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About uBid.com - Management Team
Steven Sjoblad
Chairman
Steve Sjoblad brings more than thirty five years of corporate strategy and marketing expertise to his clients. Sjoblad spent nineteen years building Fallon McElligott, one of the world’s preeminent advertising agencies, where he guided global strategy and marketing programs for such industry leaders as Coca-Cola, FedEx, The Lee Apparel Company, Northwest Airlines, MedCenters Health Plan, Ralston Purina, Nikon, Conseco Financial Services, Philips/Magnavox, The National Basketball Association, The Washington Post, and Black & Decker. He was an original member of the firm and served as its president for eight years. Sjoblad has worked in virtually every consumer and business-to-business category.
For four years, Sjoblad was the principal and owner of a corporate strategy and marketing consulting business. His consulting clients include The William Carter Company (children’s fashion), Fair, Isaac & Company (creative analytics firm) Wilson Learning Worldwide (corporate learning), Riordan, Lewis & Haden (private equity), Companion Systems (banking industry supplier), Tattoo Media (Web consultant), Inc., PNV, Inc. (trucking industry infrastructure), Intertox (neurotoxicology), Promedicus (medical software) and more. For three years, Sjoblad ran Global Consumer Services for Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE FIC), an $830MM creative analytics firm. Global Consumer Services is a division of the company that repurposes Fair Isaac products for the consumer marketplace, most notably through www.myFICO.com, a consumer empowerment web site and through multiple distribution partners. Also, Sjoblad ran the Fair Isaac Marketing Services business, transforming it into a “precision marketing unit.” Additionally, he was a member of the Fair Isaac Executive Committee and held the position of Chief Marketing Officer. Most recently, Sjoblad acted as Interim Chief Marketing Officer for Charter Communications, the nation’s fourth largest cable company and Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s largest investment. There he repositioned the brand, reformed the marketing department around automated marketing and the use of customer analytics and served on the company’s Executive Committee. Currently, Sjoblad is the Chairman, CEO of Captira Analytical, a software, data and analytics firm serving the criminal justice vertical market based in Albany, NY. Sjoblad is also a Board member of Schwan’s Foods, a $3.6 Billion international food concern and a Board member BenNevis, a CRM services firm and a founder and Board member of Fluxion, LLC a marketing automation concern. Sjoblad is married, has one son and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. more
Jeffrey D. Hoffman
Chief Executive Officer
Director
Mr. Hoffman, an accomplished entrepreneur and innovator, joined uBid.com in September of 2007 after establishing a long and winning track record in the fields of on-line auction and retail, software, and entertainment.
Prior to joining uBid.com, Mr. Hoffman established himself as a serial entrepreneur, launching several companies and bringing them to profitability. Leveraging his computer science education from Yale University and his early technology start-up experience, Hoffman was a founding partner in Competitive Technologies, Inc (CTI)., which offered online travel reservation tools sold directly to travel agencies and corporations. CTI was ultimately purchased by American Express. Hoffman was also CEO and founding partner of Virtual Shopping, Inc., a leading developer of patented, proprietary online retailing systems, before joining the founding executive team of perhaps his most notable venture, Priceline.com, where Hoffman held two CEO titles in the Priceline family of companies.
For his contributions to the creation of the industry’s first online retailing tools, Hoffman was twice named by the travel and tourism industry as one of its “25 Most Influential Executives”. Hoffman also serves as Chairman of Adapted Sports, a charity organization dedicated to bringing sports and team participation to disabled children nationwide. Mr. Hoffman earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University. more
David Baer
Director
Mr. Baer has the unique ability to effectively blend business acumen with legal training, making the legal department a valued business partner throughout the Petters Group organization.
Prior to joining Petters Group in 2003, Mr. Baer was an attorney at Leonard, Street and Deinard, where he practiced corporate law. In 2006 he was named one of the Top 15 Lawyers in Minnesota by Minnesota Lawyer. He received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and his law degree from the William Mitchell College of Law, where he graduated cum laude.
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Casey L. Gunnell
Director, Chairman of Audit Committee
Mr. Gunnell has thirty five years of broad business experience and over twenty five years in Senior Executive positions in entrepreneurial and rapid growth sales based companies. Mr. Gunnell has held pivotal operational and financial positions in startup, turnaround and mature organizations.
He has served on the Board of Directors for several private companies and one publicly traded company. He currently is a Board member for US Spinal Technologies where he serves on the Finance Committee and chairs the Audit Committee. Mr. Gunnell operates two management services businesses focusing on interim management, process improvement and restructuring situations. His businesses have had long-term engagements with clients such as HealthSouth Corp., Charter Communications and currently Calpine Corp. He spent 19 years with a $5 billion auto distribution company in senior roles including EVP & CFO. In addition, Mr. Gunnell has been very active in the local community with past service on the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Atlantic University Foundation where he served as Chairman of the Investment Committee. Mr. Gunnell received a Bachelors of Business Administration degree from Florida Atlantic University in Accounting and is a Florida Certified Public Accountant, inactive. more
Mary L. Jeffries
Director
Prior to joining Petters Group in 2005, Ms. Jeffries owned her own management consulting company focused in the areas of strategy, operations and finance.
Previously, Ms. Jeffries was General Partner and Chief Operating Officer for St. Paul Venture Capital, a large early-stage venture capital firm and Chief Operating Officer of WeberShandwick, an international public relations and marketing communications company. Ms. Jeffries currently serves on the Board of Directors for Famous Dave’s of America, Children’s Cancer Research and Catholic Charities. She also serves on the Board of Advisors for Minnesota Business Magazine and several early-stage venture funded companies. more
Kenneth J. Roering
Director
Kenneth J. Roering is currently Professor of Marketing in the Carlson School of Management of the University of Minnesota and Executive Vice President, Strategic Management, Marshall BankFirst Corp. He occupied the prestigious Pillsbury Company-Paul S. Gerot Chair in Marketing from 1983-2002. He served as Chairman of the Marketing Department at the University of Minnesota for five years and prior to that at the University of Missouri.
He has served as visiting professor or distinguished guest lecturer at a number of universities including Northwestern University, Harvard University, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of Illinois, University Jean Moulin (Lyon, France) and the Warsaw School of Economics (Poland). He has been a consultant to numerous corporations such as 3M, Cargill, Carlson Companies, American Express, TSI Inc, Pillsbury, Motorola, MTS, US Bank, Apogee Corporation, and Fallon Worldwide. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of several private and public companies during the past 20 years and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Arctic Cat (Lead Director), Transport America (Lead Director) and Rave Sports. His primary areas of activity are business strategy, marketing strategy, marketing management, and new product development. Dr Roering obtained his doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1972. He has served on several editorial review boards including, the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Marketing and Public Policy. His research has focused on customer behavior and decision-making, marketing strategy and performance, the management of new product development, and the impact of inter-functional cooperation on organizational performance. He has published more than 70 articles in professional journals, written two books and edited three collections of scholarly writings. Dr. Roering has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Marketing Association Board of Directors, American Marketing Association Distinguished Doctoral Faculty, University of Minnesota Outstanding Teacher Award, Carlson School Outstanding MBA teacher Award, and Carlson School Outstanding Executive Teacher Award. He has directed and participated in numerous management development programs in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, China and Singapore.
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