Bob Smith
Chairman

Bob is Chairman of iBelong and has over 20 years of experience creating and managing interactive community-based businesses. He started his first directory publishing company in 1984. He became a member of the AOL management team in 1992 where his first assignment was helping large media companies such as the New York Times, Tribune Client and Hachette Filipacchi Magazines create their first online publishing ventures. He went on to serve as General Manager of all of AOL’s community programming operations. He was founder of AOL’s DigitalCity, the first nation-wide city guide service.

After leaving AOL, Bob started one of the first business incubators for Internet businesses in the nation, Vector Development, LLC. He has spent the last few years working directly with Internet-based start-up companies as both a strategic advisor and investor. He helped found and guided companies in e-government (ezgov—US operations sold 2004), e-commerce (OneMade, where he served as Chairman—sold to AOL in 2003), identity monitoring/management (PromiseMark and Privista—sold to ConsumerInfo and Equifax respectively) and community-based mapping (The Map Network, where he served as Chairman—recently closed $3.5 million financing with Gannett). In addition to his experience in the Internet, Bob also has extensive experience in print media including directory, newsletter, magazine and wire syndication publishing including over six years as a senior executive of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.

Bob has an MBA in marketing from George Washington University and a BA in political science from the University of Southern California as well as six years of service as an officer in the US Navy.

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Ben Turner
CEO

Ben is CEO of iBelong and has over 15 years of experience creating and managing internet based businesses. He started his technology career with AT&T in 1993 and joined the Network Solutions management team in 1997 where he developed the company’s initial product and marketing plans. Ben went on to become general manager of the company’s value-added services business where he led the launch of the Network Solutions messaging, directory and website products. After the acquisition of Network Solution by Verisign, Ben went on to serve as general manager of VeriSign’s naming business.

In 2005, Ben left VeriSign to start with 2 other partners the MITA Group, a technology and public affairs consulting group based in Vienna, VA. Ben worked with clients in the high tech sector focusing on new product development, go-to-market strategies, corporate development, Web 2.0 strategy and developing next generation messaging and collaboration tools.

Ben has an MBA from Tulane University and a BS in marketing from Miami University.

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Trish Barber
Vice President, Community and Content Operations

Trish Barber is Vice President of Community Operations at iBelong and is an executive with 20 years of experience in general managing new business initiatives and partnerships, architecting and managing online communities and editorial/promotional programs, and spearheading new revenue generating programs in the cable television industry.

As Director of America Online Community, Trish managed all of the community tools, strategies, programs and resources that supported the thousands of communities on the AOL service. Prior to that, she was recruited by Digital City Corporate to head up Business Development where she was responsible for centralizing the disparate business relationships initiated by the fledgling organization within AOL. As General Manager of AOL’s Digital City Boston, Trish focused on delivering local information, news, and events to AOL members and web users while breaking ground to generate new advertising revenue out of the Boston market.

While serving as VP of Account Service at Redgate Communications (a new media marketing and consulting firm bought by AOL in 1995), she was responsible for applying new media solutions to client business problems. Trish's clients included Prodigy, Fidelity Investments, NYNEX, The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and America Online.

Trish was involved in setting up operations early in her career while with Cablevision Industries and later, with Continental Cablevision.  During the time when CATV franchises were actively being awarded and established, Trish was responsible for setting up office operations in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York. Later, she was charged with practical programs and strategies that slowed the decline of pay television revenues.

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Anthony Renzette
VP, Product Management

An accomplished Internet marketing executive, Anthony Renzette has worked in Internet product development and marketing since 1994. During this time, Mr. Renzette has worked for a variety of high tech firms including Current Analysis, a market intelligence firm focused on the high tech and telecommunications sectors, VeriSign, the world’s largest Internet infrastructure provider, and Network Solutions, the world’s first domain name registrar. Mr. Renzette’s work with these companies spanned a wide array of services that included Internet infrastructure application development, messaging applications product management, business development, fully-automated web site development and hosting applications, including the integration and rebuilding of Network Solutions’ highly acclaimed ImageCafe web site builder.

Recently, Mr. Renzette was a Principal with the MITA Group, a technology and public affairs consulting group based in Vienna, VA, where he worked with clients in the high tech sector focusing on new product development, go-to-market strategies, business and corporate development, Web 2.0 strategy and developing next generation messaging and collaboration tools across multiple technology platforms.

At iBelong, Mr. Renzette is responsible for creating and marketing the consumer market community and collaboration product suite; he works closely with the business development and software development teams to ensure that the product is planned and built to satisfy and exceed all customers’ expectations.

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Bill Thornton
Director of Engineering

Bill heads up Product Development for iBelong, bringing a mix of product and management skills born from a fascination with publishing and technology and refined over a twelve-year career. Above everything else, Bill’s passion is in enabling Internet users to find the information they need, when they need it, in the format they need.

He’s worn many hats over the course of his career as a technologist — as entrepreneur, he brought Stephen King and Nicholas Sparks official sites to the Internet and was responsible for architecting the back-end that allowed King to experiment with self-publishing, ebooks, and the honor system; as a Principal Product Manager for AOL’s Search product, Bill was responsible for revolutionary products, including the platform that will algorithmically maximize highly relevant page views within AOL content channels while also maximizing the revenue potential, as well as the technical aspects of the FullView product, which was later emulated by Yahoo!, Ask, MSN, and Google.

At iBelong, Bill is responsible for translating product ideas into deliverable projects, coordinating the efforts of the development teams and overseeing the evolution of the iBelong platform that powers the Business Development team’s Private Network efforts as well as the Product Management team’s consumer product. He also makes a mean pot of coffee.