Team

David Cummings (Follow on Twitter)

Hannon Hill Corporation - CEO, President, Founder

A business and technology enthusiast, David Cummings founded Hannon Hill Corporation, an Inc. 500 company, in January 2001. David founded Pardot in 2006. Hannon Hill's goal has always been to provide strategic web content management (WCM) solutions, with an emphasis on personalized customer service.

A WCM subject matter expert, David has published articles on O'Reilly's XML.com and OnJava.com, in addition to popular web development sites such as SitePoint.com. He has presented at the Silicon Valley Web Guild, Silicon Networks, Atlanta Electronic Commerce Forum, and the Independent Computer Consultants Association. With more than 10 years of software development experience, David is an experienced programmer and has written code for commercial applications in Ruby, Java, PHP, ASP, and Visual C++.

David serves on the board of the Atlanta chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization. A native of Tallahassee, Florida, David earned a bachelor of science degree in economics from Duke University and studied at the London School of Economics. David blogs at DavidCummings.org.

Sanjay Parekh (Follow on Twitter)

Sanjay is the founder and organizer of Startup Riot and Startup Dinner and also serves on the board of directors or advisers of a number of startups.

Previously Sanjay was a founder of Digital Envoy where he was the CEO and later the Chief Strategy Officer. Sanjay is the inventor of Digital Envoy’s patented NetAcuity IP intelligence technology. Digital Envoy was acquired by Landmark Communications in June 2007.

In 2004, Sanjay was named one of ten Outstanding Young Atlantans by Outstanding Atlanta, one of the “Top 40 Under 40″ Georgians by Georgia Trend magazine, and a 2004 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2003, Sanjay was named to MIT’s Technology Review TR100 list as one of the top 100 young innovators of 2003 and one of the “Top 50 Entrepreneurs” in Atlanta by Catalyst Magazine. Sanjay was also named a Technology Pioneer with the World Economic Forum in 2002 and 2003.

Sanjay has an electrical engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

You can find Sanjay's writings on his blog and his Twitter account (@sanjay).

Allen Graber (Follow on Twitter)

Allen has been instrumental in starting, growing, investing in and profitably exiting Internet and software companies for over a decade.

In 1997, Allen self-funded and co-founded HyperMart, a pioneer in the web hosting industry. Graber was responsible for all operational, financial, and business affairs of this start-up venture. HyperMart was subsequently bought by Go2Net, a publicly traded Internet company in Seattle where he remained in an operating capacity through 1999.

During 2000 and beyond, Allen has focused his efforts on investing in and consulting with early stage technology companies, primarily in Atlanta, GA. Allen was a founding member of the Atlanta Technology Angels and served on the investment committee for their seed fund. He has invested his personal funds in over 15 Atlanta-based Internet and software companies, achieving an overall positive return on investment through the process. He has taken an active management role in a few of these companies, including SPI Dynamics, a web application security company that was acquired by HP in July, 2007.

From 2004 to 2007, Allen invested in and worked as SVP, Business Development for SearchIgnite. SearchIgnite is a leading search bid management and portfolio optimization technology (software delivered as a service) that helps internet marketers optimize, manage and track search campaigns across all of the major search engines.  SearchIgnite was acquired in 2006 by Innovation Interactive.

Allen is an investor in and currently serves as Director, Business Development for ShopVisible.com, an e-commerce platform company that takes a proactive approach to SEO.

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Allen earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Tulane University.

Suleman Ali (Follow on Twitter)

Suleman was the founder of Esgut which was acquired by Social Gaming Network (SGN) in April 2008.

Wayt King (Follow on Twitter)

Co-founder in 2000 of Atlanta software company N2 Broadband, which was purchased for $120M in 2005. Investor/advisor with LastMinuteGolfer (LMTT), which was sold for $20M in 2008. Technology lawyer in Atlanta (Alston & Bird; King & Spalding) from 1996 to 2000. Electronics engineer in satellite communications from 1982 to 1993. 

