Executive Biographies
Leadership Team
Symon Perriman
President & Founder
Jeff Sarvas
Vice President of Operations & Chief Counsel
T.J. Goltermann
Vice President of Engineering
Philip Garland, Ph.D.
Vice President of Data Science
Joel Ruiz
Vice President of Product
Petr Pelnar
Partner Developer Lead
Board of Directors
Symon Perriman
Chairman
Wesley Wright
Board Member
John Harris
Board Member
Advisors
Cliff Avril
Advisor, Athlete and Team Engagement
Thomas Clark
Advisor, Sales & Merchandise
Ben Godfrey
Advisor, Blockchain & Tokenization
Steve Goldman
Advisor, Strategic Planning
David Hankla
Advisor, Marketing & Public Relations
Bob Lehmeyer
Advisor, Hospitality
Randa Minkarah
Advisor, Data Analytics & Measurements
Steve Perriman
Advisor, Finance & Strategy
Steve Schwartz
Advisor, Athlete Engagement & Sports Marketing
Dave Shore
Advisor, Media & Sponsorships
Daniel Zucker
Advisor, Marketing & Strategic Communications
Leadership Team
Symon Perriman
President & Founder
Symon Perriman is FanWide’s President and Founder, and leads the company’s overall strategy and development. He is an internationally recognized business leader, industry expert, author, keynote presenter and technology personality, whose content is viewed by millions of technology professionals each year, across digital, print, online and social media.
He has held a variety of technical and business leadership roles, including VP of Business Development & Marketing (5nine Software), Chief Architect (ScorchCenter LLC), Senior Technical Evangelist (Microsoft), and Senior Program Manager (Microsoft). During his eight years at Microsoft, he supported multiple teams, including engineering, evangelism, technical marketing, product planning, and cloud computing. Symon has developed over a hundred websites and mobile applications, and established or managed business operations in over two dozen countries, across five continents.
Symon holds numerous technology patents and over two-dozen industry certifications and recognitions, including Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Certified Trainer, and VMware Certified Professional. In 2013 he co-authored "Introduction to System Center 2012 R2 for IT Professionals" (Microsoft Press), has contributed to five other technical books, along with hundreds of technical articles and webcasts. He graduated from Duke University with degrees in Computer Science, Economics, and Film & Digital Studies, and also serves as a technical advisor for several startups.
Symon is a passionate NFL and Duke basketball fan, and was inspired to start FanWide while attending agame watch partyhosted by the local alumni club. As a regular traveler, he has now used FanWide to find a local meet up in over 25 cities!
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Jeff Sarvas
Vice President of Operations & Chief Counsel
Jeff Sarvas is FanWide’s Vice President of Operations and oversees the company’s day-to-day operations, including business, finance, human resources and legal. He is a licensed and practicing attorney specializing in transactional law, administrative law, and civil litigation with a focus on civil rights and employment defense. He has worked extensively in matters regarding constitutional, whistle-blower, and discrimination issues.
He graduated from Duke University with a degree in Economics, and received his Juris Doctor from Wake Forest University School of Law. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, he is a lifelong Steelers fan.
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T.J. Goltermann
Vice President of Engineering
T.J. Goltermann is FanWide’s VP of Engineering, and leads technical development. He has been a Lead Test Developer (Microsoft), Development and QA Manager (Amazon) and Technical Program Manager (Google). His experience of working with backend systems includes Windows Server/.NET Transactions and Workflow, Kindle content and delivery services, and Google’s Cloud Platform.
T.J. graduated from Duke University with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, received his MS in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, and then returned to Duke for his MBA at the Fuqua School of Business.
Outside of work, he supports every team from his hometown, Saint Louis, and he also likes to travel.
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Philip Garland, Ph.D.
