Executive Bios
Nick Grouf, Co-Founder
Nick Grouf is the co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of privately-held Spot Runner, Inc., a technology company that is developing the next generation of advertising services.
Grouf and longtime business partner, David Waxman, have successfully built and sold two prior companies, PeoplePC and Firefly Network, both of which focused on harnessing the democratizing power of the Internet.
Grouf formerly served as co-founder, chairman and CEO of PeoplePC, Inc., which was dedicated to simplifying the process of joining the online world and grew to become the fifth largest Internet service provider in the U.S. PeoplePC served over 600,000 individual subscribers as well as Fortune 500 corporations such as Ford Motor Company, Vivendi Universal and Delta Air Lines and The New York Times. In August 2000, Grouf took the company public and in 2002, it was acquired by EarthLink.
Prior to founding PeoplePC, Grouf served as a venture partner at Softbank Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm based in San Jose, California.
Grouf was also the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Firefly Network, Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft in 1998. Its core product, the Firefly Passport, became the foundation for Microsoft’s Passport and .NET initiatives. While at Firefly, Grouf was also a co-founder and Director of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and co-founder of TrustE.
Grouf spent his early career with McKinsey & Co. in its New York office, where he focused on media and technology companies, as well as at Goldman Sachs, where he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group.
A native New Yorker, Grouf holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Yale, where he was awarded the Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for Best Thesis.
David Waxman, Co-Founder
David Waxman is a co-founder of privately-held Spot Runner, Inc., a technology company that is developing the next generation of advertising services.
Waxman and longtime business partner Nick Grouf have successfully built and sold two prior companies, PeoplePC and Firefly Network, both of which focused on harnessing the democratizing power of the Internet.
Prior to launching Spot Runner, Waxman served as president and co-founder of Memento Press, a San Francisco-based retail consumer imaging company. He remains on that company’s board of directors. He previously held several consulting positions in marketing and consumer imaging, including developing the consumer business for Powis Parker, Inc. and Ofoto, Inc., a Kodak company, where he was responsible for the company’s marketing launch in the United Kingdom, Germany and France.
Before joining Ofoto, Waxman co-founded PeoplePC, Inc., which grew to become the fifth largest Internet service provider in the U.S., Dedicated to simplifying the process of joining the online world, PeoplePC served over 600,000 individual subscribers as well as Fortune 100 corporations such as Ford Motor Company, Vivendi Universal and Delta Air Lines, The New York Times and other Fortune 500 corporations. Waxman was involved with all aspects of the business until its purchase by EarthLink in 2002. In his role as VP of Marketing, Waxman led a successful $40 million campaign which included television, direct, Internet and outdoor advertising.
Before he formed PeoplePC, Waxman co-founded Firefly Network and served as creative director. He was responsible for the look and feel and the overall user experience of Firefly’s web properties. Firefly was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 1998, and the Firefly Passport became the foundation for Microsoft’s Passport and .Net initiatives.
Waxman holds an A.B. degree in music composition from the University of California at Berkeley and an S.M. degree from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
John Gentry, President
As president of Spot Runner, John Gentry runs all the day-to-day operations of the company. Gentry joined Spot Runner in 2005 and started as the chief revenue officer, overseeing all sales and business development activities, strategic partnerships, media, distribution relationships and customer care. Prior to Spot Runner, Gentry was chief revenue officer at Green Dot, the market leader in the prepaid debit card industry. He led the company's efforts to build out multiple channels of distribution, including expansion of the retail distribution network, new channels of card distribution and the Green Dot Financial Network.
Gentry was one of the early employees of Overture Services, Inc., the originator of the paid search advertising model. At Overture, Gentry was senior vice president and general manager of the Affiliate Business and was instrumental in creating the category of “paid search,” building the largest distributed search network on the Internet.
Gentry has also held positions in Distribution Strategy at Disney/ABC Cable Networks and Discovery Communications.
Gentry holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California Los Angeles and an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Gus Warren, General Manager, Malibu Media Platform
Gus Warren oversees the business unit charged with managing the Malibu Media Platform, an all-digital platform that streamlines and enhances the process of buying and selling TV and video advertising. Previously, Warren served as Spot Runner’s vice president of Media Partner Sales and Development.
Warren has a deep background in cable media and technology infrastructure. He joined Spot Runner from Time Warner Investments Group, where he managed its interests in cable infrastructure companies, such as Visible World, Arroyo, BigBand, Entropic and SkyStream. Prior to Time Warner, Warren was a principal at Granite Ventures, where he worked with early-stage media and communications companies, including Digital Fountain, Speakeasy, InfoGear and iBiquity Digital. Warren also previously led business development at NetMarket, one of the first e-commerce companies on the Web, and served as a product manager at Internet Profiles, the Internet’s first audience measurement company.
Warren holds a B.A. in Government from Cornell University.
Barbara Barry, Executive General Manager, Marketing Services
Barbara Barry is the executive general manager of Marketing Services for Spot Runner, a technology company developing the next generation of advertising services. Barry oversees strategic planning, digital and offline creative, media planning and buying and analytics for mid-enterprise and direct response clients.
With over 20 years of experience, Barry brings extensive knowledge of customer acquisition, conversion and retention programs that drive revenue and gross profits for consumer products, retail, wholesale and franchise companies. Over the span of her career, she has worked with hundreds of brands including many Fortune 100 companies, on both the client and agency sides.
Previously to joining Spot Runner, Barry was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Interactivate, the top privately-held digital marketing agency in Southern California. She was responsible for driving strategy and creative for clients and growing their revenue and profits.
She also served as the vice president of New Business Concepts/Nutrition for Bally Total Fitness, chief marketing officer for Jenny Craig International and vice president of Sales, Marketing and Operations for 3 Days Blinds.
Barry graduated from California State University at Hayward with a B.A. in Fine Arts and National University with an MBA.