Our Team
Michelle Motter
Emilio Santoyo
Jon Zigman
Joe Lazzaretti
Solomon Afiemo
Robert Shuttleworth
Yona Warmin
Chris Hildebrand
Matthew Pierce
Marisol Casariego
Scottie Newman
Matthew Valverde
Blakeny Pittman
John O'Connell
Heather Gates
Hans Pasricha
Anthony Ruba
Amanda Armour
Keyvan Peymani
Craig Finster
Alex Peachey
Officers
Matthew Pierce
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Mr. Pierce has over 20 years of experience working in entertainment and technology. Prior to founding Versus Systems, Mr. Pierce was founder and CEO of OLabs, a company developed to create, incubate, and operate new companies that provide high-end software solutions for complex regulatory environments. His background also includes serving as the Vice President of Strategy at Originate, serving early stage startups, and time at Warner Bros and the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Pierce teaches entrepreneurship and venture initiation at UCLA Anderson and in the economics department at UCLA. He has spoken at SXSW, Digital Hollywood, Pulse, and Digital Entertainment World. Mr. Pierce is a graduate of Stanford University and he earned his MBA from UCLA.
Craig Finster
President & Chief Financial Officer
Craig Finster
Alex Peachey
Chief Technology Officer
As CTO of Versus Systems, Alex Peachey leads the architecture efforts for their Elixir-based platform. Leveraging over two decades of experience building data driven software systems, Alex leads a group of highly talented software engineers in developing the Versus Systems Winfinite challenge platform. Alex believes that their Elixir applications running on the Erlang/BEAM virtual machine allow Versus to create a highly robust and scalable system. The opportunity to build systems enabling video game developers to make their games more fun is exciting as Alex spends much of his free time playing a variety of video games with his son. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Western Washington University and an MBA from the University of Washington.
Amanda Armour
Chief People Officer
Amanda Armour
Amanda Armour joined our company in November 2016. Her work includes creating and implementing operations, hiring, and organization efforts for the inaugural 2016 Cedar Sinai-Techstars partnership and resulting technology companies, joining the Board of the Digital Diversity Network in 2019, and serving on the Advisory Board of Aeras Fog, a drone technology company that began operations in 2020. From 2012 through 2016, Ms. Armour led several NIH and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-sponsored national research teams focused on initiatives concerning organizational behavior, ingroup establishment, and motivation of group buy-in as they relate to public health measures and medical access equity. Ms. Armour has a BS in Psychology and a BS in Biology with concentrations in Neuroscience from Northwestern University, which includes a Fellowship in Public Health at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. She holds an MS in Social Psychology from Yale University, and served as a Distinguished Fellow in Political Psychology at Stanford University.
Directors
Michelle Gahagan
Director
Michelle Gahagan
Ms. Gahagan is currently a principal of a privately-held merchant bank based in Vancouver, British Columbia and London, England. Prior to the commencement of her involvement in merchant banking seven years ago, Ms. Gahagan graduated from Queens University Law School and practiced corporate law for 20 years. Ms. Gahagan has extensive experience advising companies with respect to international tax-driven structures, mergers and acquisitions.
