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Dr. Hannes Blum
President and Chief Executive Officer, AbeBooks, Inc.
Hannes holds a Masters degree in Business and Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe and a PhD in business from the Otto Beisheim School of Management (WHU) in Germany. Hannes started his career with the Boston Consulting Group in strategy consulting. He then co-founded JustBooks in 1999 and became President and CEO at AbeBooks Inc - the world's largest marketplace for new, used, rare and out-of-print books and a top 100 Internet Retailer - following the acquisition of JustBooks by AbeBooks in October 2001. During his tenure at AbeBooks, three companies have been acquired under his leadership (Iberlibro.com, BookFinder.com and FillZ.com) and AbeBooks also made a 40% investment in the leading social networking site for booklovers, LibraryThing.com. Hannes has won various industry awards, including being named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young for the Consumer Category in the Pacific Region in 2003. He's an active investor in several internet related businesses (including Suite101 in Vancouver, BC, Conducive Corp in New York, and two Victoria, BC-based firms Teampages Inc and Indochino Inc). He also serves on three other Boards of Directors besides his mandate at AbeBooks Inc.
Christoph Braun
Chairman of the Board and Managing Director Burda Digital Ventures
Christoph currently is Managing Director of Burda Digital Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital arm of Hubert Burda Media, Munich/Germany. Christoph also serves as Director Treasury for the group. Before joining Burda in 1997, he worked for McKinsey&Company, Inc. in Frankfurt and San Francisco on a client portfolio in the FMCG and media industry. Christoph holds an MBA from The Tuck School at Dartmouth, and earned his Doctorate in business at the university of Munich.
Brent James
Vice-Chairman of the Board
Brent brings a strong management and marketing background to AbeBooks.com.
He has worked with some of British Columbia's most successful
technology companies including Mobile Data International (MDI),
and Richmond-based Mobile Data Solutions Inc. (MDSI), a company
that he helped found and grow and take to the public market. Mr.
James holds a Masters of Science degree in Management from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and an undergraduate
degree in Commerce from the University of British Columbia.
Jean-Paul Schmetz
Member of the Board
Raised in Belgium and Boston, Jean-Paul brings extensive strategic experience to AbeBooks. He has post-graduate degrees in Philosophy, Economics and Econometrics from the University of Louvain in Belgium. After running a small software company from 1992 to 1995, he joined Hubert Burda Media in January 1996 and held various managing director roles at different Burda subsidiaries until December 2002. He has operated a hedge fund since 1998 and acted as an advisor to the Burda Group for the past two years. Since 2000, he has also been a member of the board of directors at Tomorrow Focus AG.
Boris Wertz
CEO W Media Ventures and Member of the Board
Dr. Boris Wertz is an Internet entrepreneur and investor, and the CEO of W Media Ventures, a Vancouver-based venture capital firm that focuses on Consumer Internet investments in the Pacific Northwest and Alberta in close cooperation with long-term partner Burda Digital Ventures. Before founding W Media Ventures, Boris was the Chief Operating Officer of AbeBooks.com. Boris joined the company in 2002 after JustBooks, the German company he co-founded in 1999, was acquired by AbeBooks. Boris successfully finished his PhD as well as his graduate studies at the Graduate School of Management (WHU), Koblenz, majoring in Business Economics / Business Management. He serves on the boards of AbeBooks, online publishing platform Suite101, German travel review site Tripsbytips.com, tailormade men’s suits site Indochino.com, online league and team management tool TeamPages, and Vancouver technology community Techvibes.com. Living in Vancouver with his wife Luisa (a dog treats entrepreneur), he loves the outdoors, reading and traveling.
William Yu
Managing Partner, Cansbridge Capital Corp. and Member of the Board
William has extensive experience in finance and investments in both public and private companies. He is the Managing Partner of Cansbridge Capital Corp., a boutique venture investment firm based in Vancouver and Palo Alto, specializing in technology. Cansbridge was an early investor in nCompass Labs (acquired by Microsoft in 2000), Intrinsyc Software (TSX:ICS), Telos Technology (acquired by UTStarcom, NASDAQ: UTSI in 2004). William has a MBA and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
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