Manzama:  Creators of the Legal Profession's First Listening Platform

Manzama is the leading provider of listening/social monitoring platforms for the legal profession.   The company was formed in 2010 by a group of technologists with deep experience in the legal world including Peter Ozolin, founder of Legal Anywhere, former CTO/CKO of Paul, Hastings, Janofsy, and Walker, and former Vice President of the Practice Management Segment at Thomson Reuters.  The Company’s flagship product, the Manzama Platform, uses a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to provide legal professionals with a system that targets and mines online legal and industry content from blogs, news sites, and social media sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. Manzama enables users (lawyers and the law firm professionals that support them) to act more quickly in identifying relevant information related to any client, competitor, risk, trend or topic that is central to the lawyer or law firm’s business development and branding strategies. Manzama’sinnovative approach to listening platforms has been enthusiastically received by the legal market. As of May 2011, dozens of firms have licensed the Manzama technology including Perkins Coie, Wilson Sonsini and Littler Mendelson.

Management Team

 

Peter J. Ozolin, J.D. / M.B.A – Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman

Peter Ozolin is currently responsible for leading the company's strategy and vision. After graduating from Willamette University's Joint MBA/JD Program, he founded Legal Anywhere in 1997. The company became the leading provider of extranet solutions for the legal profession. Peter’s Legal Anywhere team sold to over 125 large law firms nationwide, as well as to corporate legal departments at companies like Safeway, Bell Atlantic, American Airlines, Kawasaki, and Caterpillar. Niku Corporation (NASDAQ:NIKU) acquired Legal Anywhere in 2000 for $27M. Post-acquisition, Peter served as Niku's Vice President and General Manager for the Legal Profession. He went on to serve as Chief Knowledge & Technology Officer at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, and Vice President of the Practice Management Segment at Thomson Reuters. Before launching Manzama, Ozolin was CEO of Remote Technologies, a SaaS Point-of-Sales system for quick service restaurants which counted among its clients Subway, Quiznos and Pizza Hut franchisees. He has published numerous articles in periodicals such as Law Technology Product News, National Law Journal, Corporate Legal Times and ILTA's Peer to Peer, and has presented at nationwide conferences and tradeshows such as the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), Legal Tech, Legal Technology Summit, International Legal Technology Association(ILTA) and the American Bar Association's Tech Show.

 

Mark Hinkle – Co-Founder , President & COO

Mark Hinkle is responsible for running the day to day operations of the company along with leading the Client Services Division. Mark has spent his entire career in the technology sector. Most recently, Mark served as Director of Western Advertising Sales at Autobytel (NASDAQ: ABTL where he headed up the advertising sales efforts for the company and was responsible for selling and managing advertising campaigns for major West coast advertising agencies and their clients, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Hyundai. Prior to Autobytel, Mark worked at Oracle Software Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) in various sales and operations roles within Oracle's Technology Education Department. Mark graduated from University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.

Randall Smith – Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Randall Smith is a co-founder of Manzama and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Randy has a long history of working for internet and software start-ups dating back to his study of computer science at Stanford University. Randy had his own consulting practice building websites and web applications for small and medium sized businesses in the early 90’s. Later, he oversaw and managed various Search Engine Optimization (SEO) projects for internet marketing firm MMG (Multi-Media Marketing Group) whose client accounts included Nike, Fathom, and Art.com. Randy later joined AT&T as a senior manager where he spent ten years overseeing AT&T’s intranet, extranet, and workflow applications for various call centers throughout the United States.

Stuart N. Goodman, J.D. – Counsel, Senior Vice President of Sales and Channel Partnerships

Stuart N. Goodman is Counsel, Senior Vice President of Sales and Channel Partnerships for Manzama and is responsible for in-house counsel advice, establishing client outreach and advancing business development strategies. Stuart has more than five years of law firm experience providing business development, strategic planning, market intelligence, client relationship management, proposal management and key client program support for lawyers and clients associated with Duane Morris LLP and Snell & Wilmer.

