AETNA
Let's face it--health insurance is a bit of a snooze, right? Not so--it's my belief that healthcare will be the key battleground that will define the U.S. economy over the next 20 years, just as the internet was in the previous 20 years. The companies that dominate the health space in 20 years will be unrecognizable from today's players, but putting more power and control into consumers' hands in the form of high-quality, transparent, differentiated, and useful digital tools will be an essential part of any winning strategy.
With that goal in mind, I'm leading one part of a large effort at Aetna to move into this new world. More specifically, I'm helping people take better care of themselves, adopt healthier habits, and make smarter healthcare decisions that save everyone money, by rewarding them when they do the right thing.
GOOGLE + ZAGAT
You’ve probably heard of Google, but you may not be familiar with Zagat, a 40-year-old brand known for trustworthy, crowd-sourced restaurant ratings and reviews and burgundy-colored guidebooks. Zagat is now owned by Google, and is still the best place to find your new favorite restaurant. I had the privilege of leading a team of 15 engineers, designers and UX researchers on a first-rate iOS app for Zagat, in addition to other work on dining-related components of Google Search.
I-play Games
Once upon a time, long before Candy Crush and Flappy Bird, it was still possible to build a thriving business around high-end smartphone games and downloadable “casual” PC games, with franchises based on popular media brands and $19.99 price tags. While at I-play, I worked with teams in Israel and Russia to launch a series of games based on the Fast and Furious movie franchise, James Patterson’s novels, and original content from the inventor of HBO’s True Blood.
VINDIGO
Vindigo was a small, NYC-based mobile app and game developer for cell phones with keypads. The company was known mostly for it’s City Guide, which was a forerunner of Google Maps designed for the bad-old days of 2G data service and mostly offline use. I had a great time sourcing licensed content for our games from the major media and gaming brands. My favorite was a game called Zenerchi, which was a “match-3” game in the shape of a circle of concentric rings. Maybe somebody will dust it off someday and I’ll be able to play it again on my iPhone.
Gameloft
Gameloft is a maker of premium, 3D smartphone games, and is a sibling of the French gaming giant, Ubisoft. I worked on several iterations of their Asphalt line of 3D auto-racing games, as well as mobile versions of Ubisoft titles like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Prince of Persia.
SiriusXM
Between my two years of business school at Georgetown, I interned at XM Satellite Radio, before they merged with Sirius. Back then, I thought it was unbelievably cool to listen to any one of hundreds of radio stations, in my car. I did some fancy statistical analysis to figure out which stations naturally went together, according to the listening habits of our users, so that our advertisers could reach the right target users across a bundle of channels.