Management Bios

Robin D. Richards

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Richards is a proven successful entrepreneur and visionary strategist and a co-founder of the company. He sets the corporate goals and leads the development of business and market strategies. Previously, his leadership has led Blackboard Connect (formerly The NTI Group) to be the number one provider of hosted, time-sensitive mass notification services focused on assisting government and civil leaders to communicate quickly and efficiently with their constituents using multi-modal technologies.

Honored as a Readers' Favorite in Inc. Magazine's 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Mr. Richards has also received Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award and the LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association) Award for Best M&A. He is a member of several boards, including LASEC (Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission), University of Southern California Marshall School of Business – Board of Leaders and Ad.ly.

Prior to forming The NTI Group Inc., he served as the CEO of Vivendi Universal Net USA, an entity created to oversee the U.S. Internet-related companies owned by Vivendi Universal. Mr. Richards was also the founding president and chief operating officer as well as a director of MP3.com, Inc., the Internet's first and preeminent digital music provider that had the largest IPO for an independent Internet company at that time. He was the lead negotiator in the sale of MP3.com to Vivendi Universal.

Previous to MP3.com, Mr. Richards served as managing director of Tickets.com, Inc., an Internet ticketing service company that was sold to Advantix. He was the founder, president, and CEO of Lexi International, the largest tele-services and database management company in the United States by mid-1991 and appeared twice on the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies list. The company was successfully sold to Thayer Capital.

Mr. Richards currently serves as president of the Chase Foundation.

Mr. Richards holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University and attended Whittier College School of Law.

Paul L.H. Ouyang

Co–Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Ouyang is a co-founder and responsible for the overall execution of corporate strategies and operations including finance, technology, client services, marketing, legal and general administration.

Mr. Ouyang successfully built several start-up ventures into high growth companies that either went public or were sold to strategic partners. He has been directly involved with over $15 billion of strategic and financial transactions.

Previously, Mr. Ouyang was the co-founder, President and COO of The NTI Group, Inc., the premier SaaS based time sensitive mass notification system that was later sold to Blackboard, Inc. in 2008. Prior, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi Universal Net USA, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal in online entertainment, and also served as its Chief Operating Officer. As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of MP3.com, Inc., Mr. Ouyang played a key role in the sale of MP3.com to Vivendi Universal after orchestrating what was, at the time, the largest initial public offering for an independent Internet company. Mr. Ouyang has also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Tickets.com, Inc. that was acquired by Advantix and held a similar position at Cheap Tickets Inc. He was a Managing Director of Corporate Finance at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP and a Vice President in Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan & Co.

Mr. Ouyang is currently a director of Huntington Hospital, FastSoft, Inc., Bluebeam Software, Inc., Internships Corporation and a trustee of the Collis P. and Howard Huntington Memorial Trust. Previously, he was a director of the NTI group, VU Net USA, Southern California Healthcare Systems, SeeUthere.com, and a trustee of the Chandler School. He also gives talks on entrepreneurism at Caltech and other institutions.

He received his Master of Business Administration in Finance and a General Electric Fellowship from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Amherst College.

Colleen Sabatino

Chief Content Officer

Ms. Sabatino is responsible for the development of best practices training and educational content for the company’s clients and users. She is a leader in the career development industry where she is a senior consultant for corporations, colleges and universities, and career management firms. She served most recently as the CEO of CareerBeam, LLC, an enterprise that provides a virtual career center adopted by numerous corporations, business schools and universities in the U.S. and abroad. Her clients include Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Georgetown, and Notre Dame among 100 other universities.

As a Nationally Certified Career Counselor and Professional Resume Writer, Ms. Sabatino has received numerous awards from national organizations, including the Small Business Administration and Business & Professional Women. Her articles and commentary have been published in The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Competitive Edge Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, Atlanta Woman Magazine, and on Monster.com. She has been a guest speaker on dozens of radio shows and at The Executive MBA Conference, MBA Career Services Council and numerous national, regional and state career development associations. She conducts corporate career management programs for clients including Bellsouth, Cox Communications, and the Veteran’s Administration.

Ms. Sabatino is the author of The Play of Your Life. She was also the President of Advanced Career Development Incorporated and served as the Director of Career Services for Jewish Family Services. Previous to these positions, she was Associate Director of Career Services at Rice University, and served as a Career Counselor at Vanderbilt University.

Colleen earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Human & Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University. She has also completed coursework towards a PhD in Organizational Counseling at Johns Hopkins University.

Mike Wang

Vice President of Finance

With over 20 years of experience in the Finance, Strategic Planning and Accounting arena, Mr. Wang is currently responsible for all finance functions in the company.

Prior to joining the company, Mr. Wang oversaw all financial, human resources, and administrative functions for MeziMedia, a start-up company in the on-line shopping and deals space.  He was part of the executive leadership team that was responsible for the sale of MeziMedia to ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) in 2007 and stayed on in a senior operational role subsequent to the sale.  

In addition, Mr. Wang has worked in a financial and analytical capacity in a variety of industries, including such Fortune 500/multi-national Companies as Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), PPG (NYSE:PPG), and Nestle (OTC: NSRGY.PK).  He began his professional career at Price Waterhouse Coopers where he earned his CPA.

Mr. Wang holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics-Accounting-Psychology from Claremont McKenna College.

Travlin McCormack

Chief Technology Officer

As the Chief Technology Officer of the company, Mr. McCormack is responsible for overseeing all technical aspects of the organization, including product development, infrastructure management, system integrations, and vendor selection and management .

Immediately prior to joining the company, Mr. McCormack was the CTO of Slingshot Labs, the NewsCorp’s Web 2.0 incubator. He oversaw the creation of Web sites ranging from celebrity gossip to events invitation to dating. These were all built with a focus on creating reusable technology to be leveraged across the incubator.

Previous to Slingshot, he held multiple management positions in technology for Fortune 500 companies, government offices, mid-sized organizations and fledgling startups. He has built and led development teams working both domestically and abroad in India, and Russia, for companies such as AIG, MySpace, Maersk /SeaLand, Korn/Ferry and San Diego County.

Mr. McCormack has experience leading teams utilizing multiple development platforms including .Net, LAMP and Java. He has overseen departments and personnel implementing solutions using technologies such as MS SQLServer, MySQL, Oracle, NetApp, 3Par, EMC, Akamai, Citrix, F5, and Siebel.

Mr. McCormack earned a Bachelor of Science at San Diego State University, with dual concentrations in Information Technology and Sociology.

Mason Gates

Founder of InternDirect LLC

Mr. Gates founded InternDirect LLC that was the original entity behind internships.com before it was acquired by the company. He works closely with the CEO and CRO and other senior executives to develop new business opportunities based on his extensive network and knowledge of colleges and universities. He is an award-winning entrepreneur with deep experience in educational technologies, innovative business designs and trend analysis. Mr. Gates has been a part of successful management teams at Campus Voice, JobDirect.com and internships.com. At these high growth organizations, he conceived and deployed nationally-recognized marketing and technology solutions that have uniquely and innovatively left their marks on the national business landscape.

Mr. Gates is currently on the President's Advisory Council of Radford University and the Advisory Board of Radford University’s College of Business and Economics. He is a past Board member of the Richmond (Va.) Venture Forum. He is a graduate of Radford University with a B.B.A. in Marketing.