app which provides ticket-buying options from many different secondary market and primary market ticket sellers, including Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, SeatGeek and Telecharge. The company works directly with teams, leagues, festivals and venues to sell tickets direct-to-fan using paid social and other programmatic media platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AXS (company)</span> Ticketing company

AXS is an American ticket outlet for sports and entertainment events, founded in 2011 and owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the world's second largest entertainment promoter behind Live Nation Entertainment. AEG operate venues globally, as well as promote events under their AEG Presents banner, meaning these venues and promoted events typically use AXS as their primary ticket outlet.

Danielle Maged is an American business development, sports industry and e-commerce executive, formerly the Global Head of Business Development & Partnerships for StubHub!, the world's largest online ticket marketplace, from 2004 to 2014. She was the Executive Vice President of Global Partnerships for Fox Networks Group from 2015 to 2018, and most recently, the Chief Growth Officer of Global Citizen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivino</span> Online marketplace

Vivino is an online wine marketplace and wine app, which has been downloaded more than 60 million times. The Vivino app is available for download on Android and Apple devices. Vivino was founded in 2010 by Heini Zachariassen and Theis Søndergaard. As of 2022, Vivino had a wine database containing more than 15.8 million different wines and had nearly 61 million users. In July 2013, the database had 1 million wines. Vivino's headquarters are in San Francisco, California, United States, but the company has several subsidiaries including in Denmark, where the company was founded.

TickPick is an online marketplace for events tickets based in New York, New York that allows users to bid on tickets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samer Hamadeh</span> American entrepreneur

Samer Hamadeh is an American entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of the on-demand wellness company Zeel and co-founder and former CEO of Vault.com. The first Zeel service, Massage On Demand®, and its associated iOS and Android apps, was launched in the greater New York City area on April 2, 2013 and expanded to the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and South Florida on August 29, 2014.

Ticketbis is an online platform where users can buy and sell tickets to events. Founded in Spain in 2009 by Ander Michelena and Jon Uriarte, the company operates under the secondary ticketing market alongside several others including industry giant StubHub. Ticketbis is currently present in 31 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Cutler (business executive)</span> American technology executive

Scott Cutler is an American technology executive and is currently CEO of StockX. Formerly the executive vice president and head of global listings at the New York Stock Exchange, he has been an executive at eBay since April 2015. In August 2017, Cutler was promoted to Senior Vice President, Americas, at eBay following his stint as President of StubHub, an eBay subsidiary.

Eric H. Baker is an American businessman, the founder and CEO of Viagogo, and co-founder of StubHub.

Gametime is a mobile ticket marketplace app developed by San Francisco-based Gametime United Inc., which was founded by Brad Griffith in late 2012. The app was released for iOS in May 2013, with an Android version released in March 2014. In multiple funding rounds following the app's initial release, Gametime has raised a total of US$71.5 million from various investors. The app received an award from each SportsBusiness Daily and the Appy Awards in 2017, and Gametime United was named among the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. in various categories by Deloitte, Inc. and Accel Partners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Fluhr</span> American business executive

Jeffrey Fluhr is an American business executive, currently a general partner of Craft. He co-founded StubHub and was its CEO from 2000 until 2007, when it was acquired by eBay. He also established the social video platform Spreecast in 2012, which has since ceased operations. As an angel investor, he has invested in technology companies such as Houzz, Twilio, and Warby Parker.

References

  1. 1 2 "Chris Tsakalakis". Bloomberg. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  2. ↑ "THE NAVIGATOR: At Your Bidding". The Washington Post, accessed via HighBeam Research. 2 April 1998. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  3. ↑ McGrath, Skip (27 January 2006). How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business . McGraw Hill Professional. p.  155. ISBN   978-0-07-148468-8.
  4. ↑ The Economist. Economist Newspaper Limited. 2007. p. 228. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Chris Tsakalakis". Huffington Post. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  6. ↑ "Why Reselling Tickets Is Good". Huffington Post. 5 October 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  7. ↑ Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 9 January 2010. p. 15. ISSN   0006-2510 . Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  8. ↑ "StubHub President Chris Tsakalakis Leaves Months After Company Reorg". 5 November 2014.
  9. 1 2 "StubHub's Chris Tsakalakis nominated as a 'Huffington Post Game Changer'". Ticket News. 5 October 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  10. ↑ "50 Most Influential: 41-50". Sports Business Daily. 12 December 2011. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  11. ↑ "50 Most Influential: 41-50". Sports Business Daily. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  12. ↑ "50 Most Influential: 41-50". Sports Business Daily. 9 December 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  13. ↑ "Chris Tsakalakis Joins Benchmark as Entrepreneur-In-Residence". Business Wire. 9 May 2016. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  14. ↑ Vivino. "Vivino Appoints Former StubHub President Chris Tsakalakis Chief Executive Officer". GlobeNewswire News Room. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  15. ↑ "New leadership for Kiva's new era of expansion and impact: Welcome Chris and Silvija!". www.kiva.org. Retrieved 2021-05-05.
  16. ↑ "Kiva's CEO stepping down".
  17. ↑ Bertha, Aunt. "Nation's leading social care network Aunt Bertha raises $27MM to deepen social impact, expand products". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2021-06-04.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.