Keyvan Peymani
Keyvan Peymani
Director
Keyvan Peymani joined our company as a director in 2016. Mr. Peymani is a veteran senior executive and leader working at the intersection of technology, media, and venture capital. Since April 2021 Mr. Peymani has been the Chief Marketing Officer of Cirque du Soleil. From March 2017 to January 2019, Mr. Peymani served as the Head of Startup Marketing for Amazon Web Services where he was responsible for the global marketing strategy. Since January 2016, he has been serving as a Venture Partner and Senior Advisor to Touchdown Ventures, a venture capital firm pairing with several leading corporations to establish and manage their platforms. From June 2012 to February 2016, Mr. Peymani served as the Managing Director, Digital Strategy Division at ICM Partners, one of the world’s largest talent and literary agencies, and was the firm’s chief digital executive, reporting to the Executive Board. Mr. Peymani has a BA in Religious Studies and a BA in Neurobiology with concentrations in Neuroscience from Northwestern University. He holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Jennifer Prince
Director
Jennifer Prince
Jennifer Prince joined our company as a director in May 2021. Ms. Prince has served as Chief Commercial Officer for the Los Angeles Rams since December 2021, where she is responsible for overseeing all partnerships, including sales, activation and strategy, as well as the commercialization of their media business, including owned-and-operated channels, social media accounts and media partnerships. She previously worked at Twitter from 2013 to December 2021 as the Global VP and Head of Content Partnerships and Managing Director of Global Media & Entertainment Partnerships, in which capacity she led the social network’s worldwide efforts engaging with media entities and individual creators across TV, film, music, sports, news, lifestyle and gaming. From 2011 to 2013, Ms. Prince was Head of Industry for film and television at Google and YouTube. From 2007 to 2011, she was SVP of advertising.
Brian Tingle
Brian Tingle
Director
Mr. Tingle began his career in the Canadian banking sector, and has been involved in the capital markets for the past 20 years as an advisor, and also as a director, for both private and public companies. Brian is experienced in a range of corporate transactions including acquisitions, mergers, takeovers and financings; his speciality being the effective delivery of the due diligence process.
Paul Vlasic
Director
Paul Vlasic
Mr. Vlasic, serves as a Vice-President and Manager at Vlasic Investments, L.L.C. Mr. Vlasic is a Founding Partner at RSVP Capital. He founded Amplifinity, LLC. He co-founded RSVP Capital in 2007. In addition to his activities at RSVP, Mr. Vlasic serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of uRefer and as a Manager at Vlasic Investments (VILLCo). He also actively invests in new startups. He is a veteran entrepreneur who has led several companies in the technology space. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Amplifinity, LLC, and has been its Member of the Board of Directors since 2009. Mr. Vlasic served as the Chairman of O/E Automation and Head of Operations at O/E Systems. He began his career at Reynolds Metals Company, working in their sales organization. Mr. Vlasic serves on multiple boards within the Henry Ford Health System, The Henry Ford Foundation, and the University of Michigan College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship. He is a graduate of Rollins College and earned his M.B.A. with Distinction from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
Shannon Pruitt
Shannon Pruitt
Director
Shannon Pruitt joined our company as a director in September 2022. Ms. Pruitt has served as the Global Chief Content Officer of Stagwell Media Network since September 2021, where she is responsible for global content-related agency and client partnerships, products and solutions. As part of the Stagwell acquisition of MDC Media Partners, where she was President of Content, Managing Director, from August 2020 to December 2021, Pruitt was promoted into her global role within the Stagwell Media Network. From July 2019 to August 2020, she was the Managing Partner, EVP: Walt Disney Television Networks Portfolio. Ms. Pruitt has extensive consumer engagement and marketing experience from her prior roles as Chief Marketing Officer of The Honest Company (2018-2019), Co-founder and President of Dentsu’s The Story Lab (2014-2017), and Chief Content Officer at Carat (2017-2018). She has also previously built and led integrated marketing and sales teams at global production powerhouses Fremantle Media, Mark Burnett Productions, Warner Bros, 19 Entertainment, and Octagon, where she was responsible for the strategy and activation of MasterCard’s FIFA World Cup, Major League Baseball and the NFL sponsorships.
Advisors
Javon Frazier
Javon Frazier
Advisor
Mr. Frazier currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Studio 71, a leading digital media company owned by the ProSiebenSat.1 Group, where he oversees strategic business development for influencer brands. Frazier is an accomplished executive with a proven track record in the global media landscape with experience in all areas of media and entertainment, including film, television, digital media, publishing and gaming. Mr. Frazier has built several multi-million dollar brands over the past few years, including a card game called Joking Hazard, the Guava Juice toy subscription box, and most recently The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls table top game. His core competence lies in driving transactional revenue with new product launches, especially mobile games. Prior to joining Studio71, he worked at Marvel for close to a decade, starting in business development with the studio’s publishing and theatrical divisions. Here he helped launch Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, before rapidly moving on to the Marvel’s television arm as its Marketing Director, overseeing popular animated television series including Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man: Armored Adventures and Super Hero Squad. Frazier last served as the VP of Games Marketing for Marvel, where he launched over 40 games on global platforms, including properties like The Avengers, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and Disney Infinity.
