Corporate Governance

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.

Matthew Pierce was the Founder of Versus LLC and joined our company as Chief Executive Officer and a director in 2016. Mr. Pierce has over 20 years of experience working in entertainment and technology. Prior to founding Versus Systems, Mr. Pierce founded in June 2014 and was until June 2016 the chief executive officer of OLabs, LLC, a technology incubator that founded Versus. From April 2011 to June 2014, Mr. Pierce was Vice President of Strategy at Originate Inc., a business incubator where he worked with early-stage technology companies. Since 2014, Mr. Pierce has been a Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, Anderson School of Management and in the Economics department at UCLA, where he teaches entrepreneurship. Mr. Pierce is a graduate of Stanford University and earned his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Brian Tingle joined our Company as a director in 2016. 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. In April 1996, Mr. Tingle founded and has since been serving as the President of Tingle Resource Management, a consulting firm which specializes in advising board members in capital markets and finance. Since January 2017, Mr. Tingle has been serving as a director at Cellstop Systems, a Canadian cell company involved in mining. From 2011 to December 2018, he also served as a director at Torch River Farms, a private company that owned and operated farmland in Canada. Mr. Tingle graduated from University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Finance and a minor in Accounting.

Michelle Gahagan joined our company as a director in 2016. Since May 2006, Ms. Gahagan has been serving as the Managing Director of Intrepid Financial, a privately-held merchant bank based in Vancouver, British Columbia and London, England. In August 2014, Ms. Gahagan founded and has since been serving as a director of France Bike Rentals, a large bike rental business with over 500 rental bikes and over 2,500 annual reservations. Since January 2018, Ms. Gahagan has been serving as the Board Chair of Canadian Palladium Resources, an exploration company specializing in palladium and cobalt projects. From February 2016 to June 2018, she also served as a director at US Cobalt Inc., a Canadian-based company focused on the exploration of cobalt assets in the Idaho cobalt belt. 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.

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.

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.

Paul Vlasic joined our Company as a director in 2016. Mr. Vlasic currently serves as Chairman at the Vlasic Group, a family office with diversified holdings. He has been involved there since August 1986 and participates in all asset allocation, investment decisions and long-term strategic planning. He is a Founding Partner at RSVP Ventures and has been working there since March 2008. RSVP Ventures specializes in investing in early stage businesses supporting entrepreneurs and their ideas, turning them into market-leading companies. He also founded Amplifinity, LLC in February 2009 and served as the CEO and Chairman of the board of directors until its sale in August 2019. Amplifinity provided its clients a software-as-a-service solution that permitted them to efficiently launch and manage marketing campaigns to generate referrals, reviews, and testimonials at scale, capturing leads and tracking the performance of those leads within CRM platforms. Mr. Vlasic serves as Chairman of four craft spirit brands, Papa’s Pilar Rum, Suerte Tequila, Treaty Oak Whiskey, and Waterloo Gin. Mr. Vlasic also serves on multiple boards within the Henry Ford Health System and is the past Chairman of the University of Michigan College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship. He is a graduate of Rollins College and earned his MBA with Distinction from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.