Meet the RTB Digital Team

James Heckman founded and led Maven (NYSE: AREN), growing it to a $120 million public company providing publishing, distribution and monetization for 300 brands including Sports Illustrated, Maxim, History.com, and TheStreet, and reaching over 150 million users monthly. Previously James served as head of global media strategy for Yahoo!, signing AOL, Disney, and dozens of major brands to unify 1 billion consumers on an ultra-premium marketplace.

As chief strategy officer at Fox Digital, he architected the first programmatic social advertising platform to form a market-changing, $1 billion ad alliance between Google and Myspace and was instrumental in Hulu’s formation. James was also founder/CEO of the online advertising platform 5to1.com (sold to Yahoo!); CSO of Zazzle.com; founder/CEO of Scout.com (sold to Fox), founder/CEO of Rivals.com and Rivals.net (sold to Yahoo! post tenure and 365-Sports, respectively); and president and publisher of NFL Exclusive, an official NFL publication network. Rivals and Scout were ground breaking initiatives that coalesced market-leading independent publishers into single-platform SaaS networks. ​​

Eyal Hertzog, Co-Founder

Eyal is best known as inventor of fundamental DeFi (decentralized finance) technology including the first automated market maker (AMM). He founded DeWeb Ltd which developed the ground-breaking Web3 community, publishing and monetization platform, secured by blockchain technology, that Roundtable has adopted. Prior to DeWeb, he co-founded and was product architect for the pioneering DeFi company Bancor. Before that, he co-founded video-sharing service MetaCafe, an early YouTube competitor. Hertzog grew up in Ra'anana, Israel and currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is also a musician.

David Bailey, Co-Founder

David is the CEO of BTC Inc and Bitcoin Magazine. He produces the annual Bitcoin Conference, the world's largest of its kind. As the first dedicated media outlet for digital currency, BTC Media has been providing mission-critical intelligence since 2011 for hundreds of companies, from Fortune 500 corporations to Silicon Valley startups. Previously David was the founder of yBitcoin, CEO of The Distributed Ledger, a board member of the Po.et Foundation, and a Founding Partner at 402.digital, one of the earlier cryptocurrency hedge funds officially launched in 2016.

Walton Comer, Co-Founder

Walton is co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of XBTO Group, which was the founding investor in Deribit, recently sold to Coinbase for $3B. His deep experience in quantitative finance includes time as Director of Research for Thornhill Partners, Quantitative Analyst for  SAC Capital, and co-founder and board member of Lucid, a research technology company. Walton holds engineering and mathematics degrees from Columbia University.

Bill Sornsin, COO and Co-Founder

Bill co-founded and served as COO of Maven (later Arena Group), a public company providing publishing, distribution and monetization for 300 brands including Sports Illustrated, History.com, and TheStreet. Earlier in his career Bill led MSN’s Core Technology team, including the original MSN Communities and instant messaging, before co-founding two of the web’s most successful professional publisher networks – Rivals.com and Scout.com – serving as CTO for both. With Scout’s 2005 acquisition by Fox Interactive Media, he joined Fox as VP of engineering and operations for that unit. He then moved into consulting, and served as CTO of online advertising platform 5to1 (acquired by Yahoo!). He returned to Scout in 2013 as CTO (later COO), directing a massive technological renovation focused on mobile and video.

Sornsin began his tech career as a Rockwell Collins test engineer, then joined Microsoft in various roles including product planning lead for Microsoft Exchange. He holds a bachelor’s in electrical/computer engineering from the University of Iowa and an MBA from UCLA.

Graeme Roustan, Co-Founder

Graeme is a respected Canadian entrepreneur and well-known to the NHL and broader hockey community. As CEO of Roustan Media he owns and operates The Hockey News, founded in 1947 and the most recognized hockey publication in North America. TheHockeyNews.com utilizes the RTB platform and serves millions of monthly users. Graeme also owns and operates STIX.com, Canada's leading supplier of wood and composite hockey sticks and marketing partner of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and is former chairman of Bauer, leading its acquisition from Nike.

Michael Alexander, Co-Founder

A native of Australia, Michael is co-founder and CEO of Brandpay, a digital and social media marketing startup, and of BlockTrust, a Hong-Kong based Web3 cloud infrastructure provider. As former CEO of Jefferies Asia, Michael led the largest ICO (Initial Coin Offering) in history for “Block.one”, which raised more than $4 billion.

Aly Madhavji, Co-Founder

Aly is the Managing Partner of Blockchain Founders Fund, a Singapore-based Venture Capital Fund backing hundreds of groundbreaking startups that drive innovation across Web3, AI, machine learning, IoT, education, and FinTech sectors. He is a consultant to the United Nations on blockchain and fintech matters, and also serves on the board of advisors of University of Toronto. Aly holds degrees from INSEAD, the University of Toronto and Tsinghua University.

Brock Pierce, Co-Founder

Brock Pierce is an independent political thought leader, a cryptocurrency and blockchain technology pioneer, a venture capitalist, philanthropist, and a critically-acclaimed Disney childhood actor, whose global influence has expanded opportunity for millions. Pierce is the Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and the co-founder of Block.one, Blockchain Capital, Tether, and Mastercoin. Pierce has been accredited with establishing marketplaces for digital currency which have brought opportunity and wealth to millions across the globe. Pierce has lectured at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, the Milken Institute Global Conference, International World Congress, and has been featured by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune. Pierce was on the first-ever Forbes List for the “Richest People in Cryptocurrency” and was a Independent Party candidate for President of the United States. Pierce starred in feature films such as “The Mighty Ducks,” and “First Kid.”

Liz Larson, Network Development

Liz is a seasoned digital media executive with 25 years of experience spanning strategic business development, partner management and operations roles for startups and fast-growth organizations. She started her career at Genesys, the world’s #1 omni channel customer experience platform, managing channel partnerships through an IPO and acquisition by Alcatel. She then launched a startup digital guide for event planners, which quickly collected thousands of clients through management of business ops, partner platforms, content partnerships, and vendor marketing.

In 2007 Liz joined the Glam/Mode Media team as the Director of Publisher Operations, where she worked with more than 10,000 publishers negotiating partnership agreements and licensing video content, eventually rising to Senior VP of Partner Strategy/Operations responsible for sourcing, negotiating and optimizing strategic partnerships and creating, launching and growing new lines of business for the company. She was then Vice-President of Network Development at Maven (later known as Arena Group) prior to joining Roundtable.

A Silicon Valley native, Liz also led business development efforts for Think Women – A Future Youth Records and V.I.N.Y.L. Campaign (Voices for Inspiring and Nurturing Youth Leadership).