Representative Experiences

Select full-time work that has helped Steve develop his Alder toolkit includes:

  • ​Account Management: directly managed relationships with, and built programs for, iChat's top enterprise customers.
  • Alliances: structured and ran consulting, product and industry partner program worth $15M+/year for Motive.
  • Channels: initiated, closed and drove $20M+ three year OEM deal for Motive. 
  • Corporate Development: led acquisition of CoveritLive, participated in sale of Pluck, led spinout/asset transfer of YouEarnedIt, outsourced buy side work for Spiceworks.
  • Culture: worked with management team to define mission, purpose, vision and values at Sustainable Food Center.
  • Financials:  beat revenue (103% - 122%) and earnings (129% - 167%) targets all four years as SVP & GM at Demand Media. Transitioned from losing money to deliver 50%+ operating margins for last two years. Acted as CFO of YouEarnedIt closing asset transfer and $1.25M seed financing event. 
  • International: setup and oversaw international operations for Pluck and CoveritLive. Lived in London and helped Motive EMEA team book $50M+. Lived and studied in Barcelona at IESE (Economist's #1 ranked business school).
  • Investments: led the Demand Media investment in CoveritLive; select angel investments include Banter, Joust, Brewbot, Experiment Engine and Pivot Freight.
  • Leadership: managed 9 direct reports and ~85 employees as SVP & GM at Demand Media. Coached teams during times good (wins, IPOs, hiring waves, etc.) and tough (reprioritizations, market downturns, mergers, shifts, product shut-downs, etc.). 
  • Marketing: extended messaging and positioning hierarcy for Motive telco, oversaw marketing budget and mix for Demand Media Business Solutions Group.
  • Pivots: during first wave helped take Pluck from B2C RSS reader to B2B2C SaaS platform; then during second wave shifted Pluck from publisher market to retail market focus.
  • Pricing: defined CoveritLive ($10+/month SaaS), Content Channels (PPC/CPM/License by market), Motive ($1M+ telco ASP), Pluck ($10K MRR), Koupon Media (tiered and transparent enterprise SaaS) and other price models.
  • Product: early career in product management (NetRatings & iChat), oversaw packaged software, premise-based, ASP and Cloud models. Managed head of engineering, CTO and product direct reports (CoveritLive, Pluck, YouEarnedIt). 
  • Sales: oversaw 12 Sales Directors and booked first $30M+ for integrated social platform Pluck. Was #1 individual revenue producer during first sales role out of college (Unix services company Pencom).​

For insights on project work, please visit our Clients section. 
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