 BLAKE KRIKORIAN, CEO
An experienced entrepreneur, Blake Krikorian co-founded Sling Media after founding and serving as the CEO of id8 Group Holdings, a firm that both advised industry-leading companies on product strategy and invested in new product creation. id8 Group's client list has included, among others, Microsoft, AMD, ARM Ltd, AT&T, Toshiba, Hitachi, Vulcan, Inc., Samsung Electronics, and Time Warner.
Blake started his career at General Magic, which created the Magic Cap operating system for mobile intelligent communicators and Telescript, an agent-based network programming language for the emerging electronic marketplace (pre-Internet). At General Magic, Blake assisted industry-leading telecom and consumer electronics companies, including NTT, Sony, Mitsubishi Electric, Sanyo, OKI, and Matsushita/Panasonic, in creating and defining new products, and partnerships.
In 1994, Blake co-founded the Philips Mobile Computing Group, which was funded by Philips Electronics. As group product manager, he built and co-led the team that defined, created, delivered, and marketed the award-winning Velo 1 Windows CE Handheld PC and its associated product line.
Blake then left Philips Mobile Computing Group to serve as Senior Vice President at Metis Associates, an information technology consulting firm and incubator of core technology companies. He led the creation of Metis' first incubated company, Mainbrace Corporation, which developed and licensed software technologies and manufacture-able device platforms to system OEMs, service providers, and semiconductor vendors. Blake served as the company's President for the first two years of its operation. Mainbrace was acquired by BSQUARE in 2000.
Blake holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA.
 JASON KRIKORIAN, VP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
In the 5 years prior to co-founding Sling Media, Jason Krikorian acted as Partner in id8 Group Holdings, Inc. With id8 Group, Jason advised several companies on product and business strategy, including Microsoft, Hitachi, Viewsonic, and Synaptics. His areas of focus included mobile device platforms and digital media devices. Jason also drove business development activities for id8 Group.
Jason joined id8 Group after spending several years in management consulting with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). While at BCG, Jason advised Fortune 100 clients in the retail, automotive, and utilities sectors. His work there spanned many areas, from retail inventory management to creation and negotiation of a global joint venture.
Prior to BCG, Jason worked in corporate securities law at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, CA and at Hale and Dorr in Boston, MA, where he assisted in the execution of numerous initial public offerings, acquisitions, and private placements.
Jason received a Masters of Business Administration and Juris Doctor (law) from the University of Virginia. Jason also holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
 BHUPEN SHAH, CTO
Bhupen Shah has over 22 years of experience in technology development, product development, and engineering management in embedded digital media and communication solutions at Emuzed, Dazzle, RealChip, Philips Semiconductors, IBM and others. Over his career, Bhupen has on four occasions successfully built cost-effective India-based development organizations.
Bhupen joins Sling Media as a co-founder following the acquisition of DiTango by Sling Media. Prior to founding DiTango, Bhupen co-founded Emuzed, Inc., initially serving as COO and EVP of Engineering. Bhupen played a key role in building and managing development team in Bangalore, India. His team delivered PC and embedded digital media products to worldwide tier-1 OEMs. Later as CTO and VP of Marketing, Bhupen focused in technology evangelism, marketing and pre-sales activities resulting in design wins with tier-1 OEMs worldwide.
Bhupen was also a key contributor and VP of Software at Dazzle, the first company to deliver video capture devices for the consumer market at retail. Dazzle was acquired by SCM Microsystems.
Bhupen holds a Masters of Science in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
 JOHNNY GILMORE, COO
A seasoned operations executive with over 15 years of senior management experience running operations for high tech consumer electronics and manufacturing companies, Johnny is responsible for all aspects of Sling Media’s day-to-day global operations.
He started his career in 1986 in the strategic and operations consulting practices of Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) – working in the Manchester (England), Melbourne (Australia) and San Francisco offices - with a diverse range of Andersen’s global high tech and manufacturing clients. His client list included, among others, LAM Research, Sun Microsystems, Octel and Iomega. At Andersen, Johnny assisted these industry-leading companies in developing their global operational strategies, as well as driving process re-engineering and cost reduction programs.
In 1997, John left Andersen to join Iomega, manufacturer of the award winning Zip™ and Jaz™ drives, to head up the company’s European distribution and support operations. During his 3 years at Iomega based in Dublin, Ireland and later in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Johnny managed the launch of the new Zip™ and Clik™ product lines to Iomega’s pan European customer base, and helped the European management team grow Iomega’s European business to 35% of worldwide revenues.
He then spent almost 5 years at Handspring, the smartphone and PDA device manufacturer and inventor of the Treo™ smartphone, in a number of senior management roles, including leading their worldwide customer service and support operations. Johnny played a lead role in the due diligence process during the successful acquisition of Handspring by Palm in late 2003, to form palmOne.
Johnny later went on to serve as Vice President Operations at Virgin Electronics, makers of digital MP3 players and portable speakers, and part of the global Virgin Group headed by Richard Branson, before joining the Sling Media team in early 2005.
Johnny holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the University of Manchester (England) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
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