Executive Bios
Michael Cerda
Co-Founder and CEO
Michael co-founded Jangl with Ben Dean in 2005
after having spent 10 years with some of the world's most innovative and successful
networking and communications companies. Michael formerly directed business development
efforts for
Trapeze Networks, specializing in early customer engagement and forging
key alliances with infrastructure, security, and VoIP companies. Before that, he
was director of business development at Procket Networks,
a top sales director at
Redback Networks, and held several account management roles at companies that include
Lucent Technologies and Netopia. Michael was also the founding CEO of a click-and-brick
lifestyle company called
The Yoga Company, which he formed to share his passion
for yoga with consumers in a web-friendly way. Michael earned his Bachelor of Science
in Industrial Technology/Management from California Polytechnic State University
at San Luis Obispo.
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Ben Dean
Co-Founder and CTO
Ben Dean co-founded Jangl after
more than a decade of designing and building creative technologies designed for
consumers. Most recently, Ben's focus has been on working with service providers
to define and build consumer voice services. At
MusiKube, Dean helped architect,
build, and deploy 411-Song, designing the infrastructure and working with partners
to launch and integrate the 411-Song solution on U.S. wireless carriers.
Also at MusiKube, Ben helped architect and build the 411-Tone service, one of the
first voice-enabled ringtone search and ordering services. At Referral Networks,
Ben developed an employee referral solution to help Fortune 500 companies find qualified
candidates via their employees' social networks and, while a consultant at GlobalWorks,
designed and built an XML-based content management solution that helps clients
manage their consumer-facing web content in any language and any region. Earlier
in his career, Ben was an early executive at BuyerWeb, leading the development and
management of the reverse-auction service and, before that, designed consumer electronics
hardware and software applications used by
Denon Electronics' worldwide customer
base. Ben holds a Bachelor's Degree
in Audio Engineering from the University of
Miami
in Florida.
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Brian Longest
Chief Operating Officer
Longest contributes a wide array of experience that includes hands-on work in
start-up and executive management, operations, marketing, venture capital and intellectual
property law. Before joining Jangl, Longest was SVP of Operations and Interactive
Marketing at PodShow, joining the company prior to funding and subsequently assisting
with two capital raises. His role at PodShow also included acting as the VP of Engineering
through the initial PodShow launch in July 2006, opening the San Francisco corporate
headquarters, and managing human resources, facilities, legal, IT, finance, customer
support and more. Prior to PodShow, Longest had established himself as a successful
serial entrepreneur, having founded Mesia Corp. (Media Enabled Software and Internet
Advertising), growing a million+ member viral consumer shopping and rewards site
monetized by both shopping and permission-based email, and one of the first companies
to engage in customer relationship management on the Internet. As founder and CEO,
Brian raised venture capital, set the strategic direction for the company, and guided
product vision, marketing, sales and business development. His success at Mesia was
rooted in his vision of the internet as the ultimate one-to-one direct marketing medium,
and his pioneering work in viral marketing, conversation marketing, social media,
strategic and affiliate relationships, and SEO/SEM. Early in his career, Brian
practiced intellectual property law, and he remains licensed to practice before
the U.S. Patent Office. Brian holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from
George Mason University, and a JD in Intellectual Property and Patents from George
Mason University School of Law.
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Jim Black
VP, Engineering
At Jangl, Jim oversees all aspects of engineering and product development.
Jim has more than 20 years of senior management and engineering experience in web and
desktop applications, mobile services, embedded/device applications, and high-performance
servers. He has held critical engineering management positions at several successful
startups and leading technology companies. Before Jangl, Jim was VP of Products and
Technology at Scalix, an open source enterprise messaging system. Earlier, Jim was SVP
of Engineering at Pixo, providing wireless carriers easy vending of digital content such
as music, games, applications, and ring-tones. As VP Engineering at Critical Path / Remarq,
Jim oversaw development of all hosted applications. Earlier in his career, Jim joined
Netscape with the Collabra team, and led the development team that created the
award-winning Netscape Enterprise Server platform. Jim earned his Bachelor's degree in
Computer Science from Rice University.
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Aaron Burcell
Vice President, Marketing
Burcell brings to the Jangl team his rich background in consumer marketing and bench
strength in start-up operations, business development and fund raising. A veteran of consumer
technology startups that intersect media and personal communications, Burcell most recently
headed marketing and communications at PodShow, where he
was one of the first five employees, helping PodShow vault from early podcasting leader in 2005
to the world’s fastest growing media company in 2007. At PodShow, Burcell successfully created
media and ad industry awareness that supported the company’s programming acquisition and ad
industry partnerships, and in turn helped generate revenue from a global audience of tens of
millions. Prior to PodShow, Burcell led all outbound and product marketing efforts at
Stata Labs, which was acquired in 2004 by
Yahoo!.
One of the first five to join Stata Labs, Burcell drove marketing efforts for Bloomba 2.0, a
critically-acclaimed search-based email program later licensed to
Corel Corporation. Earlier in his career, Burcell was a
co-founder and partner at Alterlayer, an innovative sweat equity firm that consulted and
invested in a broad array of Silicon Valley-based startups, and worked in
Microsoft’s Consumer Platforms Division, having joined
Microsoft following its acquisition of WebTV, where he was employee #21. Burcell is a graduate
of Stanford University, majoring in Political Science.
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Timothy Johnson
Senior Director, Corporate Communications
Timothy brings to Jangl more than 15 years of experience in corporate communications,
public relations, marketing and strategic planning. Before Jangl, Timothy was an
early founder and partner at Voce Communications,
and critical to its emergence
as one of the most respected independent communication consultancies in technology.
At Voce, he helped craft the agency's award-winning Social Media practice, and developed,
managed and contributed to client programs for companies like Yahoo!,
Network Appliance, Peerflix,
Discovery Channel, Brocade,
MegaPath Networks, NEC,
Fujitsu, DigitalPersona,
as well as numerous early-stage companies formulating their communications strategies.
Prior to Voce, Timothy spent several years at top technology PR agencies consulting
with companies that included Hewlett-Packard, Symantec, and
Applied Materials, and
served for five years in the
U.S. Navy as a public affairs manager and journalist.
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