Management Team
Management Team
Dweebs.
Anne Dwane \\ ceo
Anne passionately applies technology to improve access to education and career opportunities. In 1999, Anne co-founded Military.com to connect service members and veterans to their benefits, including GI Bill, tuition assistance and career networking. Today, Military.com has over 10 million members and serves as the military community's largest social and professional network. Military.com was acquired by Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) in 2004. At Monster, Anne led several businesses as General Manager, Affinity Networks. Previously, Anne was in business development at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation in Silicon Valley. Prior, Anne managed consumer research projects at Nabisco then transitioned to brand management.
Anne holds a bachelors degree in Marketing and International Management from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She is a member of the 2010 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute. Anne is co-author of Getting In: The Zinch Guide to College Admissions & Financial Aid in the Digital Age published by Wiley, 2011.
Tom Melcher \\ vp global product & partnerships \\ chairman of Zinch China
Tom is a serial Internet entrepreneur with blue-chip business experience and deep background in China dating back to 1982. A champion of access to higher education, Tom is the author of the "Guide to American Undergraduate Education", the best-selling book in China on that topic. Prior to Zinch, Tom co-founded a Beijing-based B2C internet media company that was acquired by Global Sources (NASD: GSOL) in 2007. Previously, Tom built high tech businesses in Silicon Valley as the CEO of There, Inc., the Executive Vice President of Strategic Development at CNET, the Senior Vice President of Snap.com/NBCi, the VP Business Development at NetObjects, the COO and CTO for 24 Hours in Cyberspace, and the Business Development Director for daVinci Time & Space.
Earlier in his career, Tom worked for McKinsey & Company in their San Francisco, Copenhagen and Washington, DC offices. He also worked for IBM in Beijing. Melcher was a Baker Scholar at the Harvard Business School and received his BA in political science from Yale University. He speaks Chinese fluently.
Sid Krommenhoek \\ founder\global biz dev
Sid has history of competing on winning teams and forging rewarding relationships. Sid began his college pursuits at the University of Utah, where he performed at the top of his class and was part of an undefeated WAC conference championship basketball team that advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. He then spent two years in Taichung, Taiwan and Macau, China on a volunteer mission, becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese and serving in leadership roles in both countries. Upon return to the states, he transferred to Brigham Young University and, before graduation, started two successful businesses. Traveling back and forth from Detroit, Michigan and Provo, Utah, to attend classes and run his business, he finally graduated with a bachelors degree in business administration. He has continued as a successful entrepreneur, most recently founding Zinch.com.
During his time in China and Detroit, Sid has mentored friends on the college application and admission process at the graduate and undergraduate level. Sid is a champion for those facing socio-economic and cultural challenges.
Nathaniel Hancock \\ vp of college relations
Nathaniel leads and manages the sales team that creates and builds relationships with colleges and universities at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is a tremendous team builder and sales leader as well as a frequent speaker at industry events nationwide. He brings years of client relationships and respect and has been with Zinch since inception.
Cache Merrill \\ chief technology officer
Cache has tremendous experience building teams, creating compelling user experiences, scaling operations, and leading software development. He has been with Zinch since inception, evolving the team and offerings to better serve students, colleges and universities. Prior to Zinch, he was a Development Manager at ACS Technologies and a Lead Developer at Investools and a Software Engineer at Insite Events.
Chris McCarthy \\ sr. dir of marketing & biz dev
Chris joined Zinch in 2009 while earning his MBA at the Harvard Business School, where he studied strategy and entrepreneurial management. Prior to business school, Chris was a Senior Consultant with The Palladium Group, where he worked across a wide range of industries advising companies on strategy execution. He has also founded two successful small businesses.
A long-time Bostonian, Chris recently relocated to San Francisco where he lives with his wife Jaime and Labrador Retriever Tiki. He also holds a Bachelors Degree in Management, summa cum laude, from Northeastern University.
Matthew Purdon \\ director, user engagement
Matthew Purdon has 15+ years of expertise in team leadership, product strategy, experience design and web development. Prior to Zinch, he was on the founding team of Crowdtap, an innovative social media marketing platform. As VP of Product for Crowdtap, he oversaw product strategy, user experience, member marketing and community management. Prior to joining Crowdtap, Matthew was Director of Product & UX for Piczo, a tween social network with 12+ MM monthly uniques. At Piczo, he led product strategy to double Piczo’s US uniques in 6 months and launched a new subscription revenue service. He also built and led the UX team for Hi5.com where he initiated their internationalization strategy and grew the product from 18 to 24 million uniques.
Earlier in his career, Matthew was the development manager for Marketwatch.com
Brian Rosenblat \\ product
Brian combines business acumen with a strong software development background. Prior to Zinch, Brian was a Director of Product at MoneyAisle.com where he was responsible for user experience, site monetization, analytics, and customer acquisition. Previously, Brian was a Strategic Marketing Manager at Endeca, where he led the go-to-market strategy for Online Retail, Endeca's highest revenue vertical. Prior to this, Brian was a senior software engineer at Sapient, where he developed Internet solutions for both early-stage and Fortune 500 companies.
Brian has an MBA from UC Berkeley, where he was a Mayfield Fellow, and holds dual undergraduate degrees from Yale in computer science and economics.
Founders Emeritus
Mick Hagen \\ founder\product
Mick dropped out of Princeton after his freshman year to start Zinch. The first website Mick ever created was in the 6th grade...on Geocities. It was called "Mick's Pimpological Biosphere" and it featured stick figure deaths (.gif images), Yo Momma jokes and breakdancing instructions.
In high school Mick won the Utah State Sterling Scholar Award in Computer Science and also Overall (both awards given to only one student in the state). Mick also captained the varsity basketball and chess teams (in which he was all-state in both), served as editor-in-chief of his school newspaper, and was the President/Founder of the Computer Club.
Brad Hagen \\ founder\sales
Brad is currently an undergrad at Brigham Young University pursuing a bachelors in Communications with an emphasis in advertising and marketing. He sits on the board of a Brighter Life Foundation, Inc. (a non-profit helping minorities prepare for college). He has served in various leadership positions including President of HKK Marketing and executive director for BYU's student government.