Vice President of Data Science
Philip Garland, Ph.D. is Vice President of Data Science at FanWide. Prior to joining FanWide, Philip was Vice President of Methodology at SurveyMonkey where he informed product design to ensure that the company’s products produce optimal data quality. He architected a survey sampling product that yielded a double digit percentage increase in top line revenue. He spearheaded companywide survey training as the company grew from thirty to more than four hundred during his tenure. He also hired and led a team of researchers to correctly predict the outcome of the 2012 presidential election in forty-eight of fifty states and Washington D.C., using SurveyMonkey site traffic, which led to a partnership with NBC News in the 2016 cycle. Philip identified and initiated SurveyMonkey’s first acquisition and partnered with UC Berkeley and Stanford scholars to patent a method for detecting bogus survey responding.
Prior to SurveyMonkey, Philip was Knowledge/Chief Methodologist at Survey Sampling International (SSI). At SSI, he created new sampling policies that saved the firm more than twenty percent of its survey incentive costs while increasing response rates.
Philip has published several papers in academic journals and two book chapters in the areas of public opinion, Internet marketing, media coverage of political affairs, and intergroup relations.
Philip holds a Ph.D. in Communication and an MA in Political Science from Stanford University, as well as an MA in Communication and a BA in Political Science/Communication from the University of Washington.
Philip is also an avid basketball player and golfer.
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Joel Ruiz
Vice President of Product
Joel Ruiz is FanWide’s Vice President of Product. Joel was born and raised in Chiapas, Mexico. He emigrated to the USA to attend college. He has a degree in computer engineeringfrom the University of Utah. He spent 10+ years working in the tech industry with companies like Novell, Microsoft and T-Mobile. Joel’s most recent role was a Senior Product Manager for IT marketing at T-Mobile.
He is still an active soccer player and a bigger soccer fan, whether supporting the Seattle Sounders or screaming at a Barcelona game - his passion knows no limits.
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Petr Pelnar
Partner Developer Lead
Petr is the Partner Developer Lead at FanWide and has been responsible for building FanWide’s web platform from its inception, focusing on its architecture and cloud services, and leading the development team.Prior to FanWide, he worked as a software developer, architect and development lead at various companies, as well as freelancing. He has specialized in the Microsoft stack, and is a leading expert inASP.NET, SQL Server and Azure.
Petr studied biomedical engineering and cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague and learned computer science when he was 12 years old. Petr is married with two children.Outside of work, he likes running and plays guitar in a local rock band.His favorite sports memory was when the Czech ice hockey team won the Nagano Olympics in 1998.
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Board of Directors
Symon Perriman
Chairman
Please refer to the biography above.
Wesley Wright
Board Member
Wesley advises FanWide regarding company’s overall revenue growth methodology and development.He has over eight years of direct involvement within the ITindustryas a Principal, Project Manager, and IT Sales Professional.
Wesleyplans strategic objectives that align with FanWide's corporatevision.
Wesley graduated from University of Oregonwith degrees in Mathematics and Business Administration. In addition to being a passionate sports fan, his other interests include music, snowboarding, traveling, and fitness.
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John Harris
Board Member
John is a strategic visionary who has been featured, in business news stories, on CNN, ABC’s This Week, Business Week, and The Dallas Morning News. John has held roles in Product Marketing and Business Development, at Hewlett Packard, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Veeam, and Connection and was co-founder of ScorchCenter with Symon Perriman. John holds a Bachelor’s of Science, in Information Systems, and Masters of Business Administration from the University of Texas.
Outside of work, John lives with his wife and two daughters, in Austin, Texas and is a Scuba Instructor and periodically captains sailboats, in the Virgin Islands.
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Advisors
Cliff Avril
Advisor, Athlete and Team Engagement
Cliff Avril is a former professional athlete from the National Football League (NFL), having recently retired from the Seattle Seahawks after being one of their defensive line stars since 2013, and helping them win Super Bowl XLVIII. In 2016, Cliff was named to the Pro Bowl and considered one of the best players in the league through 2017. Prior to the Seahawks, Cliff played for the Detroit Lions from 2008, after a standout career at Purdue University.
