Executive Team

J.B. Holston – CEO and President

Holston has run a wide range of technology and media enterprises over the last two decades. As President of Ziff Davis International, Holston managed Ziff Davis' operations across more than 100 countries, and launched Yahoo! Europe. He was part of the senior management team that led the successful LBO of ZD by Forstmann, Little, and subsequent sale to Softbank. Since selling his last technology start-up, Holston has helped create a wide range of for-profit and not-for-profit entities, including Media-x at Stanford, among several others. After receiving a BA in creative writing from Stanford in 1979, he taught English at Phillips Academy, worked as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Boston, studied and wrote in Paris, France, then worked in strategic planning for NBC and RCA. J.B. received his MBA from Stanford in 1986, then worked on Jack Welch's staff at GE before moving back to NBC, where for five years he was responsible for strategic planning and NBC's international operations.

Greg Reinacker – CTO and Founder

Reinacker is the Founder and CTO of NewsGator Technologies. Greg's background includes technical consulting work for companies such as Galileo International, as well as several commercial software ventures with companies such as McGraw-Hill. Greg is recognized as a thought leader in the weblog and RSS arenas, publicly speaks about RSS and is a vocal proponent of business uses of RSS and syndication technologies. Greg holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Walker Fenton – General Manager, Media & Consumer Products

Fenton began his career in the Internet working for Netcom Online Communications, the first nationwide dial-up Internet Service Provider, and has since been involved with several start-ups including dbDoctor, Inc. and Xaffire, Inc. Walker received a BA in Economics from Colby College and has an MBA from Regis University.

Karyn German – VP of Product Development and Support

German is responsible for the development, delivery and support of all NewsGator Technologies, Inc. products and services. Before NewsGator, she held similar roles at numerous software and services companies, including Xaffire, Inc., Jabber, Inc., Wideforce, Inc., and CARL Corporation. Karyn has 18 years of experience in all facets of software product development and has served as an individual contributor to and executive overseeing software engineering, QA, technical support, professional services and product management. She holds both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science.

Dave Keller - General Manager, Enterprise

Keller is responsible for sales, marketing and professional services within the enterprise business segment at NewsGator. He has more than 25 years of experience in building and managing fast growing sales organizations. Immediately prior to NewsGator, he was Executive Vice President at Tailwind Strategies, a sales and marketing consultancy firm focused on early-stage companies. He has held executive sales management positions at several successful early-stage companies including: The Saddlebrook Corporation, Mosaix (now Avaya), Individual Inc., and IONA Technologies. During his seven-year tenure at IONA, Dave held positions of increasing responsibility culminating as Vice President, America’s Sales for this $180 million middleware vendor. Dave brings a wealth of field and channel sales experience, having built many successful direct and indirect enterprise sales teams.

Brian Kellner - VP of Products

Kellner is responsible for overall product management and the consumer business segment of NewsGator. Brian has held product or development management positions for over a dozen years. Most recently he was Vice President of Enterprise Products for Webroot Software. Brian holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Management from Colorado Tech.

Jeff Nolan – VP of Software as a Service (SaaS)

Nolan leads NewsGator’s Software-as-a-Service business. He is also responsible for business development and strategic relationships. Jeff was previously the CEO of pioneering mashup company Teqlo and prior to that led SAP’s Apollo strategy group. Jeff served as a general partner at SAP Ventures for almost a decade where he led investments in internet infrastructure technology, open source, and what has become web 2.0. With a lifelong interest in technology and its impact on business and society, the Bay Area native has a technical background and a natural curiosity about far too many areas to list. Jeff serves as Chairman of the Board for Students Rising Above, a San Francisco based organization that provides tuition assistance and mentoring for disadvantaged youths who despite all the odds want to pursue a college education.

Mark Nass – Chief Financial Officer

Nass is responsible for all finance, accounting and administration operations at NewsGator Technologies. Nass spent the last eight years with SmartTalk, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado, most recently as CEO. He has over 20 years of management, financial and accounting experience in both private and public companies, including HBOC, CliniCom, Inc., and Peterbilt Motors Company.