About
Management
Tariq Krim
CEO and Founder
Tariq Krim is the founder and CEO of netvibes.com
He started his first online messaging system in France while attending elementary school and has been involved in the rise of the Internet in France.
As a journalist Tariq wrote some of the first articles reporting about the Internet in France. He mostly reported about online for La Tribune, a financial newspaper in Paris and opened the silicon Valley branch.
He left to build l8rmedia, a blog based media company to address a new generation of online readers. GenerationMP3, its main blog attracts 1.5 millions monthly readers and pioneered the use of participatory journalism in France. Meanwhile he worked as an advisor to media CEOs, politicians, the music and movie industry on the challenges and opportunities brought by the Internet.
Tariq is a regular speaker in technology and media conferences. He is recognized as one of the most influential innovators in the European space. He also became the first french to receive the TR35 (Top 35 Young Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review) for a contribution related to the Internet.
In 2008, Tariq Krim was nominated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Freddy Mini
Chief Operation Officer
Freddy, in his Chief Operating Officer role, oversees netvibes worldwide business development, while leading the company's rapid expansion across four continents. This included the establishment of the netvibes' US Office in San Francisco in 2006. Prior to netvibes, he was the co-founder of musicMe, the first music search service, the CEO of Ziff-Davis, France, and the Senior VP and Managing Director of CNET Networks Europe where he was responsible for creating and building their operations to over 150+ people while exceeding all profitability goals.
Annabelle Malherbe
Chief Finance Officer
Annabelle joined Netvibes in 2006 and is responsible for communication with investors, corporate governance, Financial and operational reporting. Prior to her appointment at Netvibes, Annabelle spent 3 years at Yahoo as European Head of Finance for the marketplace division, and over 6 years at Ernst & Young in transaction services. Annabelle is a Certified Public Accountant and graduated with a masters degree in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Paris Dauphine.
Franck Mahon
VP, Product Development
Franck joined the netvibes team in 2006 as Product Manager.
Franck has been a strong evangelist of Web 2.0 technologies. As IT Manager for Telekurs Financial, he managed the XML and RSS technology for customers such as Yahoo! Finance. Prior to that, he served as the Systems and Network Manager for Toshiba and Premiere Global Services. Franck is a regular blogger and was appointed to lead the French Podcasting Association. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the Strasbourg Institute of Technology.
François Hodierne
Chief Architect
François joined netvibes in early 2006. He leads the technical team and has a special interest in web services and widget APIs. He has a licence from Les Gobelins.
Previously he was the Technical Director at Upian.com a web agency and was involved in the presidentielles.net project.
A passionate for social media and web 2.0 technolgies, Francois also founded Hotlinks & Blogmarks.net in 2004, two social bookmarking services.
Chris Damsen
VP, Business Development
Chris Damsen, VP Business Development, Americas, joined netvibes in January 2007.
He is responsible for growing traffic and revenue and continuing to strengthen netvibes’ brand and leadership position in the Americas. Prior to his appointment at netvibes, Chris spent over six years at IAC/Ask.com and was a key principal in establishing and building the Distribution & Syndication Division for Ask.com, growing annual revenues from $5 million to in excess of $200 million. He also established key relationships with more than 100 partners including Apple, Google, AOL, BellSouth, EarthLink, CNET, Lycos and InfoSpace.
Chris graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of California.
Stefan Lechere
VP, Business Development Europe
Stefan Lechere is the Vice President European Business Development. He is in charge of alliances, partnerships and new relationships with major online and offline players in EMEA. Prior to his appointment at netvibes, Stefan Lechere was Strategic Partnership Development Manager at Google Europe. He joined Google early 2004 with responsibilities for AdSense partnerships and local/maps content partnerships in France. In 2006, Lechere was also in charge of Google Video and YouTube content partnerships as well as relationships with producers, broadcasters and right-owners.
In 1999, Stefan Lechere was the Business Development Manager for the portal activities of Club-internet and T-Online France which he joined after a 'start in his online career' with Lagardere Group (Hachette Filipacchi). Earlier in his career, Stefan Lechere was the the International Product Manager at at L'Oreal (Sweden) for over 2 years.
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