Dave Wright (Follow on Twitter)

Dave left Stanford in 1998 to help start GameSpy Industries, a leader in online videogame media, technology, and software. While at GameSpy, Dave was responsible for leading the development of online middleware and backend systems supporting millions of users across PC and Console platforms including the PS2, PS3, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. GameSpy merged with IGN Entertainment in 2004 to create one of the largest Internet gaming & entertainment media companies. Dave served as Chief Architect for IGN and lead technology integration with FIM / MySpace after IGN was acquired by NewsCorp in 2005.

In 2007 Dave left IGN and moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he founded Jungle Disk, a leader on cloud-based storage and backup solutions. Jungle Disk was acquired by Rackspace in 2008 and Dave continues to serve as President.

Mitch Free

Mitch is the founder of MFG.com. Prior to founding MFG.com, Mitch was founder and CEO of 3DATUM, a provider of technology solutions for the manufacturing and engineering communities. Prior, to founding 3Datum Mitch has held a variety of senior management positions with Northwest Airlines where he managed aircraft engineering, technical procurement and aircraft acquisition projects. Mitch began his career as a machinist and spent years working on the shop floor. 

Mitch holds two U.S. patents (5,167,720 and 5,162,659) and is recognized among his peers for his strategic vision, domain expertise and creative management style. Inc. Magazine named him an "Entrepreneur of the Year" finalist in 2005, Ernst & Young names him a finalist in 2008 and under his leadership MFG.com was ranked by Deloitte and Touche as one of the top technology growth companies in the U.S., and in the top 10 technology growth companies in Georgia. Mitch is an avid speaker at technology forums and conferences, including recent presentations to the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, Harvard Business School and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Mitch is an active angel investor in disruptive Internet based technologies and marketplaces. Read about Mitch in Inc. Magazine's - May 2008 Issue

Jeff Hilimire (Follow on Twitter)

Jeff co-founded Spunlogic in 1998 and subsequently sold it in 2008 to Engauge and now runs the digital center of excellence for the agency. Engauge is a marketing agency formed to unite the power of digital, traditional, and direct marketing. Engauge’s clients include Airborne, Best Buy for Business, The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, InterContinental Hotels Group, International Delight, Land O’Lakes, Logitech, Perkins Restaurants, Pert Plus, Sony, the State of Georgia, Sure, TiVo, Turner Broadcasting, UPS, and WellPoint. Its staff of 300 associates is located in Atlanta, Austin, Columbus, Orlando, and Pittsburgh.

Jeff was ranked #4 on Catalyst Magazine top 25 list of Atlanta Entrepreneurs (2008), 1to1 Magazine Customer Champion (2005), and CNN and Fortune Small Business "One to Watch" (2003).  Jeff is also on the board of Junior Achievement of Georgia and Imagine IT! The Childrens Museum of Atlanta.

Dave Williams

Dave Williams is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in online media and search engine marketing.  His most recent venture is BLiNQ Media which is a social media advertising firm that maximizes advertiser performance by targeting and optimizing advertising campaigns based on relevant consumer profile data. Additionally, he is an active investor, founder, board member and advisor to other Atlanta-based companies through his investment company Nicol Capital LLC.

Prior to founding BLiNQ Media, Williams was co-founder and chief strategist for 360i, one of the country’s leading search marketing firms. The company was recognized by Advertising Age as one of the “Hottest Digital Agencies,” honored by Google as its #1 US partner with its Marketing Machine Award, cited as a “Leader” and “Research Powerhouse” in Forrester’s 2009 Search Marketing Report, and by OMMA as the 2007 Search Agency of the Year. Williams led 360i from its inception in 1998 to its sale in 2005. From 2005 to 2007, he assisted with the strategic integration of the business and ongoing sales and marketing strategy. Currently, he serves as an investor and strategic advisor to the business.

Prior to co-founding 360i, Williams was an internet strategy consultant with IBM Global Services. He began his career as a CPA with Price Waterhouse. Williams earned his undergraduate degree in business administration and accounting from Washington and Lee University and an MBA from Emory’s Goizueta Business School.