Wildfire

Victoria Ransom
Founder
Passionate about growing and marketing innovative companies, Victoria has been an entrepreneur since her early twenties and has developed three companies, all of which are successfully operating today. At Wildfire Interactive, Inc., Victoria primarily focuses on business development and marketing, while also overseeing the strategic development and general management of the company.

As CEO, Victoria has led Wildfire to profitability in just one year and has built a client list that includes major brands and agencies including Facebook, Pepsi, Unilever, Sony, AT&T, Ogilvy, Publicis and Fleishman Hillard. Thousands of small and medium-size businesses all use Wildfire's turnkey marketing solutions. Wildfire is a two-time winner of the fbFund; investors include Facebook, Accel Partners and the Founder's Fund.

Prior to founding Wildfire Interactive, Inc. in the summer of 2008, Victoria was a student at Harvard Business School where she obtained an MBA. During her time at Harvard, Victoria helped to develop a distributed booking system for small and medium size travel companies and was selected to spend a summer at Highland Capital Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence.

Prior to business school, Victoria co-founded a global adventure travel company, Access Travel, Ltd., that operates today in 16 countries. She also spent two years as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York.

In addition to her MBA, Victoria has a bachelor of arts degree from Macalester College where she graduated Suma Cum Laude. In her capacity as an entrepreneur, Victoria has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine and Dow Jones VentureWire. In her spare time she is an avid snowboarder and surfer and a passionate adventure traveler who once spent six weeks living with a remote Amazonian tribe and five months living in a favela in Brazil!

Alain Chuard
Founder & Head of Product Management
With a talent for design, a passion for technology, and a strong background in entrepreneurship and management, Alain has been involved in the development of a number of innovative software products. In addition to co-founding Wildfire Interactive, Inc., Alain was responsible for the design and development of Voyager, a web-based customer management software for tour operator companies. This business won Alain a place in Highland Capital Partner's 2007 Entrepreneurship Program.

Prior to this, Alain co-founded Access Travel, Ltd., a leading brand in instructional adventure travel with operations in 16 countries and spent two years as a financial analyst with New York investment bank, Salomon Smith Barney.

Alain has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor's degree from Macalester College where he studied mathematics and economics. Formerly a professional snowboarder who competed on the World-Cup Pro Tour, Alain is passionate about snowboarding, surfing, mountain biking and traveling. He has been featured in two books and numerous magazines, including The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal and TransWorld Snowboarding.

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Remy Burger
Product Management
Remy holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Bern in Switzerland and is fluent in French, German, Swiss German, and English. At Wildfire Interactive, Inc., Remy primarily focuses on product management.

Prior to Wildfire Interactive, Inc., Remy co-owned and managed Atalier GmbH, an online games and entertainment company that provided digital marketing solutions. It was here that he won a Swiss Dialog Marketing Award for his work on a Swiss Milk Producers campaign. Later he was Senior Consultant at Publicis Modem, the digital unit of Publicis, Switzerland's largest advertising agency.

As a core-member of the Spartanic Rockers, a world-renowned Swiss/Japanese Breakdancing crew, Remy was able to travel the world judging and competing in numerous international breakdancing competitions. He also won an individual National Breakdance Championship title and is maintaining the longest running website about this dance on the web. Among his favorite things in life are gadgets, art, swimming, and reading.

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Derek Draper
Sales & Account Management
Derek graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Economics and a BA in Psychology. After graduating, he worked in various different sales and operational roles for Fisher Investments in Woodside, CA.

After leaving Fisher Investments in 2007, Derek took the plunge and became an entrepreneur. He founded EMB, a Panamanian real estate investment corporation, and Red Shack Ventures, a company dedicated to building an online business directory for Central America (Hola! Guide). He also founded the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network of the Bay Area, which aims to encourage and support entrepreneurial endeavors within the local Dartmouth community.

At Wildfire, Derek is responsible for helping with the sales and account management efforts. When not working, Derek enjoys surfing, developing websites and taking photos of nature. Visit his website to learn more about Derek and check out his photos.

Nic Bennett
Sales & Account Management
Nic is a true insider in the field of Online Advertising, bringing nearly seven years of experience at Google to the Wildfire Interactive team. Having been front and center for the rapid-fire growth of Google's AdWords platform, Nic was eager to move on to the next big field in Online Advertising: Social Media. At Wildfire Interactive, Nic works on Sales and Account Management, ensuring the highest level of client satisfaction and goal fulfillment for our advertisers.

At Google, Nic wore many hats, from helping establish the early sales best practices to planning the company picnic. One highlight was spending six months in Hyderabad, India, growing operations internationally. Prior to Google, Nic obtained a BS in Marketing from Santa Clara University.

Having grown up in the green state of Oregon, Nic has a firmly entrenched love of the great outdoors...but not the rain. You can find him in his free time surfing, hiking, playing basketball, and just enjoying the bountiful California sunshine whenever possible.

Brendan McManus
Community Management & Product Marketing
Brendan is a 2009 Notre Dame graduate obsessed with entrepreneurship, social networking, usability, and user experience. He teamed with two of Victoria's Harvard Business School classmates to launch UpDown.com, the leading social platform for virtual investing, live on CNBC in September 2007. While at UpDown, he fearlessly took on many roles, including those of a financial officer, a creative marketer, and community manager. He continued working for UpDown throughout his final two years at Notre Dame, including his time studying abroad in Rome from January through May of 2008 when he loved skiing the Swiss Alps, hitting the beaches of southern France, and exploring the Eternal City.

Prior to working at UpDown, Brendan passionately supported the Programming Director, PR Director, and Executive Producer of New England Sports Network, the official television network of the Boston Red Sox. Hailing from North Andover, MA, he attended Phillips Andover Academy, high school of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes (and rival school of Phillips Exeter Academy, high school of co-founder Mark Zuckerburg) and remains a die-hard Red Sox fan.

Matt Monahan
Advisor
Matt is a Stanford University graduate, marketect and creativitor – a thought leader for new and innovative socially-driven marketing platforms.

Matt worked through high school as a videographer at Alliance Wake, an action sports centric production house that delivers magazines, television shows, and web content to enthusiasts worldwide.

While an undergrad, Matt co-founded The CoMotion Group, a consultancy that helped legacy media companies understand how to design successful viral video campaigns. The CoMotion Group was absorbed into 750 Industries in March of 2008. 750 Industries is a social video marketing platform with expertise in engaging consumers through shareable media, delivering TV-like reach, along with immediacy, targetability and tracking. 750 Industries changed its name to Sharethrough in June of 2009.

At the tender age of 24, Matt currently serves as co-founder and principal at CF Holdings // Creativitr - a social media centric consultancy and product incubator.