Additionally, Stuart has over twenty years of experience in corporate sales, including more than a decade in client relationship management and executive account management positions with LexisNexis/Martindale-Hubbell. He also has extensive experience with legal publishing sales and corporate marketing support with West Publishing Corporation, Matthew Bender, MCI/RCA Global Communications, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation A current member of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Legal Marketing Association, Stuart earned his Juris Doctorate from Western State University College of Law and his Bachelor of Science degree from San Diego State University.

 

Allison Nussbaum, Esq. – Vice President of Sales

Allison Nussbaum is Manzama’s Vice-President of Sales and is responsible for establishing client outreach and advancing the company’s sales and revenue objectives. With over 15 years' experience in the business of law firms, Allison brings a unique blend of experiences to the position. Prior to joining Manzama, Allison was a senior business development manager at Nixon Peabody LLP, and before that, she was the first-ever business development manager at Goodwin Procter LLP. In these roles, Allison used her past experience as an outside salesperson to coach attorneys on how to successfully develop and implement marketing and business development plans designed to support strategic and financial objectives, revenue goals and client satisfaction. Prior to her law firm business development roles, Allison held positions at Lexis-Nexis and at Interface Software.

Allison is an alumna of Georgetown University and University of New Hampshire School of Law nd is a member of the New Hampshire Bar Association. She is a frequent speaker at industry events, most recently having participated in a panel at the LMA National Conference and speaking on the topic of Creating a Law Firm Sales Culture. She has also spoken extensively on the use of client relationship management tools and social media in law firms.

 

Board Of Directors

Peter Ozolin; Mark Hinkle 

Nathan Fineberg – Director

Nate Fineberg was President and CEO of Interface Software from 1997-2006. Under Nate's leadership, the Company became the leading provider of Relationship Management Software (CRM) to professional services industries including legal, management consulting, financial services. In seven years, he grew sales from $300,000to over $25M, leading to the company’s acquisition by LexisNexis in 2004. The Company accumulated numerous awards under Nate's direction, including Inc. Magazine's “Inc. 500” fastest growing private companies, Deloitte & Touche's Fast 50 & Fast 500, and was one of three companies selected as Best Places to Work in the Chicago area in the first annual Workplace Excellence competition sponsored by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. In 2001, Nate received the prestigious KPMG High Tech Award, and in 2003, was named a finalist in Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year program. Prior to joining Interface Software, Nate served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Professional Services for Pitney Bowes Software Systems and held the position of Vice President of North American Sales for Easel Corporation, a software development firm specializing in client/server application development. Nate also served as Vice President of technical sales for the financial division of Sterling Software and as a software engineer for Texas Instruments. Nate holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Indiana University. In 2006, Nate left LexisNexis/Interface Software and relocated his family to Evergreen, Colorado where he is fulfilling his lifelong passion of living in the mountains, spending time with his two young sons and pursing personal interests and investments.

Dino Vendetti - Director

Dino joined Formative Ventures in July 2006 as a Managing Director, and is primarily focused on investing in early stage web and mobile companies. He is an experienced operating executive who spent the majority of his career in Marketing, Business Development, and Engineering roles at start-ups, including Qualcomm. His current investments include Capella, Eightfold Logic, and Veebeam. Prior to joining Formative, Dino spent six years as a general partner at Bay Partners, and four years at Vulcan Ventures, the Seattle based investment firm led by Paul Allen. While at Vulcan, Dino invested in a variety of Internet, telecom and wireless companies including Go2Net, Northpoint, Wavetrace, and Allegiance Telecom.

