Special Interest Group Chair Bios

Education SIG
Jeffrey Fromm is the founder and President of KnowledgeQuest Ventures LLC, a boutique investment bank and strategy-consulting firm that focuses exclusively on the education and training industry. KnowledgeQuest provides financial advisory services to education and training companies seeking to raise equity capital or to engage in M&A; (merger and acquisition) transactions. KnowledgeQuest also consults to companies regarding the education and training market, with an emphasis on strategic and business planning and joint venture and alliance creation.

Mr. Fromm has over 14 years of experience as an international executive and corporate lawyer. Prior to founding KnowledgeQuest in 1998, he was a senior manager at Quadrant Management, Inc., a New York-based investment group, and served as Vice Chairman and General Counsel of an international Pepsi-Cola bottling company. Previously, he was an attorney at O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell, a New York law firm that specializes in venture capital, corporate, and securities transactions.

Mr. Fromm developed the Survey of Education Venture Capital in order to better understand the interest of venture capital firms in education-related businesses. Results of the Survey have been reported in Education Week, The Education Industry Report, Crain's Pensions & Investments, and The International Herald Tribune, among other places. Mr. Fromm is a frequent author, speaker and moderator on education and training industry topics. Mr. Fromm is also an elected member of the Education Division Board of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Education organized by Converge magazine.

Mr. Fromm received a B.A. degree from the University at Albany, a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law, and an M.B.A. degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He currently serves as a Lecturer at Columbia University�s Executive MBA Program.

Jennifer Lytle is the Executive Producer at bigchalk, The Education Network. In that capacity, she directs projects across the company�s K-12 research, curriculum and professional development business units and manages production of the consumer portal, bigchalk.com -- winner of the SIIA�s 2001 award for Best Educational Web Site for Kids. Jennifer came to bigchalk from HomeworkCentral.com, where she was Director of Production. Before entering the eLearning industry, Jennifer worked at The Jim Henson Company, producing videos, live events, theme park attractions and content for Muppets.com and Henson.com.

Jennifer serves on the Board of Directors for the Virtual Explorers, the Board of Advisors for The Franklin Institute�s Community Science Investigation and is pleased to act as a member of the NYNMA Ed SIG Steering Committee.

Farimah Schuerman...bio to come

Free Agent SIG
Liz Lynch helps growing companies increase profits, performance and productivity using analytical expertise, process know-how and business management concepts. She is author of 102 Secrets to Smarter Networking and host of the Internet radio show Run the Numbers.

Lisa Sulgit
lisa.sulgit.com is a consulting firm specializing in holistic e-business strategy. Working with the Internet from the very beginning, Lisa can help your firm take advantage of opportunities the web offers for solving business problems.

Human Resources SIG
NYNMA is currently seeking to re-launch this SIG and needs co-leaders. For more information, contact Pam Schancupp, Content Manager, Conferences and Events, [email protected].

International SIG
Phil Wahba
With the Consulate in New York since 1997, Phil Wahba is currently the Senior Business Development Officer covering the information and communications technology sector since 2000. Before joining the Consulate, he worked for a Montreal-area engineering firm's international marketing division. A native Montrealer, he has worked in Strasbourg, France and Washington, DC for different international organisations.

Mr. Wahba holds an International MBA from the University of Ottawa and a bachelor's degree in finance from the Ecole des Hautes �tudes commerciales de Montr�al. In addition, he has completed the academic requirements of the Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) program. Since joining the Consulate, Mr. Wahba has led trade missions to Canada and incoming missions in a number of high technology areas.

Media and Entertainment
Michael Daecher is Vice President, Content for About.com, the #1 News & Information site on the Internet. In this position he is responsible for the editorial direction, audience, and quality of content on the About.com service.

His content background includes freelance writing for Hoovers Online, Icon Magazine, and the Texas Observer. He has also spent a number years developing and marketing online courses at New York University and the University of Texas at Austin.

Marc Handleman ...bio to come
Michelle Horowitz ...bio to come

Elisa Keys, Media Consultant, President/Founder, The Hollywood East Foundation Elisa Keys is a Media and Public Relations Consultant for the entertainment and sports industries. She currently is the Program Director and Founder of the Hollywood East Foundation . The Hollywood East Foundation is a national educational resource program that educates filmmakers, writers, producers, technicians, and executives on the business of entertainment.

Steven Masur focuses on corporate, copyright, licensing, general contract and finance issues in the technology, media, entertainment, music, film, video game and publishing industries. In addition, he consults with a wide variety of businesses on corporate strategy and start-up finance.

Steven has assisted a wide variety of start-ups, mid-sized companies, and divisions of larger companies with corporate, contracts, copyright, licensing, and employment issues, business planning, corporate strategy, transactions and raising capital. Mr. Masur has established an impressive record of completed transactions and regularly speaks at industry events regarding media, music, technology, licensing, venture capital and business and legal issues.

Prior to joining Masur & Associates, LLC, Mr. Masur was an attorney at Sabin, Bermant & Gould in New York, where he did corporate and cable TV transactions, serving such clients as Advance Publications, Conde Nast Publications, Newhouse Broadcasting Corp. and Eastern Microwave. Among other transactions, Mr. Masur assisted on the Time Warner/Advance-Newhouse joint venture arrangement, one of the largest deals in cable TV history. Prior to moving to New York, Mr. Masur worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of International Corporation Finance and received his J.D. from American University in Washington, DC. Mr. Masur is a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars.

Jerrold B. Spiegel, Esq. is a cum laude graduate of NYU Law School and head of the New Media and Technology Practice Group at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, a New York based law firm that represents many clients in the media and entertainment industries. Mr. Spiegel has advised clients involved with computer-based media and on-line services (including Minitel and interactive television) since 1985. His clients include software developers and consultants, Internet and information technology companies, website developers and operators, content providers, eCommerce companies, advertising agencies, service providers, and game developers, as well as more traditional media clients such as magazine publishers.

Mr. Spiegel regularly speaks and lectures on the subject of electronic media, Internet law and eCommerce. Mr. Spiegel is also the author of the chapter entitled Legal Landmines in the book Web & New Media Pricing Guide published by Hayden Books (1996) and of the chapter entitled Covering Your Legal Bases in the book Buying Web Services; The Survival Guide to Outsourcing published by Wiley & Sons (1998).

Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz is one of the preeminent communications/entertainment, new media and Internet law firms in the United States. Our clients include major corporations and commercial entities as well as individuals and small businesses throughout the entertainment, publishing, communications, media, computer and information technology industries.

Steven Weinstein is founder & CEO of MarketmakerCapital Corporation. He formed the company, known as mc2, in 2002 to give an edge to early-stage and middle-market companies that need financing to help them realize their goals. His 20+ years of executive management encompass all aspects of corporate growth in global companies such as Reuters, growth companies such as Magnacom, an early entrant into the unified messaging space that he founded (sold in 2000), and venture-backed startups, such as Salsa Systems, a wireless software developer (sold in 2001). He has led numerous corporate acquisitions and financings.

Mr. Weinstein is an advisor to several early stage companies, and is actively involved in fundraising and other strategic activities for non-profit organizations.

Tech Ventures SIG
NYNMA is currently seeking to re-launch this SIG and needs co-leaders. For more information, contact Brian Rosenberg.

Sales & Marketing
Ed Gyurko ...bio to come
Joe Braue ...bio to come