Kevin Lloyd
Advisor
Kevin Lloyd
Mr. Lloyd is an experienced corporate litigator and business counselor, whose legal practice includes commercial litigation, securities litigation, corporate governance matters, intellectual property disputes, and white collar criminal defense. He is a founder of Aeras Fog, an electrostatic drone disinfection company, where he leads global corporate strategy, commercial partnerships, financing, and growth planning. He also is an investor in numerous family businesses including restaurants, escape rooms, and axe throwing facilities.
Aaron Lassila
Aaron Lassila
Advisor
Aaron most recently served as VP of Revenue for Activision Blizzard Media, leading sales efforts for one of the newest divisions of the company, dedicated to offering a network of hundreds of millions of monthly users to marketers for the first time. Previously, Aaron served as GM at MediaMath, the global leader in transparent and outcomes-based programmatic advertising technology for the Enterprise. Prior to MediaMath, Aaron spent nine years at Electronic Arts. In his last role, Aaron led revenue and partner marketing efforts for the Global Media Solutions division of the company, overseeing all strategic partnerships, ad sales, client services and go to market positioning for the company, globally.
Avril Millar
Advisor
Avril Millar
Avril Millar is a non-executive director of FxPro, PassFort and The Security Circle, and advises Kepler Partners and many others. A civil engineer by training, having then built her own Wealth Management business from the mid 80s over 20 years, she has spent the last decade since its sale entirely sector neutral, leveraging her extensive business knowledge, personal contacts and strategic vision to support her client companies and their Executive teams through step changes to sustainable success. She is also the author of The Kama Sutra of Work and the mother of an Olympian.
Kurt Spenser
Kurt Spenser
Advisor
Kurt Spenser is a media and design expert who has worked with dozens of household brands, advertising agencies, and global entertainment networks, creating breakthrough content for television and interactive media. Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Radley, Kurt has a deep understanding of world class brand building and marcom. He is also co-founder ROKA – one of the most disruptive makers of eyewear and technical sports apparel in the world.
David Spiegel
Advisor
David Spiegel
Mr. Spiegel has spent the past decade in leadership positions at some of the most well-regarded publishers including his current role as Vice President of Digital Revenue for the LA Times. In prior roles as head of sales at New York Media (publisher of New York magazine), he led a complete business transformation, enabling the merger with Vox Media, where he served as vice president of sales. He has executive roles with other top brands in the publishing and media space including CNN, Buzz Feed and Inverse. David brings a wealth of experience in developing and implementing unique and effective marketing programs for a wide range of media enterprises and their partners.
Jay Tucker
Jay Tucker
Advisor
Mr. Tucker is a marketer, educator and technology leader with more than 20 years of experience in the technology, academic and entertainment sectors. At UCLA’s Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment and Sports (MEMES), Tucker is responsible for the center’s vision, educational offerings and major events, including the annual PULSE conference and the MEMES Media, Entertainment and Sports Summer Institute. Previously, Tucker handled marketing and programs at the Institute for Communication Technology Management (CTM) at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He founded Silicon Beach @USC, a two-day event featuring a venture competition and a conference focused on innovation, investment and new ventures related to technology and digital content.
Careen Yapp
Advisor
Careen Yapp
Careen Yapp most recently served as Vice President of Business Development and Account Management for Gaikai, a division of Sony Computer Entertainment. Prior to her work at Gaikai and Sony, Careen worked at Konami Digital Entertainment, D3 Publisher of America, and THQ. She is a board member of the Entertainment Software Association Foundation (ESAF) and Women in Games international. She has also served as a member of the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association (LIMA) Board, and the Game Connection Advisory Board.