Executive Team

Paul R. Arena, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Paul has held the positions of Chief Executive Officer and member of the Company's board of directors since June 2010. Over the past twenty-eight years, Paul served in various executive capacities and performed various corporate finance, syndication, and distribution functions. He participated in the successful completion of over $2 billion of combined financings during his career.

From February 2002 to March 2010, Paul held various executive positions including Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, Principal Financial Officer and founder of Geos Communications (formerly i2 Telecom International) and its subsidiaries. From May 2000 to present, Paul has held the positions of Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, President and owner of AIM Group, Inc., an investment holding company. Paul served in various executive capacities including Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, President and founder of Cereus Technology Partners, Inc. and its subsidiaries, from May 1991 to April 2000. Cereus became a NASDAQ-listed public company that achieved a market capitalization in excess of $350 million prior to Paul’s departure. During 1994, Paul was a financial advisor to and became a minority interest owner in Great Lakes Pulp & Fiber, Inc., a $224 million project financing and one of the world's largest paper recycling facilities.

From June 1990 to August 1991, Paul was a financial consultant. From February 1988 to January 1990, he was a Senior Vice President and partner of Gulfstream Financial Associates, Inc., a subsidiary of the Kemper Group. During the period 1982 through 1988, Paul held Vice President positions with Cralin & Co., Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, Inc. and Interstate Securities Corporation, all New York Stock Exchange member investment firms. Paul assisted in the deal structuring and financing of converting motion picture films into color, mercury detection devices for drilling rigs, ATM debit cards, color video telephones, color FAX transmissions, Internet service provider, enterprise application services, Internet telephony; various types of manufacturing and; various commercial real estate ventures for hotel, shopping center, and multi-family housing projects.

Ivan Braiker, President

Ivan has been a force for change in media and marketing for decades.

Ivan began his 30 years in broadcast media as an account executive with a CBS television affiliate in Las Vegas, but soon became co-owner and operator of a radio station there. In 1976, he took a position heading Belo Broadcasting’s radio division, where he was recognized as a successful major-market General Manager.

He later co-founded and was president of Satellite Music Network, the first radio network to distribute live, 24-hour programming via satellite – an innovation that earned him Billboard Magazine’s “Trendsetter of the Year” award.

In the interim, he built a series of radio networks, starting with Olympia Broadcasting, which became one of the first publicly-held radio groups. When Ivan got there, it was a single station; when he left, it held a 15-station portfolio with presences in eight key markets. He subsequently co-founded and served as president of New Northwest Broadcasters, which grew under Ivan’s leadership to hold more than 40 stations. 

His reputation for leadership has earned him the respect of an entire industry. He is a frequent speaker at many advertising and media events, including conferences held by the National Association of Broadcasters and Radio Advertising Bureau.

Eric Harber, Chief Operating Officer

Eric has spent his career applying his business skills to products, services, and companies at every stage of their strategic growth. His breadth of experience in general management, strategy, M&A, product, sales and marketing has earned him a reputation for driving revenue growth, building effective teams and managing change in dynamic environments.

Along with Eric's leadership since joining Hipcricket in 2007, the company
has been given the Market Penetration Award by global analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, and has twice been named a pioneer by CTIA – The Wireless Association.

Eric came to Hipcricket from Qpass, Amdocs' Advertising, Commerce, and Entertainment Division, where he was Vice President of Corporate and Business Development. Qpass delivers mobile solutions to companies including major entertainment companies and America's best-known wireless carriers. While at Qpass, he extended the company's offerings and diversified its revenue streams by creating new product lines, partnerships, acquisitions, and strategic business opportunities. His work helped build the company's employee base three-fold, increase its revenue by a factor of ten and create the OpenMarket SMS Aggregator division, all while expanding its customer base and global reach. In 2006, he played a key role in the company's $275 million acquisition by Amdocs.

His 20+ years of industry expertise spans mobile, telecommunications, internet, e-commerce, media, and advertising. Prior to joining Qpass,
Eric was General Manager and Executive Vice President of ChannelAdvisor Corporation, where he built relationships with customers and partners including Google, eBay, Amazon, Motorola, Sprint, Sears, and IBM, establishing ChannelAdvisor as a leader in e-commerce/online marketplace software and services.

Previously, Eric helped to start, grow, and lead Motricity, a mobile software and services company. Eric held various executive leadership positions there including Chief Marketing Officer and SVP, formulating strategy, driving execution by successfully selling to major mobile operators and media companies, and managing dramatic growth for the company. Eric was also part of the original executive team that built and successfully sold Netsation, a venture-backed network software company, to Nortel Networks yielding a 1200 percent return on invested capital in one year. He subsequently held global marketing responsibility at Nortel and also brings expertise from his leadership positions at Citigroup, Accenture, and his own consulting firm.

