Team

The Kachingle Team is an eclectic mix of talented people from the United States, Germany and France.

Many of us previously worked together and most of us previously worked at Sun Microsystems.

• Cynthia, Fred, Andreas and Jens all previously worked at Sun Microsystems
• Andreas and Jens previously worked together at OpenGrid
• Cynthia and Yves previously worked together at GolfWeb

Cynthia Imig Typaldos

Chief Kachingler - Inventor & President

cynthia@kachingle.com Office: 408-867-8875 Mobile: 650-215-8406

Follow Cynthia on Twitter Read Cynthia's and Bunny's blog

Cynthia is a successful serial entrepreneur in social web endeavors. Her first internet venture was GolfWeb, which she co-founded despite not being a golfer. When it launched in early 1995, GolfWeb included reader reviews of golf courses and a find-a-playing-partner social networking service. GolfWeb became a major presence in the golf world and was acquired by CBS Sportsline in 1999. While at GolfWeb Cynthia envisioned and led the development of the GolfWeb Players Club, a subscription-based social application for golfers launched in August 1997. The Players Club had member profiles, a reputation system, integration with the golf course data base, and a sophisticated social application that allowed players to track their golf game statistics (in 20 different ways!) and compare themselves to others in groups.

Based on what she learned about social interaction at GolfWeb Cynthia founded RealCommunities, a way-too-early platform for social networking and online communities. Her 2001 manifesto on The 12 Principles of Civilization became a major white paper on defining the successful web features for online social interaction.

See also the article about the 12 Principles in Fast Company magazine, September 2000.

After doing some random consulting work in a variety of tech industries, and being one of the first people to predict the severe challenges to the content, software and media industries as a result of digitization and the internet, in 2004 she got the idea for what is now Kachingle. At the time she recognized that it was too early and set it aside until 2008 when she initially started prototyping what is now the revolutionary Kachingle usage-based micropayment platform.

Cynthia is a former director of product marketing & management, and director of standards at Sun Microsystems. She has taught courses in these subjects and online communities at the University of California Berkeley Extension. At Kachingle, she is particularly passionate about applying her knowledge and experience in creating de-facto standard platforms. Earlier in her career, she was a software developer at Bank of America.

Cynthia has a B.S. in chemistry from UC Berkeley, where she also attended graduate school in computer science, and an MBA from MIT.

Languages: American English, pathetic Spanish. Cynthia is a native Californian but has lived in Pasadena, Boston, Ivrea (Italy), Mount Vernon (MO), Panama and Silicon Valley.

Fred Dewey

Head Kachingler - CEO and Co-Founder

fred@kachingle.com

Fred is a veteran engineer, entrepreneur and executive who specializes in Engineering, Sales and Operations leadership. His favorite activity is building and leading great teams, such as the one here at Kachingle.

He has started and run several software companies, as well as worked for many successful large and small companies including Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Portal Software (now a division of Oracle), ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) and AT&T/Convergent Technologies. Prior to becoming CEO of Kachingle, he bought an internet marketing and fulfillment company out of bankruptcy, turned it around, and handed it off to his successor.

In the 1990s, Fred was the VP of Worldwide Technical Sales at Portal Software, where he started and led a global sales engineering force that grew to 110 sales consultants in 25 countries, taking the company from $5 million to $250 million in annual revenue in just six years. He is an angel investor and has been on the board of eight technology start-ups. He has served as an executive coach; and is a guest speaker several times each year at the University of Rochester Simon School and the RIT College of Engineering.

Languages: American English, some French. Originally from Rochester, NY.

Sharon Minsuk

In Silico Kachingler - Director of Software Engineering

Read Sharon's In Silico blog

Sharon has more than 20 years of computer science experience. Now in the third phase of her career, Sharon is an expert on JavaScript and web browser extensions. She leads Kachingle's engineering team while also still enjoying solving the hardest technical problems here at Kachingle. She also can be regularly found sharing her deep knowledge at Meetups around the Bay Area and Silicon Valley.

Sharon comes from the wild world of scientific research computing, where she developed educational software and clinical data analysis software, before launching into a second career as an academic research biologist, with particular interest in embryos and evolution and in simulating life in software.

Sharon's hobbies and interests include Aikido (2nd-degree black belt) and etymology.

Sharon has a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of California, Berkeley.

Languages: American English, passable German (lived two years in Vienna, Austria), some Spanish and French and Yiddish.

Paul Lefrois Jr.

