OpenTV Appoints Five Senior Executives San
Francisco, CA/August 25, 2003/Satnews/ OpenTV
(Nasdaq and Euronext Amsterdam:OPTV), announced the appointment of five
senior executives. Wesley O. Hoffman will join the Company as Executive Vice
President and Chief Operating Officer. Thomas L. Hagopian has been appointed
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Programming/Advertising. Constance
N. Pettit has been appointed Senior Vice President of Advertising. Bill Harvey
has been appointed Senior Vice President and General Manager of Research. Thomas
L. Ewing has been appointed Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property
Officer. These appointments further strengthen the OpenTV management team. Wes Hoffman has an extensive background in management of companies developing cutting-edge consumer networking and advanced television technology. Prior to joining OpenTV, Mr. Hoffman was President and CEO of ICTV in Los Gatos, CA. Prior to that, Mr. Hoffman was focused on the wireless high-speed home networking industry. Mr. Hoffman also has valuable experience managing large engineering organizations and significant divisions of General Instrument Corporation that were primarily focused on managing real time high-volume transaction processing systems for the state and provincial lotteries and on-track and off-track racing operations. Mr. Hoffman has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Statistics from the University of Delaware. Thomas Hagopian will serve as SVP and General Manager responsible for managing OpenTV's commercial relationships with all programming networks and broadcasters, as well as the advertising community. Mr. Hagopian's previously served as President of the TV Guide Online division of Gemstar TV Guide International and as Chief Operating Officer of their TV Guide Data Solutions Division. Mr. Hagopian also has direct cable and interactive experience as Vice President of Interactive Products for Cablevision Systems where he led the team that launched the high-speed cable modem business and interactive content. Prior to Cablevision, he was President and COO of Interzine Productions, Inc. an Internet start-up company backed by AOL and TCI, that was later sold to Times Mirror. Additionally, Mr. Hagopian was with ESPN for ten years in various executive-level new media, consumer marketing, and affiliate sales positions. He most recently launched and managed all of ESPN's online services as the Vice President and General Manager of ESPNET (now espn.com). He joined Cap Cities/ABC after business school. Mr. Hagopian joined Coopers & Lybrand after undergraduate school and became a CPA. Mr. Hagopian received a Bachelor degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan and a MBA with a Marketing concentration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Constance Pettit is an interactive cable pioneer, involved with the very earliest interactive television forays - the Qube project in the mid 1980's. Ms. Pettit will be managing our relationships with key advertising clients and national and local advertising sales contacts at cable programmers and network operators. Ms. Pettit's previous position was as Vice President of Client Services for the YES Network in New York. Prior to that, she managed a consulting service, Pettit & Associates, which counted the YES Network among their clients. Ms. Pettit has over twenty years experience in domestic and international cable television, Internet and advertising communities, including executive level positions with OneMediaPlace, a New York-based media planning and buying service; Multichannel Television Advertising Bureau International where she spent extensive time developing relationships in the international advertising community; and with Times Mirror Cable where she served as Corporate Vice President of Advertising Sales; and Warner Amex Cable where she served in various management positions, including General Manager of a major California cable television system. Bill Harvey will serve as Senior Vice President and General Manager responsible for managing OpenTV's Research Division ensuring that our advertising and programming partners optimize their investments in OpenTV's enhanced television and interactive advertising services. Mr. Harvey has been actively involved in media research for over thirty-five years. He founded his first company, New Electronic Media Science (NEMS) in the early 1970's. NEMS was a media research consultancy that has served nearly 70 top advertisers and agencies, all major cable operators, virtually all major networks and all major Hollywood studios. Mr. Harvey later founded Next Century Media (NCM) in conjunction with IBM and Leonard Matthews, former CEO of Young & Rubicam and of Leo Burnett. NCM enables addressable television advertising and interactive response measurement and has led the development of addressable television advertising and interactive media measurement standards. Through these two companies, Mr. Harvey has been involved in every major new electronic media trial in the U.S. since 1975. He has brought more advertisers and agencies into interactive television trials than any other person. Thomas Ewing's previous position was as a Patent Attorney for Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco, conducting strategic analyses of large patent portfolios including interactive television. Mr. Ewing has extensive experience in both prosecuting patent infringement litigations and defending patent applications as a result of experience gained as a Patent Attorney at the following law firms: Sughrue, Mion, Zinn, Macpeak & Seas (Washington, DC), Seed and Berry LLP (Seattle, WA), Fenwick & West LLP (San Francisco), and Cooley Godward LLP (San Francisco). Mr. Ewing received his Bachelor degrees in Rhetoric and Writing and Computer Science from the University of Tulsa. He also holds a Masters degree in Modern Letters at University of Tulsa, a Masters degree in Engineering and Policy from Washington University in St. Louis, and a law degree from Hastings College of the Law at University of California. Back to the Home Page |