Business Advisory Board

Michele Vivona, SVP of Global Open Web Strategy, Lexis Nexis

Michele Vivona is Senior Vice President of Global Open Web strategy for LexisNexis®. In this role, Ms. Vivona is responsible for the development and execution of LexisNexis initiatives with web 2.0 technologies and the open web. Prior to this position, Vivona was Senior Vice President and GM for LexisNexis Litigation Services and drove the strategic direction, product planning, acquisitions, operations and financial performance for LexisNexis Litigation Services group globally. Her expertise in both technology and the legal market has transformed LexisNexis offerings in the litigation space into a strategic set of value-added services that set the standard for the industry by delivering unique insights and seamless control of workflow throughout the entire litigation process.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Vivona served as chief operating officer of the individual businesses within the LexisNexis litigation portfolio: LexisNexis® Applied Discovery®, a leading provider of electronic discovery services to the nation's top law firms and corporations; LexisNexis® CourtLink®, offering an unmatched combination of access to the nation's courts, advanced searching capabilities and nationwide document retrieval; and LexisNexis® File & Serve, providing filing and service solutions for courts and law firms, and access to publicly-filed court documents.

Previously, Ms. Vivona served as vice president of Law Large Market Planning for LexisNexis, where she drove strategic planning for the company products and services for large law firm customers, including the LexisNexis portal and technology initiatives. Ms. Vivona has also held a variety of sales and sales management positions within the law firm, government and law school markets.

Prior to joining LexisNexis, Ms. Vivona held technical positions with software development companies providing technology and business solutions to the manufacturing and transportation industries.

Ms. Vivona has served on the board of Public Counsel in Los Angeles, and currently serves on the Foundation board as President of the Northwest Women's Law Center in Seattle, Washington. She served as NWLC Board President for the 2004-2005 term. She was also chairperson of the WSA Board (Washington Software Alliance) - the leading technology trade organization in the state of Washington for the 2006 term. Most recently, Michele has joined the Seattle King County Humane Society as a board member.

Dan Hobin, CEO and Co-Founder G5

Dan is responsible for overseeing the company’s overall strategic direction, planning and execution. He has over 20 years experience in building high growth technology companies. He most recently was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SmashCast, Inc. (San Francisco, CA), a Web-based digital publishing company. Before that, Dan held key sales and marketing roles at both Beyond.com (online software sales), and their spin out, CyberSource Corporation (E-commerce services) (San Jose, CA). He is on the advisory board for OSU Cascades and a co-founder of Bend Venture Conference, the major regional event connecting seed and early stage companies with investment opportunities.

G5 recently raised $15 M from Volition Capital (its first round of financing) and in 2010 was ranked 248 fastest growing company in the country by Inc. Magazine as well 51st fastest growing company on Deloitte’s 2010 Fastest 500 growing companies.

Dan received his B.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a focus on Japanese Business and is a graduate of the Shibusawa International School in Fukaya, Japan.

Chris Babcock, Former CEO & Chairman of Bend Research, Inc.

Chris is retired in Bend, Oregon. For 10 (ten) years he oversaw the company’s strategic direction. While in the role of CEO, Bend Research saw its revenues grow from $7M annually to over $40M annually.

Bend Research Inc. engages in the definition, advancement, development, and commercialization of pharmaceutical and health science technologies. It develops drug-delivery solutions; assist customers in process development and optimization, science of scale, and scale-up and technology transfer; and produces supplies for regulatory, clinical, and commercial use. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in Bend, Oregon.

Chris holds Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, University of Oregon, 1976 M.S., Physical Chemistry, University of Oregon, 1970 B.A., Chemistry, University of California, San Diego

Client Advisory Board

Kevin McMurdo, Chief Marketing Officer, Perkins Coie, LLP (WA)
Adam Stock,Director of Business Development, Allen Matkins (CA)
David Woods,Director of Client Services, Kelley Drye, LLP (NY)
Scott Rechschaffen,Partner in Charge of Business Development/Knowledge Management, Littler Mendelson, LLP (CA)
Mark Young,Chief Marketing Officer, SNR Denton (NY)
Alvidas Jasin,Client Relations Executive, Ropes & Gray (MA)