Phillip Riese

Phillip Riese spent over 20 years in leadership roles in the payments industry, initially at Chase and ultimately at American Express. He retired from American Express in 1998 as President of the Consumer Card Group and Chairman of American Express’ Centurion Bank, leading the teams that turned around American Express’ core business. Since leaving American Express, he has focused on co-investing in start-up and midsize companies that are potential leaders in providing disruptive financial services, advanced data analytics and next-generation marketing capabilities, serving on the boards of some and acting as an advisor to management in others.

Jonathan Seelig

Jonathan is a Managing Director in Globespan’s Boston office, focusing on communications and Internet infrastructure.

Jonathan was co-founder of Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading, global Internet content and application delivery services company. During his tenure at Akamai, he managed fast growing parts of the business, including global infrastructure development and deployment and international expansion and business development. Prior to founding Akamai, Jonathan worked at ECI Telecom in Israel where his roles included product marketing and new product development and working with customers in 35 countries around the world.

Jonathan received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Stanford University where he studied Physics. He also attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology prior to founding Akamai.

Scott Tobin

Scott joined Battery Ventures in 1997 and currently leads investments in Israel, the US and Europe. His investments include ActivePath, Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), Anobit Technologies (acquired by Apple), @stake (acquired by Symantec), Champions Oncology, Istra Research, ITA Software (acquired by Google), Kashya (acquired by EMC), The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE; acquired by Euronext), MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS), ProfitLogic (acquired by Oracle), Pursway, Sabre, The Tennis Channel, Ximian (acquired by Novell), and ZeRTO.

Prior to Battery, Scott spent time in corporate finance and prior to that ran Corporate Development at Future Vision, a venture-backed software company that was sold to Softkey International. He graduated with honors from Brandeis University with a BA in International Relations and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Dave Ellenberger

Chief Executive Officer

Dave most recently served as Managing Director of G2 Capital Advisors, where he led G2’s Technology and Business Services practice. Dave also served as the Chief Executive Officer of 170 Systems, Inc., a leading provider of software products and services designed to dramatically reduce operational costs and increase the financial compliance of large ERP systems.  During his time at 170 Systems Dave led the Company to profitability and grew revenues by three times to over $30M, leading to a profitable acquisition by Kofax plc.  Dave was also Chief Executive Officer of Vividon Inc., a leading provider of Internet infrastructure devices for high-volume streaming media applications, until its merger with Starbak Communications, Inc. Before joining Vividon, Dave was President of DataSage Inc., a leader in data mining and personalization applications where he completed the sale of the company to Vignette Corporation for $500 Million. Dave began his career at Bell Laboratories, and served for more than ten years at Data General Corporation in progressive leadership and general management positions. As VP and General Manager of the Data General NT Business Unit he grew revenues from $90M to over $200M and a #1 market share in less than two years. Dave also served as VP of Corporate Marketing and ran a $750M legacy product line.  Dave holds an M.B.A. degree from the University of Chicago, an M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S.E.E. degree from Iowa State University. Dave has been an outside Director on multiple Boards, including Ascential Software (ASCL), AccuRev, and Torrent Systems.

Guy Gildor

Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer

Guy Gildor is Pursway’s Chief Technical Officer and responsible for all research and algorithm, technological, and engineering development at Pursway. Guy has spent well over 20,000 hours working on complex data mining and algorithm research and development in both the private and public sector. His career includes over sixteen years of leading software research and development teams, first as a senior leader at an elite IDF intelligence unit and then at a number of software startups. Guy earned his Master’s in Computer Science, Magna Cum Laude, from Tel Aviv University with his thesis work under the supervision of Professor Arnon Avron on the subject of “Fuzzy Abstract Set Theory.”

Elery Pfeffer

Chief Science Officer & Founder

Elery Pfeffer is Pursway’s founder and acts as the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Throughout his career, Elery has been on the forefront of applying advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to day-to-day business challenges. Most recently, he was President at Plataine, a developer of advanced manufacturing solutions servicing the manufacturing markets in the United States and Europe. In addition to his leadership at Pursway, Elery is a globally-respected high-tech entrepreneur and a frequent lecturer at industry events. He earned his B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University.

Ran Shaul

Co-Founder & Chief Client Officer

Ran Shaul is a global marketing and customer relationship management practitioner and one of the leading experts in Influence Marketing Management. Over the past decade, Ran has led hundreds projects for Fortune 500 companies in areas including market segmentation, social network analysis, customer profitability and lifetime value analysis, behavioral modeling, data mining, retention and communication strategies, customer advocacy, and campaign management. As a co-founder of Pursway, Ran has overall leadership overall customer projects, laying out the strategy and overseeing the tactics for implementing influencer marketing initiatives at many of the largest global organizations. Ran has a B.Sc. in Industrial Management from Tel Aviv University.