Michael Lazerow is a New York City-based serial entrepreneur who has founded several successful software companies. In 2007, Lazerow co-founded Buddy Media, Inc., a privately held company that sells social media marketing software[1].[clarification needed] Lazerow served as chairman and CEO before the company was sold to Salesforce.com on June 4, 2012, for $745 million.[2]
In 2019, Lazerow co-founded Velvet Sea Ventures,[3] a multi-stage venture capital firm. The firm has invested in Scopely[4] and Liquid Death.[5] Lazerow was also a seed investor in Scopely, which announced on April 5, 2023, that it had signed an agreement to sell for $4.9 billion to Savvy Games.[6]
Lazerow is a long-time fan of the Phish and has attended more than 150 Phish shows.[7]
While attending Northwestern University, Lazerow founded University Wire (now owned by Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)), a network of more than 700 student-run newspapers. He later founded GOLF.com, which was purchased by Time Warner's Time Inc. division in 2006. Subsequent to the 2006 acquisition, Lazerow joined Time Inc. as General Manager of GOLF.com and GOLFONLINE.com.
Lazerow has a heart condition called a ventricular septal defect that resulted in an emergency aortic valve replacement in 1994.[8] His Youtube video "A New Beginning - Is Fear Holding You Back?" about the condition, posted after the sale of Buddy Media to Salesforce, has received more than 150,000 views.[9]
Lazerow graduated in 1996 with a B.S. and M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University, where he is still active as a member of the university's Medill School Board of Advisers. In September 2022, Lazerow and his wife, Kass, endowed The Mary Dedinsky Graduate Journalism Scholarship to honor Mary Dedinsky’s long-time service to Medill and the broader journalism profession. Mary was the first woman to be named managing editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. She is a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror[10]. Mary also served as Lazerow's academic adviser at Northwestern.[11]
Lazerow lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, who served as Buddy Media's COO. Kass and Mike have three children, Myles, Cole and Vivian.
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, it is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious higher-education institutions in the nation. Admissions at Northwestern are considered to be highly selective.
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University that offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It frequently ranks as the top school of journalism in the United States. Medill alumni include 40 Pulitzer Prize laureates, numerous national correspondents for major networks, many well-known reporters, columnists and media executives.
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.
Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com, as well as its contributions to WordPress. The company's name is a play on founder Matt Mullenweg's first name and automatic.
Evan Smith is an American journalist. He is the former CEO of The Texas Tribune and host of the weekly interview program Overheard with Evan Smith.
Christine Brennan is a sports columnist for USA Today, a commentator on ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour and NPR, and a best-selling author. She was the first female sports reporter for the Miami Herald in 1981, the first woman at the Washington Post on the Washington Redskins beat in 1985, and the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media in 1988.
Michele Weldon is an author, journalist, keynote speaker, and assistant professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
The 2008 Valero Alamo Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 29, 2008 in the 65,000-seat Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and televised nationally by ESPN. The game was one of the 2008–09 NCAA football bowl games that concluded the 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The 2008 Alamo Bowl was the 16th annual edition of the contest and the second to be sponsored by Valero Energy Corporation. The game pit the Missouri Tigers (9–4) against the Northwestern Wildcats (9–3). The 2008 game was dubbed the Journalism Bowl by some in the media, owing to the nationally recognized journalism programs at each school: the Missouri School of Journalism and the Medill School of Journalism.
Tableau Software is an American interactive data visualization software company focused on business intelligence. It was founded in 2003 in Mountain View, California, and is currently headquartered in Seattle, Washington. In 2019 the company was acquired by Salesforce for $15.7 billion. At the time, this was the largest acquisition by Salesforce since its foundation. It was later surpassed by Salesforce's acquisition of Slack.
John Lavine is a United States journalist and educator and currently the chief executive officer of StrategicMediaGroup.com. Previously, he was a media company publisher and editor, and then professor and Dean of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, as well as a professor of media management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management.
David Barstow is an American journalist and professor. While a reporter at The New York Times from 1999 to 2019, Barstow was awarded, individually or jointly, four Pulitzer Prizes, becoming the first reporter in the history of the Pulitzers to be awarded this many. In 2019, Barstow joined the faculty of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism as a professor of investigative journalism.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a provider of digital marketing automation and analytics software and services. It was founded in 2000 under the name ExactTarget. The company filed for an IPO in 2007, but withdrew its filing two years later and raised $145 million in funding. It acquired CoTweet, Pardot, iGoDigital and Keymail Marketing. In 2012, it raised $161.5 million in an initial public offering, before being acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion in 2013. ExactTarget was renamed to Salesforce Marketing Cloud in 2014 after the acquisition by Salesforce.
Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) is an international venture capital firm founded in 1993. The fund specializes in investments in startup companies, focusing on digital media, enterprise software, semiconductors, data storage and cyber security, having raised close to $1.4 billion USD across nine funds. JVP is headquartered in Margalit Startup City Jerusalem with offices in Be'er Sheva, New York City and Paris.
Certinia, formerly known as FinancialForce.com, Inc. is a software company headquartered in San Jose, California, that provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) software based on the Salesforce Platform. The ERP software includes accounting, billing, professional services automation, revenue recognition, human resource management, and supply chain management applications.
Scopely, Inc is an interactive entertainment company and mobile-first video game developer and publisher. The company is headquartered in Culver City, California, with offices across the US, EMEA and Asia.
Joie Chen is a Chinese American television journalist. She was the anchor of Al Jazeera America's flagship evening news show America Tonight, which was launched in August 2013. In January 2016, the channel announced it would close on 12 April 2016.
Narrative Science was a technology company based in Chicago, Illinois, that specialized in data storytelling. As of December 17, 2021, Narrative Science was acquired by Salesforce and has been integrated into Salesforce's Tableau Software.
J.A. Adande is an American sportswriter, commentator and educator, who currently serves as the Director of Sports Journalism at Northwestern University.
Mary Lou Song is a Korean-American entrepreneur and was eBay's third employee. She joined the company, formerly AuctionWeb, in 1996 after being recruited by its founder Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll.
Nancy Utley is an American film producer and studio executive. She held the positions Executive Vice President of Marketing at 20th Century Fox and co-president and co-chairman of Searchlight Pictures. Under Utley’s leadership, Searchlight Pictures received 122 Golden Globe nominations, 159 Oscar nominations, and 40 Oscars, including four Best Picture Awards. Since 2021, Utley has run Lake Ellyn Entertainment, a production company she founded.
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