Mike Blackwell is a visionary leader in building businesses, taking on aggressive corporate and client leadership roles, and solidifying customer contracts for companies in the technology industry with over 20 years of proven experience. Mike has led teams in developing new business functions for market leaders. In addition, Mike is diversely experienced from start-up to rapid growth, work-out to turnaround—remedying problems and creating infrastructure, financial controls, and business processes to achieve strategic goals and objectives. Mike has proven his adept leadership skills in various other senior management positions, including Founder and CEO at Groova LLC and VacationView, Inc. as well as Entrepreneur in Residence of TechColumbus. He developed and managed high-performing staff, providing opportunity for growth through ownership of projects and visibility. He provided thought leadership and clear, actionable plans to transform product and services from strategy to execution, creating state-of-the-art Internet tools and proprietary methodologies. One of Mike’s most challenging and rewarding experiences was his role as Chief Executive Officer of ShareThis, Inc. Mike was recruited to identify a large potential opportunity and market, build a team, and create a consumer product plan. He led, guided, and managed all aspects of the business. He overcame numerous obstacles involved with the successful launch of Share2Me, which became ShareThis, a beta product targeted at users. Mike then redirected the product towards publishers. As a result, ShareThis is now generating 172 million unique visitors on nearly 1 million sites. While an executive for AOL, Inc., Mike was asked to lead the AOL Search technology organization, which experienced unprecedented revenue growth, fueled by a partnership with Google, assuming responsibility for AOL Personal Finance technology organization. His proven skills at building and implementing added functionality significantly increased market share. He also called upon his vast experience in leading and coordinating teams to ensure his success in each position, which resulted in substantial growth and success throughout his 18-year tenure. Mike is above all, an honest leader with a reputation for unwavering credibility and integrity, dedicated to team development and success. His goal is to help people or companies easily and quickly build products that inspire people. He places high value in an honest work ethic, both in himself and in those he leads. He views his team success as a measure of his own success as a leader. Mike holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications, Telecommunications and Emerging Technologies from Ohio State University. He was selected as a top company performer and completed AOL Leadership Training from Harvard Business School. Mike received recognition from Tom Peters in a book on business management practices and is listed on Netscape and AOL Instant Messenger patents. He also has been a featured speaker at venture conferences, Internet World Expo, and various Macintosh user groups.