We are thrilled to announce Jeffrey White joining our growing Advisor Collective community. Jeff has a phenomenal track record as an innovator, disruptor, and investor who brings tremendous insights and experience to our mission building the next generation 3.0 advertising and media ecosystem.
CEO for disruptor companies. Co-founder of multitouch technology company, Fingerworks, acquired by Apple as the base foundation for iPhone & iPad. Focused on identifying and exploiting technology-driven opportunities that will drive significant disruption to mainstream industries. Proven track record across multiple industries including sensory and image-based technologies, Data Storage and mining, IoT, Bioscience, Machine Learning/AI, BI/Analytics, Big Data, Fintech, OTT TV, & Media content distribution for Live Video and Podcasting.
* Successful exits in 25 ventures
* Board director and advisor for emerging disruptor companies
* Managing Partner Trestle Ventures
* VP/General Manager Hewlett Packard
* Vice President Agilent Technologies
* Keynote speaker at Harvard Business School, Princeton, UPenn, Worcester
PolyTech Institute, University of Delaware, West Chester University, Early Stage East
Venture Conference, Angel Venture Fair, Ben Franklin Tech Partner Conference, NY Fashinvest
* Advisory Board member consulting Academic Institutions on the entrepreneurship
Jeff White has spent over 30 years building successful businesses spanning a broad range of industries and establishing himself as a successful executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He is currently involved with several early-stage companies as Chairman and or a director including Exist Live, a provider of live event promoter & organizer optimization software; and PodTV, a streaming TV video podcast content production and distribution company. and Media Analytics a market research & analytics company that focuses on tracking and analyzing TV Advertising. As a Managing Partner of Trestle Ventures, he has served as a board member and/or an advisor to Optionality, Vidgo, Scuba Analytics, Vizbee, Bring Music Home, ETI, Maverick, Vidgo, Clio, Weather Trends, Videolicious, Core Solutions, Wheelhouse Analytics, and Careerminds. He has also produced some of the most widely consumed podcasts including The Round Table, Dog in the Yard, and Our Thing. Additionally, he serves on the Academic Advisory board of his alma mater Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
He is a recognized leader and innovator across numerous companies and industries. He is most well-known for his role as the CEO and co-founder of Fingerworks, the “touch screen” technology provider that was acquired by Apple and became the foundation for Apple’s revolutionary iPhone. Mr. White spent the first 18 years of his career with Hewlett Packard in a variety of senior executive positions in Enterprise Computing as well as the Printer & Storage Groups eventually becoming Vice President and General Manager of the Life Science Services and Support Business which was spun out and taken public as Agilent Technologies. Mr. White later became President of NaPro Bio, he led efforts in Genetic Disease and its eventual sale. Mr. White has been instrumental in the early-stage development, capital financing and exits for more than 50 successful early-stage companies across a diverse set of industries including as AdTech, MarTech, Media & Entertainment, Consumer and Enterprise SaaS, Computing Hardware, AI, Big Data, Wireless, Mobile Apps, Biotech, Fintech, Gaming, Music & Entertainment Media, Healthcare and CPG.
He has been a guest lecturer at prestigious universities including Harvard Business School, University of Penn, Stanford, and Princeton, in addition to the University of Delaware, Worcester Polytech Institute, Stevens, & West Chester University as well as numerous Venture Capital Conferences on vision and strategy building successful technology-driven businesses and creating significant shareholder value. He and his companies has been featured in numerous publications including Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, and Time, the novels “The Innovators Dilemma”, “The Autobiography of Steve Jobs”, and “The One Device”. Mr. White holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a MBA from Northeastern University.
Jeff currently resides in West Chester, PA with his wife, and two French Bulldogs.
Why I joined the Collective:
I’ve known Peter Bordes for years. When he explained to me his vision for the future of digital media and the role Collective Audience would fill with an inclusive open “non-walled garden” audience orientation where technology provides value and opportunity for publishers, content creators, advertisers, and most importantly placing power back with the consumer, I instantly got it and could see the immense sea change that this philosophy would drive. My passion has always been how technology can be applied to solve massive problems and drive out inefficiencies in industries that lag in tech adoption.
The Future of the Industry:
About every 10 -15 years, industries experience stochastic shifts driven by either cultural, societal, regulatory change or technology innovation. The digital media and advertising world is in the midst of one today. Targeting consumers online with hyper-personalization of content and monetizing via advertising, has been the preeminent driver of the entire digital ecosystem for 15 years. What we have today is a $600B digital advertising industry where 80% of all dollars flow through one of the 4 proprietary walled garden platform providers, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. This creates a tremendous imbalance of revenue and control between brands, publishers and platform providers. A brand’s, or publisher’s audience data is the most valuable asset they own and they no longer want to continue to build audiences that get simply exploited by 3rd party search engines and walled garden platforms anytime the brand or publisher interacts with these providers.
The onslaught of privacy-based regulatory changes coupled with the foundational technical advancements occurring with AI, data mining and decision intelligence is providing a unique opportunity to rebalance this digital ecosystem and the brand advertisers and online publishers are not going to allow the status quo to continue. Publishers and brands know the value of their audiences and will not allow the leakage and exploitation of their constituent’s data which drains significant revenues out of their initiatives. Over the next several years, privacy-compliant ID’s will allow brands to follow their audience’s journey from one publisher to the next whether they’re reading the New York Times or watching Netflix, while simultaneously protecting their proprietary audience data. While initiatives such as edge computing, data clean rooms, AI, and real-time decision intelligence are being integrated to provide a level of data protection, consumer behavior insights will transform the open web.
Knowing what you know now what 3 to 5 things you would tell your younger self.
- Focus on external forces and competition versus internal ones.
- Make your peers successful and create a “pay it forward” philosophy
- Fail fast and learn from it.
- Surround yourself with people who have knowledge and capabilities that you don’t. Then learn from them versus letting them know how smart you are.
- Share your knowledge and the respect and opportunities will follow.