He is currently a daily on-air host for Seattle Sports Radio 950 KJR and runs the Cliff Avril Family Foundation, a charity promoting healthy living, and providing educational opportunities to the young people of Haiti. Cliff was nominated for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Awardin 2016 after winning the Seahawks Man of the Year. This prestigious award recognizes an NFL player for his excellence on and off the field, and for making a significant positive impact in the community.
Cliff joins FanWide as its first athlete brand ambassador, an investor, and an advisor. With his influence throughout the NFL and sports media, Cliff will help the company engage other athletes, pro teams and leagues, colleges and conferences.
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Thomas Clark
Advisor, Sales & Merchandise
Thomas turned a sports autograph hobby he started in 1992 into a business in 2003. Since Thomas started out as a collector first, he is in tune with his customers and know what they want and how to deliver excellent products to boost their personal collections. Thomas founded and launchedPlanetSignatures.comin 2013. His is also a consultant for a major 3rd party authentication company. Thomas has conducted private and public autograph signings with both current football stars and legends all over the country. He also has store fronts on major ecommerce sites like eBay, Amazon, and Sears Marketplace.
Ben Godfrey
Advisor, Blockchain & Tokenization
Ben Godfrey is the Founder and General Partner at SportVEST, a tokenized sports Venture Capital Fund on the blockchain. SportVEST focuses in detailed analysis and investment into sports companies at the intersection of blockchain, post-seed to pre-Series A and is committed to creating sports as a new asset class. With over twenty years ofexperience in global banking, finance and investments, Ben has worked for some of the world’s leading financial institutions including; HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Credit Agricole managing in excess of $1 billion of institutional money. A serial entrepreneur and angel investor, he has built a startup from concept through to exit and understands the hurdles business owners face. An expert in fund portfolio construction, asset selection and strategy, he believes blockchain will heavily disrupt many sectors within the sports ecosystem in the coming years through technology and tokenization. Extremely knowledgeable in multiple areas of sports, an early adopter of tokenization, blockchain and a crypto investor. Ben also acts as an advisor, speaker and mentor.
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Steve Goldman
Advisor, Strategic Planning
Steve is an experienced tech industry executive with a track record of rapidly growing early stage companies to market leadership. As the CEO and founder of Korrio, he spent seven years leading this SaaS-based company transforming the youth sports experience for millions of participants by making it easy to organize, share and communicate. Korrio was sold to TeamSnap in 2017. Prior to Korrio, he spent four years as the CEO of Isilon Systems, the leader in clustered storage systems, and executed one of the most successful IPOs in 2006 with a market capitalization in excess of $1 billion. Isilon was sold to EMC in 2010 for $2.25 billion. From 1997 - 2003, Steve was the Sr. VP, Sales and Services, at F5 Networks (FFIV), the leader in network traffic management, and helped F5 execute one of the strongest IPOs in 1999 with a market capitalization in excess of $1 billion. Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
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David Hankla
Advisor, Marketing & Public Relations
David is a serial entrepreneur, investor, inventor, and start-up advisor with 15 years of experience and 6 companies to his name to date. David previously served as a founder and producer of AGA Entertainment, a founder and CMO of Black Emoji, LLC, and was a founding partner in HH Ventures, a private VC.
Most recently he served as the CEO and Founder of Backpack Enterprises, LLC, a company that helped students in need afford school through aggregation and progressive matching of private financial aid, which recently sold after connecting students to over $3.2 million in funding during testing alone.
David currently serves as an advisor to mllnnl, JSwipe, Haystack, Permitting Partners, and WarmonKielson Real Estate, and works as a board member for the Christine Macken Memorial Fund, which raises money for research into Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy. A triple major graduate of Duke University, David first began working at Cosmopolitan Magazine as a movie critic at the age of 12 and built his first business by the age of 16. He is a designer and co-owner of the AIDI video streaming interactivity patent and is proud to serve as an advisor to FanWide.
