World 2.0: Myths and Reality

Edward Shenderovich is currently the Managing Director of Kite Ventures, a Moscow-based early stage venture fund. Prior to this, he was one of the founding executives and Head of Strategic Development at SUP, a Moscow-based online media company, which runs LiveJournal.com, Gazeta.ru, and other leading Russian media brands. Prior to joining SUP, Edward was the CEO of Quantum Art, a content management software company, which he co-founded. Before Quantum Art, Edward worked at Silicon Valley Bank as the Industry Analyst in Communications and Online Services.

Edward is a fellow and a professor of business modeling at Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy, and a board member of Ixtens, an online commerce integrator closely affiliated with Amazon.com. Edward graduated from University of California, Berkeley.

Aldas sits on the management board of Forticom Group that operates and develops the dominant online social networking sites in the Baltics, Poland and Russian Federation with a combined total of 35 million active users. He is also the managing director at Forticom subsidiary in Lithuania in charge of one.lt, the largest Lithuanian social networking site.

Prior to joining Forticom in February 2007, Aldas held the CEO position at Metasite Business Solutions, a management consulting and technology solutions firm serving financial institutions, telecommunications operators and energy companies in the Baltics, Russian Federation and the Great Britain.

Aldas loves delivering guest lectures and seminars at business schools, industry conferences and other places where interesting people tend to converge. He also enjoys having vacations in really weird places.

Benjamin Wegg-Prosser is Director of Corporate Development for SUP, a leading online Russian media company which he helped launch. SUP owns the most popular news, sports and user-generated content sites in Russia reaching 38% of the monthly audience and extending to 52% through its own ad network.

His career has ranged from offline and online publishing to politics. He held several positions at The Guardian newspaper in Britain where he launched a number of web projects before working across the printed and online edition. He was also Director of the Strategic Communications Unit at No. 10 Downing Street from 2005 to 2007, a post he left when Tony Blair stood down as the British Prime Minister.

During his time in Downing Street he launched an e-petitions service and extended Mr Blair’s presence online through many initiatives including launching the first YouTube Channel for a head of government. He has also worked for Pearson, the publishers of the Financial Times, Penguin and many educational imprints.

David joined Friendster in December 2006 with more than 19 years experience in marketing, business development, and product and business strategy. Prior to joining Friendster, David held several marketing and general management roles at eBay Inc, including roles focused on scaling the number of active members of the eBay community. David was also the director of eBay’s media and entertainment businesses in the United States. Prior to eBay, David was the Vice President of Business Development at Blue Wireless and an associate partner at the management and technology consulting firm of Arthur D. Little. David holds a B.A. from Stanford University in Quantitative Economics With Honors & Distinction, 1990.

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