Mobile Entertainment

You could do worse than this lot, Mobile Entertainment magazine's top 50 execs for the region.

How did we do it? Like we usually do these things - email a load of our industry contacts to get a feel for who's most worthy, thrown in a few ideas of our own, mix it up a bit and watch it go.

Some names are in there because of what they've already done, some for what they're doing, and few for what they may do in the future.

So, in alphabetical order, here are the 50:

Rafat Ali
Publisher, PaidContent.org

Ali has built the MocoNews blog into a formidable information source for the North American mobile content biz. It’s especially strong in the fields of investment and regulatory news.

Greg Ballard
CEO, Glu Mobile

Under Ballard, Glu has emerged as one of the giants of mobile gaming and a destination for any brand (Activision, Sega, Konami, Codemasters, etc) without its own mobile unit.

Marco Boerries
Executive VP of Connected Life, Yahoo!

Yahoo stepped up its mobile drive in 2008 with its Yahoo! Go services. Boerries bears overall responsibility for this ambitious strategy.

Jim Beddows
Head of Content & Application Partnerships, Microsoft

Beddows has a formidable track record with Disney, Bandai Networks and 20th Century Fox. He currently serves as MEF Americas chair too.

Chris Black
President of Data Services, Singletouch

At AT&T, Black was instrumental in driving off portal business. He’s now trying to establish Singletouch’s Abbreviated Dialing Code concept with content providers.

Mark Bookman
CEO, MCN

MCN’s ‘federated search’ concept took the adwords idea and re-invented it for mobile. The company launched it first in Japan, and now Bookman and his team are set to announce the first US roll-outs.

Thomas Burgess
CEO, Third Screen Media

Built Third Screen Media into arguably the biggest mobile banner ad agency in the US. It is now owned by AOL.

Rio Caraeff
EVP/GM, Universal Music Mobile

A major figure in mobile music currently heading up mobile for the world’s biggest record label. Later this year Universal will work closely with Nokia on Comes With Music.

Pierpaolo Cervi
Head of US, Buongiorno

Italy’s Buongiorno was early into the US direct-to-consumer market, and remains a force with its Blinko consumer-facing brand and rising B2B operator services. Cervi is the man in charge.

Doug Clemmer
President, THQ Wireless

THQ was among the first mobile games publishers and still looms large in the space thanks to killer licences such as Indiana Jones, Playboy, Worms and Star Wars. Clemmer’s the top guy at THQ Wireless.

Brian Casazza
CEO, Zed US

Casazza took 9Squared to the premier league of US D2C companies, and his reward was an acquisition by Spain’s Zed. He now heads up the merged operation.

Greg Clayman
EVP of Digital Distribution, MTV Networks

Clayman is one of the highest profile execs in the business, having helped launch mobile community Upoc in the early part of the decade. He now heads up the digital unit of MTV.

Ted Cohen
Managing Partner, TAG Strategic

Everyone in the digital music space knows Cohen, because Cohen knows everything about digital music. He left EMI in 2006 to form his own consultancy and is a leading light of MEF Americas

Ron Czerny
CEO, PlayPhone

Brazilian Czerny made a huge impression last year when he won the contract to power mobile services for Wal-Mart – the first of many B2B wins. But PlayPhone is still a major participant in D2C too.

Venetia Espinoza
Group Manager, Mobile Apps and Partner Programs, T-Mobile USA

Espinoza is currently working on an ambitious plan to move T-Mobile’s portal away from the traditional deck model and towards an ‘open’ App Store model.

Matthew Feldman
CEO, Versaly

Helped take Paramount Pictures into mobile back in 2002 and then founded content pioneer Versaly. Its Vmbc.tv mobile VOD network streams over one million files a month to handsets.

George Fraser
Senior VP, Global Sales and Business Development, Motricity

Englishman Fraser moved to Seattle in 2007 when Motricity bought Infospace. He’s now responsible for global sales and business development.

Mitch Feinman
SVP, Fox Mobile Entertainment

Feinman joined in January 2005, just in time to over see the release of the 24 mobisodes. Now working with fellow News Corp units Jamba and MySpace on various mobile ideas.

Thomas Gewecke
President, Warner Bros Digital Distribution

Gewecke’s switch from a big job at Sony BMG to Warner Bros signalled the latter’s serious intentions in emerging media – including mobile.

Omar Hamoui
CEO, Admob

While earning his MBA, Hamoui pondered the need for mobile to have its own Adsense-style ad network. He created AdMob and now it serves 3.9 billion ads a month.

Thomas Hesse
President of Global Digital Business, Sony BMG

Another towering figure in digital music, Hesse has presided over intriguing moves such as the JV with Italy’s D2C specialist Dada and the decision to join Nokia’s Comes With Music project.

Ryan Hughes
VP of Digital Media Programming, Verizon Wireless

Verizon has the biggest data ARPUs of the US carriers. Under Hughes, its content unit is still innovating, introducing deals with MySpace, Loopt and others. The industry awaits its much-vaunted ‘opening up’ in the near future.

Rob Hyatt
Executive Director of Premium Content, AT&T

With 71 million subs, AT&T is the biggest US carrier. This makes Hyatt very in-demand. Deals with Napster, MediaFLO and, err, Apple have kept him busy.

