Kaango Classifieds - Empowering Newspapers and Broadcast Media with Tomorrow's Technology and Thinking

Kaango Management

Michael S. Kranitz
President & CEO

Michael Kranitz is the principal architect of Kaango and its President and CEO. Kranitz was also the principal software developer and application creator for the RCUniverse.com community site which is owned and operated by Kaango. Prior to his involvement in RCUniverse and Kaango, Kranitz founded Denver-based DriveOff.com and sold it to an MSN/Ford joint venture in 2000 after building it to 77 employees and more than 3,500 member dealerships. Kranitz also served as Vice President of MSN Autos (f/k/a MSN CarPoint) at the time.

Kranitz created the Kaango network from the ground up and established the company's industry relationships before selling an 80% share of the company to Kaango Ventures, LLC, a consortium owned by Hearst and MediaNews Group. Kranitz is a highly trained public speaker and has become an industry-recognized authority and presenter in the newspaper, auto and hobby industries.

Kranitz is a former litigator and corporate reorganization lawyer with 11 years of practice in three states. His clients have included GMAC, Midway Airlines, Bank One and Key Bank.

In 1996 Kranitz released LeaseWizard® Lease and Loan Software for consumers and professionals. LeaseWizard has been recommended in major automotive magazines since then.

Andrea Pearson
Executive Vice President

Andrea served as Vice President and General Manager of MapQuest.com before joining Kaango. Under her direction as the chief strategist, monthly unique visitors to the site grew from 30 million to 55 million and user satisfaction reached an 11-year high. She joined MapQuest in 2002 as senior product manager and was responsible for the development and production of the site's features, including metrics, research, marketing and user interface, as well as optimizing revenue opportunities from paid search and display advertising.

Before MapQuest.com, Andrea spent ten years in key marketing/public relations positions, including DriveOff.com, where she developed and directed an auto dealer marketing program, which generated 3,500 memberships across 20 U.S. markets in just six months. She also was responsible for the integration of the company into Microsoft's CarPoint after the company was sold to an MSN/Ford joint venture in 2000. During her tenure with MSN CarPoint, Andrea served on the executive team and directed all private label licensing and affinity marketing partnerships, which resulted in a 10-fold improvement in conversion rates and lower marketing costs.

Matthew Summers
Vice President of Technology & CTO

Matthew Summers, our CTO, joins us following two years as the founder and CEO of the LAMP consulting firm Open West Labs, based in Missoula, Montana. His previous experience includes positions as the CTO for the luxury hotel portal Tophotels.com. As a senior developer at Maguma AG, based in Bolzano, Italy, Matthew was part of the team that developed and released PHP4 Enterprise Edition. His previous experience includes consulting and direct hire work for MySQL AB, the leading open source database company, development work for IBM consulting through IBM partner Dataskill, based in San Diego and consulting work for companies including DirectTV, Word of Net, SpinRecords and LifeFiles.com. Matthew was the Senior Programmer/Analyst at the Hyde Company, developing SMS and Voice-mail servers currently deployed in the world's largest telco companies.

Matthew brings to Kaango a solid technical background that includes previous leadership and management experience that will enable Kaango to continue to maintain and grow our industry leading technical capabilities.

Joe Conti
Vice President of Client Services Joe Conti joined Kaango in November of 2007 with over 17 years of diverse experience and a stellar client service track record.

Prior to joining Kaango, Joe was Vice President of Analytic Consulting at The Nielsen Company, where he led a large team of analysts and consultants in providing strategic solutions one of Nielsen's largest clients. Joe spent several years of his career at Nielsen, rising through the organization by quickly adapting to and excelling in each new role. He was repeatedly recognized by the Nielsen by receiving numerous company-wide awards such as "Manager of the Year" and "Director of the Year."

Joe honed his client service, account planning and new business development skills with Marketing Management Analytics, serving as Vice President. In this role, Joe was responsible for leading a modeling and analytics team to deliver high impact analyses across a diverse client base.

Joe also spent three years as a business consultant for IBM, where he managed client relationships and brought comprehensive solutions forward to achieve critical business objectives. In addition to his client engagements, Joe also co-authored an IBM white paper entitled "Category Management and Information Technology," which contributed to him earning his consulting certification.

Marc Y. Vigod
Vice President of Communities

Marc Vigod, operates Kaango's RCUniverse.com community. Vigod founded RCUniverse in 2001 and served as the company's President before merging with RCAirport.com (founded by Kaango CEO, Michael Kranitz).

Under Vigod's leadership in traffic generation strategies, RCUniverse.com has become the world's largest online community for radio control hobby enthusiasts, generating more than 30,000 unique visitors daily. RCUniverse has grown its registered member-base to more than 350,000 with 200-250 new members joining daily.

Vigod additionally serves as the systems administrator for RCUniverse.com and Kaango.com.