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Bob Lehmeyer
Advisor, Hospitality
Bob Lehmeyer is a native of the Wayzata, Minnesota, and moved to San Diego in 1989. He is a highly successful entrepreneur and has extensive experience in business, management and commercial/residential Real Estate. His ownership of Food/Beverage/Entertainment concepts includes the Axis Martini Bar and Restaurant in Del Mar and the Trophy’s Sports Grill in San Diego. National concepts Entertainment venues include Planet Hollywood International – San Diego, San Francisco, and Beverly Hills, California to Dave and Busters – Irvine and San Diego.
As the manager of Dave and Busters in San Diego, Bob produced sales of over $500,000 per week in Food/Beverage/Entertainment (games) or “Eatertainment.” Bob’s time with Planet Hollywood brings a unique blend of high volume sales both F&B, but also Retail and large scale special events. Planet Hollywood was heavy on media events, high profile client visits and name/logo branding.
Bob is active in many charities. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Oxford Preparatory Academy, a Public Charter School. The San Diego Blood Bank is dear to Bob’s heart; he is a regular donor, and he been on the steering committee and manages events to increase donors and the times they donate per year.
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Randa Minkarah
Advisor, Data Analytics & Measurements
Ms. Minkarah is a dynamic and strategic executive with a career spanning over 15 years of driving transformation within the advertising and media industries. With an extensive background in sales, management, business and product development, Ms. Minkarah has successfully led strategic planning, budgeting, operations, developing new revenue streams and executing upon multiplatform initiatives for both traditional and digital media properties.
Ms. Minkarah is co-founder and COO at Transform Inc., a Seattle area startup, that uses big data and predictive analytics to ignite revenue growth for media, entertainment and brands. Transform’s Media Data Platform applies data science to deliver actionable insights from the intersection of content, marketing and audience. Ms. Minkarah is responsible for Transform’s sales, marketing and finance.
Prior to Transform, Ms. Minkarah served as Senior Vice President of Revenue and Business Development for Fisher Communications (FSCI), Inc., an integrated media company, until its sale in 2013 where she had corporate responsibility for all revenues at Fisher television, radio and Internet properties and was responsible for developing and implementing its digital strategy including launching mobile applications and mobile viewing apps.
Ms. Minkarah is active as a speaker at conferences, advisor to multiple media/technology companies, and as an investor in emerging companies. She serves on the board of the Girl Scouts of Western Washington as its Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee, as well as board member at large for TheFilmSchool, Seattle. She earned a BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music in Broadcasting.
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Steve Perriman
Advisor, Finance & Strategy
Steve has forty years of leadership, capital raising, advisory, business and decision-making experience, across a range of industries and professions. He has substantial entrepreneurial involvement within the logistics industry, and an extensive knowledge of the detail and inter-dependency of operations, finance, sales and marketing, HR, compliance, and legal issues.
Steve served asa British Military Officer for eleven years before moving into International Finance. He worked at a number of global financial institutions, advising and raising capital for many international projects, leaving the industry as Managing Director of J.P Morgan Investment Banking, Emerging Technologies. He was then recruited as the COO of two tech start-up companies, after which he acquired his own asset-based logistics company which has operations throughout the southeastern United States.
Steve played competitive Rugby for many years, though these days he enjoys watching the NFL and other contact sports as a spectator.
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Steve Schwartz
Advisor, Athlete Engagement & Sports Marketing
Steve is a sports marketing professional whose been working with sports entities since 1999. Beginning with his time at Pepsi-Cola, Steve’s corporate experience at DISH Network, FOX and DIRECTV all included sports marketing roles. Specializing in branding, endorsements and business development, Steve launched Sports Marketing Partners (SMP) to help professional athletes, teams and brands with their marketing, endorsements and sponsorship activations. He attended Southern Methodist University for undergraduate studies and the University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business earning his MBA. In the past year, Steve has founded the Seattle Sports Venture Group, a private network of Seattle-based sports business executives. In addition, Steve recently became part-owner in a Seattle-based, professional eSports team. To capitalize on a growing trend in endorsements, Steve recently launched ProInfluence, an agency that helps start-up companies partner with professional athletes.