Sandi Isaacs
VP of Interactive, Paramount Pictures

Isaacs helped create a global mobile business unit for the Hollywood studio. Even set up a direct-to-consumer storefront too.

Steve Jobs
CEO, Apple

We could have named someone more junior and hands-on, but Jobs ultimately decides strategy. And he’s done all right so far.

Brian Johnson
Senior VP of US & APAC Sales, mBlox

The transactions specialist is a huge presence on the US scene, and
Johnson is the touchpoint for content providers and media brands looking to go mobile.

Peggy Johnson
EVP of the Americas and India, Qualcomm

A Qualcomm veteran having helped introduce BREW, uiOne and other key content-related concepts. Now heading up the Americas region.

Adam Kerr
VP of Web Sales, Bango

UK-based Bango is evolving away from off-portal payments into expertise, reporting and billing. Kerr is responsible for biz dev in the US.

Lotta Lautsuo
SVP of Business Development, Starcut

The ex-pat Finn is successfully taking mobile entertainment ideas to the heart of the Manhattan adland.

Brian Lent
CEO, Medio Systems

Lent had a formidable career with Amazon and Yahoo before founding Medio. The white label search provider remains a force in the US.

Brandon Lucas
Senior Director of Mobile Business Development, MySpace

Social networks draw formidable amounts of mobile traffic, and none is bigger than MySpace. Lucas’s decisions could have a dramatic effect on the whole biz.

Laura Marriott
President Emeritus, MMA

Marriott is stepping down from the frontline soon, but she’s still a major figure in mobile having taken the MMA member base to over 600 and brought major consumer brands into its embrace.

Adi McAbian
MD, Twistbox Entertainment and Waat Media

Founder of the company that dominates on-portal ‘late night’ mobile entertainment – Waat Media – and now driving the business into mainstream gaming via the fast expanding Twistbox.

Charles J. Meyers
Group President of Messaging and Mobile Media, VeriSign

It may have moved away from content when it sold Jamba, but Verisign remains at the very top of the market for messaging, billing and aggregation in the US. Meyers is the architect.

Cindy Mesaros
VP of Marketing, Moderati

Manages all marketing activity for Moderati, and has been at the US content firm and aggregator since it was called Faith West.

Alberto Montesi
CEO, Flycell

Montesi joined Acotel in 2001 and moved to NYC to help make its mobile unit Flycell become one of the market leaders in the US D2C space.

Michael Nash
EVP of Digital Strategy & Business development, Warner Music Group

Promoted in February, Nash is now responsible for WMG’s worldwide digital strategy.

John Orlando
VP of Marketing, LiveWire Mobile

LiveWire used to be NMS, the music specialist associated with ringback tones. It bought Groove this year. Orlando leads the marcomms team.

Kevin Packingham
VP of Wireless Product Management, Sprint

Sprint has always been at the forefront of the move towards off-portal in the US. It’s currently opening up its content portal still further, with Packingham at the frontline.

Mary Park
VP of Business Development, Crisp Wireless

Park has helped Crisp establish what it claims is the US’s largest mobile site network, serving media clients including NBC, Bravo, Hearst, Paramount and more.

Massimiliano Pellegrini
CEO of Dada Entertainment

Under Pellegrini, Dada has made strides in the US market. It’s formed a JV with Sony BMG to offer DRM-free MP3s and launched a community called The Music Movement.

Andy Rubin
Director of Mobile Platforms, Google

Rubin is masterminding the launch of Google’s Android platform, which should go live in a few weeks.

Paul Scanlan
President, MobiTV

MobiTV is the pioneer of streaming mobile TV, and currently boasts over four million subscribers. Scanlan manages all aspects of its biz dev.  

Liz Schimel
SVP of Music, Nokia

Schimel left Comcast in March to head up Nokia’s drive into music services. With Nokia Music Store expanding, and Comes With Music imminent, it’s a massive job.

Steve Shivers
General Manager, OpenMarket

OpenMarket is the mobile division of payments giant Amdocs and claims its systems reach 98 per cent of US mobile subscribers. Shivers is a longstanding staffer, and very well-known to the content sector.

Adam Sussman
VP of Publishing, Americas and Asia, EA Mobile

With its wireless revenues at $44 million in 1Q08, EA is arguably the top dog in mobile games. Sussman has helped steer the publisher towards crucial carrier deals.

Daren Tsui
CEO, mSpot

Tsui left Enpocket to launch mSpot into the mobile music and video services sector. Its products now include mSpot Radio and mSpot Movies, which streams full-length films to mobile.

Are Traasdahl
CEO, Thumbplay

Under the careful guidance of Norwegian Traasdahl, Thumbplay was first in to the US D2C market and still remains among the top players.

Dave Ulmer
Senior Director, Entertainment Products, Motorola

Moto is having a tough time, but few would question its commitment to content, with a movie download store and big consumer push around its ROKR music phone. Ulmer is the man driving this, and a key MEF Americas member.

Pete Watson
Head of Business Development, RIM

The BlackBerry is not just a business exec’s mobile ‘emailer’ in North America. But can Research In Motion’s dramatic move into ‘lifestyle’ make the BlackBerry a genuine iPhone rival? Watson might have an opinion.