Optify Management Team

Brian Goffman

Co-Founder and CEO

Brian Goffman is CEO and co-founder at Optify. Brian brings more than a 15 years of experience as an Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist to Optify. Along with Erez Barak, Brian co-founded Optify with the mission of making B2B real-time online marketing easy, profitable and measurable. Brian is responsible for Optify’s overall strategic direction, including product development, marketing, team building and fundraising.

Most recently, Brian was a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group, a leading early-stage venture capital firm. He joined Madrona from Microsoft, where he led business development and marketing efforts for its Unified Communications Group. Brian was also a member of the software and services team at Austin Ventures, a leading multi-stage venture capital firm. Prior to Austin Ventures, Brian was a product manager at PointCast and Reuters and a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Goffman has an MBA Harvard Business School and an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. He serves as an advisor to several startup companies including AboutUs, Mixpo, and AdReady.

Erez Barak

Co-Founder & Vice President of Products

Erez Barak is a co-founder at Optify, where he defines and leads the company’s strategic product direction. With more than a decade of experience creating software products, Barak works closely with Optify’s growing customer base to ensure day-to-day customer success. Prior to Optify, he served as director of product marketing for Hewlett-Packard’s Software Business Unit and has previously served with companies including Mercury Interactive, Adwise and Amdocs.

Barak has a master’s degree from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Sam Wheeler

Vice President of Sales

Sam Wheeler is vice president of sales at Optify and is responsible for building and managing the company’s sales organization targeting mid-market business-to-business marketers. Wheeler has been involved with Internet companies since 1994, specializing in new business creation, recruiting talent and account management.

Prior to Optify, Wheeler spent more than a decade at online retailer Amazon.com in sales, business development and marketing roles. Most recently, as director for demand generation at Amazon.com, Wheeler was responsible for marketing and development of the company’s channel sales program. He has also worked in sales and business development capacities with companies such as CareerMosaic, WSJ.com, Junglee, and Bernard Hodes Advertising.

He graduated from University of North Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in American History.

Anthony Joseph

Vice President of Customer Experience

Anthony Joseph is Vice President, Marketing and Customer Experience. He manages the Optify product experience and oversees all customer service and customer and product marketing operations.

Prior to Optify, Anthony was a Director of Product Development at Amazon.com and held a number of key product, technology, and business leadership positions over his 11+ year tenure with the company. Anthony is responsible for delivering a long list of innovative Amazon.com website, marketing and e-commerce products & features and is a co-inventor of multiple patents and patents pending.

Prior to Amazon, Anthony was responsible for product and program management at Pointcast, and program manager for the award winning Pro Tools product line at Digidesign which was acquired by Avid Technologies. Anthony served as an advisor to several start-ups; The Coffee Equipment Company, SplashCast and CompassionWorks.

He was an MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a graduate of Middlebury College.

Scott Fasser

Director, Customer Experience

Scott Fasser leads customer experience at Optify and is responsible for the success of Optify customers, including consulting and training. Fasser brings more than 16 years of experience in building, managing and growing businesses, with specific expertise in Internet marketing – including search engine optimization, large scale SEM programs, site architecture and development, display advertising, email program management, and multivariate testing and optimization.

Prior to Optify, Fasser served as the founder, president and chief digital strategist for Brand Digital, Inc., where he provided Internet marketing training and consulting for growing businesses. He was also the president and chief operating officer of Domain Strategies, a domain aggregator, and led online marketing initiatives at companies including RealNetworks, Amazon, and aQuantive.

Fasser earned a master’s degree from University of Washington and bachelor’s degrees in Economics and History at Trinity University.

Greg Lauckhart

Chief Technology Officer

An experienced Internet software entrepreneur, Greg Lauckhart is the chief technology officer at Optify.

Lauckhart was previously the CTO at QL2 Software, where he oversaw the development of their award-winning Web harvesting product, WebQL. Prior to joining QL2 Software, he served as vice president of engineering for Jupiter Media Metrix, and founder of successful startups such as AdRelevance and NetBot. As vice president of engineering at AdRelevance, Lauckhart built and directed the engineering group into one of the largest and most-complex dynamic probing systems in the industry. While attending the University of Washington, Lauckhart participated in the development and commercialization of MetaCrawler, the first Meta search engine. He is also the co-inventor of patented and patent-pending technologies for Web query and prevalence.

Chris Brandon

Chief Financial Officer

With more than 20 years of financial, strategy and operations management experience, Chris Brandon is chief financial officer at Optify.

Prior to Optify, Brandon was a CFO Consultant at ExtraHop Networks, where he worked with telecom and venture-backed technology companies. Earlier in his career, Brandon served a variety of executive, operational and financial posts with companies such as Medio Systems, Infospace Mobile, WildSeed and Avogadro.

Brandon holds a master’s degree from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington, where he graduated with honors.

Matt McIlwain

Optify Board of Directors

Matt McIlwain is a managing director at Madrona Venture Group and a member of Optify’s Board of Directors.

Prior to Madrona, McIlwain was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company, an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, and an investment banker at CSFB. He is a board member of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), Villa Academy, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna’s Technology Advisory Board and Families Northwest. In 2009, McIlwain was named to Forbes Magazine’s “Midas List” of top venture capitalists.

He has a master’s degree from Harvard Business School and a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Mark Wachen

Optify Board of Directors

Mark Wachen is a member of the Optify’s Board of Directors. Mark was formerly CEO and co-founder of Optimost, the company that pioneered multivariable testing and optimization on the Internet. Interwoven/Autonomy acquired Optimost in 2007. Mark served as VP and General Manager of Optimost after the acquisition until 2009.

Prior to Optimost, Wachen was vice president of online ventures and business development for Sony Music Entertainment, overseeing a wide variety of Internet initiatives. He was also the CEO of Indimi, a company majority-owned by Sony, and led acquisitions of InfoBeat, AdTools, and DailyRating, as well as Sony Music’s investments in Spinner and the launch of the Sony Music Online website in 1994.

Mark earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and BA, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College.

Scott Jacobson

Board Observer

Scott is a board observer at Optify and a Partner at Madrona Venture Group in Seattle.

Prior to joining Madrona, Scott worked at Amazon.com, where he held senior product and business management positions in the Amazon Kindle and Amazon Marketplace groups.

Scott graduated cum laude from Northwestern University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics. He received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.