Management Team

Val Katayev

Founder & CEO

Val Katayev is a digital pioneer and entrepreneur, who has created and led three successful start-up companies to hyper-growth. At just 30 years old, Mr. Katayev currently oversees a portfolio that reaches over 300 million consumers, centered around entertainment and music. Katayev is also at the forefront of applying centralized media platforms for marketers around search, data, mobile and digital media. He is also the creator of patent pending ToneTargeting. Focused specifically on the evolving music content space and meaningful consumer engagements, Katayev's most recent company is ToneMedia, launched in 2012. Reaching over 120 million visitors globally, and 55 million in the United States, ToneMedia is the leader in audience targeting and premium media distribution among music enthusiasts around the world.

Prior to ToneMedia, Val founded ToneFuse in 2009, which as CEO, he grew to become the world's largest ringtone marketing platform. Today ToneFuse supports over 60 countries and reaches over 250 million consumers every month. ToneFuse is also a leader in developing targeting technologies and media distribution channels for clients all over the world. The continued success and evolution of Katayev's proprietary technologies as well as Fortune 500 demand, led to the creation of ToneMedia, with offices now in NYC, Chicago, LA and its technology HQ in Manhasset, Long Island

Also in 2009, Val co-founded and established the early foundation for MobileFuse, one of the leading premium mobile ad networks, reaching 85% of mobile web users in the U.S. (Source: Nielsen). MobileFuse is led by CEO, Ken Harlan, with Katayev participating in an advisory role as a managing partner.

In 2001, Val founded Poise Media, an industry leader in performance and paid search marketing, while still attending college. Poise Media experienced rapid growth, managing over 800 brands, and quickly outpaced the market to become the top 3rd-party sales producer for multiple Fortune 500 companies. These clients included eBay's Half.com, VistaPrint, Rhapsody and Guthy Renker--for whom Poise generated well over $100 million in sales. In 2003, Val received the "Greatness" award from Commission Junction, and in 2007, he sat on Yahoo!'s Affiliate Advisory Board, helping Yahoo! shape its paid search policies.

Val began his entrepreneurial journey on the internet when at the age of 17 Val started PSX Extreme, a video game publication that quickly attracted over one million unique visitors per month and is still in operation today.

When not operating ToneMedia, Katayev invests and advises in technology start-ups and is active in various charitable causes with both financial and intellectual support.

Andrew L. Blacker

Chief Strategy Officer

Andrew L. Blacker has been an innovator in Media Marketing and Branded Entertainment for over 18 years. He most recently served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Research and Programming for Screenvision's Cinema and Digital Network(s) - reaching over 45M+ consumers each month. During this time, Mr. Blacker also served on the Board of Directors of the Cinema Advertising Council.

Prior to Screenvision, Mr. Blacker served as VP, Marketing and Strategy for Discovery Communications E-Commerce division. While in this position, Mr. Blacker managed all their marketing efforts for their national retail stores, as well as their digital and TV advertising campaigns & spots across the Discovery Broadcast Networks. Earlier, Mr. Blacker was Director of the AOL Networks Marketing and Strategy group. Mr. Blacker started at AOL as the Director of Creative Development & Consumer Strategy, where he created America Takes It Off, a partnership between AOL and Good Morning America in January 2006 - which was a first ever digital and TV broadcast partnership between the two media companies.

Prior to Mr. Blacker's work at AOL, he was the Vice President, Sales & Brand Marketing at start-up Ebrick.com. He also served as the Senior Director, Business Development, Sales and Marketing at start-up Sticky Networks Inc.

Right out of college, Andrew Blacker worked for Hearst New Media & Technology, where he helped develop HomeArts.com. Blacker went on to manage Infoseek Corporation's business development and media strategy in Silicon Valley & NYC from 1995-1999, including working directly for CEO Robin Johnson and through the sale process to Disney.

Andrew Blacker graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English at Cornell University. At Cornell, he received the Small Business & Enterprise Award in 1993. He is married to media innovator Elizabeth Sarachek, pioneer of Yahoo! En Espanol and Ad Age Woman to Watch 2004. Liz is currently the Chief Revenue Officer for Terra Networks. They live outside NYC with their four year old son.

Dan Barnett

VP, Technology

Dan's life has been full of passion and nearly 10 years of professional technical experience. At the age of 11, he began building websites to sell his baseball card collection. Only a few years later, he was already developing professionally and gaining experience monetizing his own websites. At the age of 17, Dan began working for Poise Media, a predecessor to ToneMedia. In addition to his love of all things technical, Dan understands the digital media space and has business experience in digital marketing as a publisher and in affiliate marketing.

A few of Dan's accomplishments include writing a text-based RPG with thousands of users at the age of 16, Android Apps with 2M+ installs, the creation of ClickFuse (ToneMedia's proprietary ad serving platform) from conception, and the creation of the ToneMedia's development team.

In the rare moments he isn't behind a keyboard, Dan can be found spending time with his wife and son, watching & playing sports, and keeping up with the latest movies & video games.

Kerry Trainor

Kerry Trainor is the Chief Executive Officer of Vimeo. In this capacity he is responsible for the strategy, oversight and development of Vimeo's business.

Mr. Trainor joins Vimeo from AOL, Inc. (Nasdaq: AOL) where he most recently served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Entertainment for the Huffington Post Media Group. In this position he oversaw AOL's portfolio of entertainment properties including AOL Music, AOL TV, Moviefone, Huffington Post Entertainment, Huffington Post Celebrity and Huffington Post Comedy.

Prior to AOL, Mr. Trainor was co-founder and CEO of FlipGloss Media, which was acquired by Forbes Media in 2009. FlipGloss Media enabled publishers and advertisers to create and distribute interactive, magazine-style photo packages to increase user engagement and ad performance. Prior to FlipGloss, Mr. Trainor was Head of Global Media Products for Yahoo! Music.

He began his Internet career at music startup LAUNCH.com which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2001.