Resume (.html)
CRAIG BERLINGO
SUMMARY
Monetization and social media industry veteran with 14 years of experience scaling products and organizations. Creative leader with a history of execution, building cutting edge solutions for diverse stakeholders, and specializing in ad platforms, ecommerce, user generated content, and social games/apps.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
WIKIA
Senior Director of Monetization
Revenue generating product leadership for a top social media website focused on building organic communities around content curation and aggregation. Strategic and functional responsibility for monetization via the following sources of revenue:
• Direct sales ad products targeted at brand enthusiasts and influencers, including content partnerships, unique display products, sponsorships, and engagement marketing products.
• Direct-to-consumer premium subscriptions targeted at community leaders.
• Affiliate integrations such as direct response and video.
• Client-facing analytic insight tool based on unique internal metrics.
• Self-service advertising platform for small businesses and long tail advertisers.
ROCKYOU!
Senior Director of Product Development
Strategy
• Monetize social media for owned and operated apps and games as well as a large network of publishers, while balancing the demands of a healthy, high margin ad network.
• Push the boundaries of online advertising with in-game ad units incentivized with virtual currency and gifts
• Thought leader in brand and performance based advertising on Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Hi5, Bebo, etc.
• Provide advertisers deep demographic and social graph data through third-party integrations, an ability to acquire users based on lifetime value, and unique conversions such as Twitter followers and Facebook fans
Leadership
• Manage the product development teams for the world’s largest social media ad network, including product managers, platform engineers, UI developers, analytics, business intelligence, architecture, and QA
• Implement product development process and methodology, standard documentation, support structure and escalation path for internationally distributed teams
• Execute on business requirements from sales, marketing, engineering, ad operations, and other stakeholders
• Lead cross functional strategic efforts including outbound user acquisition and marketing analytics, ERP, and critical projects for Facebook
Product development
• Build a robust advertising platform running exclusively on social media with performance optimization, delivery priority, full targeting options, robust reporting, self-service, and campaign management
• Scaled product to support 20 billion impressions a month, hundreds of advertisers, thousands of publishers, and tight integration with remnant ad networks and other third parties.
• Created both IAB standard and unique ad units leveraging video, flash, and expandable ad units
• Excelled in the unique challenges of ad delivery on social media platforms and within apps and games
INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT
Leadership positions in monetization
• Google / DoubleClick - Coordinated international team to migrate all advertising data for AOL onto DART for Publishers. Created project timelines, engineering specs, and contingency plan. Analyzed data to create a streamlined process and more efficient use of resources.
Created extensive process documentation for eBay’s advertising solution after gathering information from engineering, operations, product, and marketing teams.
• Accoona Corp- Aggressively drove Ecommerce division, generating $150 million in annual revenue for six consumer electronics properties and a comparison shopping engine. Overhauled all properties and boosted natural traffic through SEO resulting in more highly qualified visitors and increasing conversion rates. Streamlined external SEM strategy across properties significantly increasing ROI.
• Gannett Co., Inc - Migrated broadcast and newspaper properties from 24/7 Real Media’s Open Ad Stream to AOL ADTECH’s ad platform
Establish ad operations team by hiring staff, setting up IO fulfillment process, and defining success metrics.
• Lifetime Television – Architected and coded user generated content sites to provide marketing support for Lifetime TV movies in PHP, XHTML, with an Oracle database.
• Theorem Inc – Pre-sales and post-sales support for a SaaS data management solution that synchs online advertising platform data. Created client implementation process, presentations, white papers, etc.
• Ironworks – Guided Fortune 500 company through identification of qualified Ecommerce vendors to support web strategy. Deliverables included: request for proposal (RFP), functional matrix, demonstration scenarios and survey, reference scripts and feedback forms.
• Information Technology Architects – Analyzed, recommended, and presented multi-environment tools. Created mock-ups and implementation strategies, identified risks, and estimated overall timelines.
• PriceYourSeats.com – Brought an offline sports ticket business to the web from the ground up. Functionality includes: user generated content; buyer/seller matching and fulfillment; social network and membership services; and search. Coded in PHP, MSSQL, XHTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
CENDANT / TRIP NETWORK
Business Manager / Product Manager
• Champion and driver of product development, design, and workflow for the 4th largest travel website.
• Responsible for several high margin products representing over $30 million in annual revenue.
• Increased the Car Business Vertical’s revenue by 75%, average cost of rental by 30%, and share of overall reservations by 50%, including through up-sells, cross-sells, and streamlined conversion funnels.
• Improved the enterprise value of Cendant Travel Distributions Services by coordinating with in-house properties, travel agents, and other customer-facing groups on product functionality
DMIND
Global Product Manager
• Brought a 3-tiered Java / XML solution to the enterprise management and web hosting markets
• Initiated and coordinated all aspects of development, support, and service of middleware solution
• Structured, managed, and led teams responsible for Java development, QA, Documentation, and Training
• Managed relationship with international partners, third parties, and strategic clients
DOUBLECLICK, INC.
Senior Strategic Engineer, TechSolutions for eMail
• Developed long-term strategies and functionality specifications for a new email advertising solution
• Established relationships with multiple business units to ensure product excellence and success
• Defined roles and responsibilities across the TechSolutions for eMail business unit
• Prioritized product enhancement requirements and timelines for delivery for highly scalable products
• Created and conducted Beta test plan, defined milestones, and exit criteria for product launch
• Designed API workflow to be compatible with clients’ email strategy
• Monitored competitive performance and incorporated feedback into each product
• Recruited, trained, and supervised team of Consultants and Sales Engineers
• Built ad hoc supplementary online tools for clients and consultants
Senior Sales / Consulting Engineer, TechSolutions for Publishers
• Provided business and technical analysis to top web sites on their current and future business models, working with clients’ technical, sales, and marketing teams
• Presented software as a service (SaaS) model and conducted pre-sales demonstration
• Consulted on advertising strategy and implemented DART for 60 clients, including: Viacom, iVillage, Businessweek, HotJobs, and American Express Travel
IBM
Consultant / IT Specialist, Global Services
• Client-facing consultant and developer creating an object oriented front end extending over middleware for a call center environment.
• Architected and implemented Java servlets using Enterprise Java Beans connecting network computers to legacy systems
EDUCATION
Boston College 5/97
Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science and Bachelor of Arts, Psychology; Concentration, Philosophy
IBM Global Services Institute 9/97
Consultants training, Customer Relationship Management training, Advanced Java Programming, AIX administration, DB2 and CICS introduction