Thomas Layton, CEO
Thomas Layton came to Metaweb from OpenTable, where he served as CEO from 2001 to June 2007. Previously, he was a co-founder of CitySearch, Inc., which later merged with Ticketmaster and is now a subsidiary of USA Networks. Prior to his experience at Ticketmaster-CitySearch, Thomas was with Score Learning Corporation, a leading educational services company, where he served first as Chief Financial Officer and later as President and Chief Operating Officer. From 1986 to 1988, Thomas was an Associate Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.
Thomas holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a BS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Robert Cook, Co-Founder and Executive VP of Product Development
Robert Cook co-founded Metaweb Technologies in July 2005. At parent company Applied Minds, Robert led the San Francisco office as Director of Knowledge Product Development. Since the start of his career, Robert has played the role of author, designer and programmer for myriad software applications. Robert’s first computer was an Elf II, which used the same microprocessor as the Voyager, Viking and Galileo spacecraft. At the young age of 15, Robert created database software for a small publishing company. He followed this first piece of work by publishing a number of computer games through Broderbund. This early work included the classic game Gumball as well as the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 versions of Karateka. Robert later designed the game D/Generation and acted as the technical director for The Last Express.
Robert holds a BS in Computer Science from Yale University.
John Giannandrea, CTO
John Giannandrea co-founded Metaweb Technologies in July 2005. Prior to joining Metaweb, John was CTO of Tellme Networks Inc., where he was responsible for the development and operation of the world's largest VoiceXML network, handling over 2 billion voice transactions per year. Microsoft Corporation acquired Tellme in 2007. Prior to Tellme, John was the Chief Technologist of Netscape/AOL's Web browser group. Throughout his career John has contributed extensively to the industry's Internet standards and protocols, including Java, HTTP, SSL and RDF.
John is a native of Scotland and a graduate of Strathclyde University.
Jaleh Bisharat, VP of Marketing
Previously, Jaleh served as vice president of marketing at OpenTable, the Internet’s leading destination for online restaurant reservations. Prior to OpenTable, Jaleh was vice president of marketing at Amazon.com, the world's leading online retailer. Previously, she was vice president of marketing for Accept.com, an Internet financial services firm that was acquired by Amazon.com.
Earlier in her career, Jaleh served as senior vice president of marketing at PointCast. Prior to that, she served as vice president of marketing for Approach Software and then as general manager for the database division of Lotus Development, after its acquisition of Approach.
In 1997, Jaleh received a Marketer of the Year Award from Marketing Computers magazine and an Advertising Age Marketing 100 Award. In 1999, she was named as one of Advertising Age's Power 50 marketing executives. She holds an AB in Government from Harvard-Radcliffe and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