Doug Stovall, Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Services

A high-performing mobile marketing and advertising executive for more than a decade, Doug leads sales, client services and the advertising network for mobile marketing and advertising leader Hipcricket.

In Doug’s first year at Hipcricket, the company achieved record sales and passed the industry-leading 80,000 campaign count. The year was capped off by a 3-year-deal with MillerCoors to be the mobile marketing and advertising partner for America’s second-largest beer company.

Doug's passion for mobile is rooted in his belief that the mobile device will be the personal gateway to all of the information individuals will need or desire.

Over his eighteen year career, Stovall has created and directed the mobile sales and services units for Acuity Mobile, Merkle, Inc., TeleCommunications Systems (TCS), Aether Systems and Xpedior.

At Merkle, a provider of interactive and digital marketing services, Doug served as vice president of mobile business development. In that role, he created and directed a mobile sales organization and implemented a corporate customer acquisition strategy. Doug previously served as the vice president of sales at Acuity Mobile, where he built and managed direct and indirect sales and business development organizations for the provider of interactive mobile marketing, advertising and content delivery solutions. He was part of the executive team that successfully sold Acuity Mobile to NAVTEQ, a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) company, in 2009. He was a member of the M&A team at TCS who led the sale to venture capital firm New Venture Partners. Doug was key member of team that was awarded the Frost & Sullivan Engineering Award for Merger and Acquisition Strategy for the sale of Aether Systems to TCS.

Doug also has experience building strategic partnerships with carriers and handset manufacturers. He won Motorola’s 2006 U.S. Enterprise Mobility Award and was recipient of Intermec’s 2005 New Partner of the Year Award.

Doug is a frequent speaker at mobile industry events. He lives in Seattle with his lovely wife, three children and two fish.

Tom Virgin, Chief Financial Officer

Tom directs all aspects of Hipcricket’s financial operations with a flexibility borne of 30 years in both small and large companies – many of them as a CFO. Soon after he arrived at Hipcricket in 2007, Tom led the efforts that resulted in Hipcricket going public on the London Stock Exchange.

His most recent position was as executive vice president and CFO for Talyst Inc., which was named one of Fast Company magazine’s “Fast 50 Reader Favorites” in March 2007 – an honor bestowed on firms that readers believe provide the most innovative and progressive “profit-driven solutions for what ails the planet.” At Talyst, that work involved providing software and equipment solutions that improve efficiency and patient safety at acute care hospitals, delivery networks, and long-term-care pharmacies. For his own contributions, Tom received the Puget Sound Business Journal’s CFO of the Year Award in the Small Private Company category.

Immediately before joining Talyst, Tom was vice president of finance and administration and CFO for WizKids, a Bellevue, Wash. company that creates and sells collectible miniature games. Tom joined the company in 2001; by 2003, he was directing its sale to the Topps Co.

Tom started his career in public accounting performing audit and tax work for companies in a variety of industries. He spent more than 15 years at Seafirst Bank (now Bank of America), where he was senior vice president and controller. From there, he stepped into his first CFO role, at a commercial leasing company. He subsequently served as interim CFO for two software companies, working on both funding and financial operations.

Tom is active in his professional community as a member of Financial Executives International, the American Institute of CPAs, and the Washington Society of CPAs.

Jeff Hasen, Chief Marketing Officer

Jeff Hasen builds, strengthens and protects brands. Companies benefiting from his talents have landed on Wired’s list of most innovative entities on Earth and been named pioneers and the early leader in the burgeoning mobile marketing category.

Named a top CMO on Twitter, Jeff is the author of the upcoming book, Mobilized Marketing: Driving Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices, due in Spring 2012 from Wiley Publishing.

Jeff co-created the certification program for the Mobile Marketing Association. He is one of only two individuals certified by the MMA to train professionals and students on mobile marketing definitions, techniques, and benefits.

At Hipcricket, he conceived and led the execution of an accelerated rebranding effort in advance of the mobile marketing software and services company being named “the early leader in the mobile marketing space in the U.S.” by Frost and Sullivan. Hipcricket also won consecutive annual pioneer awards from CTIA — The Wireless Association.

For InfoSpace, he drove a repositioning of the 10-year old company from 1-percent share player in online search to the pioneer in mobile media and to No. 20 on the prestigious Wired 40 list of most innovative companies on Earth.

Earlier in his career, for Nestlé, he directed product launches and reinvigorations; for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002, his work as project director for the “look and feel” program raised community awareness and involvement and introduced the Games’ theme, logo, and mascots; for Symantec, he helped consumers and businesses through debilitating computer virus outbreaks.

Jeff’s emphasis on integrity in business has made him a frequent speaker and writer on what he calls “Moments of Trust,” the points that make or break brands and dramatically impact loyalty and sales.