Financial Kachingler - CFO

Paul is a results-oriented, multi-faceted finance executive with an outstanding fifteen-year track record of financial and operational accomplishments. His previous posts include Controller at a startup nanotechnology company which he helped to take public; Director of Finance for a startup stem cell research company and at three intellectual property incubator companies; and, co-founder and Vice President of Finance and Administration of a fulfillment provider.

Paul graduated from St. Bonaventure University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance. He was honored in 2008 by the Rochester Business Journal as a recipient of the prestigious Forty under 40 Award.

Andreas Junge

Ops Kachingler - CIO

Visit Andreas' website: N6NU

Concurrent with working at Kachingle, Andreas is VP of Engineering at Penguin Computing, which provides massively parallel and ultra fast servers for large website, scientific, military and petroleum industries. Previously he was an engineering manager at Sun Microsystems, and Director of Network Operations at OpenGrid. He is an expert at web, networking and database scalability and reliability. He is the architect and owner of Kachingle's computing infrastructure.

His hobbies include amateur radio and aviation (fixed wing and rotorcraft).

Andreas has degrees in Information Technology/Business and Administration from Staatliche Handelsschule City Norde University, Hamburg, Germany.

Languages: German (native speaker), American English. Originally from Lueneburg in Germany.

Rob Blackwelder

QA Kachingler - QA Engineer and Customer Support

Rob's expertise is in Quality Assurance and Customer Support. He contributed significantly in these fields at both Xoom.com and Wine.com, as well as several other websites and startups. He loves helping users to get past their frustration and be able to accomplish the mission they are on. He also loves to exhaustively test our code before we launch it. Rob has been instrumental in the delivery of our error-free site. You can often find him staying up all night, doing extra testing or chasing down something that looks wrong to him.

Rob's previous career was in film journalism. He spent 10 years self-syndicated film reviews and interviews to dozens of print, web and radio outlets.

Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Rob has lived in Oakland, California for 22 years and also works part-time as a freelance editor.

Frédéric Ranft

Designer Kachingler - Graphics/UI/UX Guru

Frédéric started designing webpages when he was 15 and all the cool kids had a website for their gaming clan and/or band. Since 2006 he has been studying communication design at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal (now Folkwang – Hochschule der Künste) with a focus on information architecture and interface design. While he feels slightly bad about still being in school 6 years later, he's just not yet capable of turning down interesting projects like three political campaigns, local open-data/government initiatives, working for the most enjoyable startup in the Silicon Valley or reading a good book. And he hopes that he never will. The clean and easy-to-use Kachingle website is credited to Frédéric.

Frédéric lives in Remscheid, Germany (near Cologne), and speaks German (native) and English (nearly native).

Daniel Reid

BizDev Kachingler - Director of Business Development

Daniel has more than 25 years of sales, marketing, business development and technology product experience. As VP of Marketing and Product Development, he was instrumental in the growth and sale of computational toxicology leader Health Designs to British scientific software firm Oxford Molecular Group. After that acquisition, he held positions in domestic and international sales and marketing at the firm, driving consistent growth in their worldwide revenue. Most recently, he is the Founder and co-owner of two very successful website development and marketing services firms. He has co-authored several peer-reviewed papers in the area of computational toxicology and software. He specializes in sales, e-business, branding, search engine optimization, go-to-market strategy, and e-marketing.

Daniel studied Mathematics at State University of New York at Buffalo. He is fluent in English, and holds his own very well when speaking Japanese.

Anika Erdmann

Cool Nerd Queen Kachingler - Social Media Marketing Manager

Anika leads our social media marketing and public relations team. She loves to find new ways to promote Kachingle via Facebook, Twitter, blogging, going to conferences and trade shows, giving interviews, and meeting new and influential people. She builds relationships with people she meets, where she goes.

Anika was born and raised in the north of Germany. Her strength lies in social interaction and inspiration - she tends to motivate those around her, and hopes to help develop a world where skills and qualifications are valued more than having friends in the right places, and where people are motivated to work not "because I get paid to do it," but "because I love to do it."

She is an experienced journalist and an Industrial Engineer by training, and has studied computer science, choir singing, and social work. Prior to coming to Kachingle, Anika worked in German national public radio and was editor of a German blog based in the Silicon Valley, among a number of other endeavors. She has lived in Germany, Netherlands and the United States, and is fluent in German, Dutch and English.

Kathy Voutyras

Artist Kachingler - Website Operations Manager

Kathy handles domain name management and Kachingle Anything requests. She worked in an administrative capacity for one of the nation's most progressive colleges, New College of California, prior to joining the Kachingle team. A long-term member of the New College community, she handled labor relations matters for the President's Office and was Director of Alumni Relations for the College from 2002 to 2008. She received a law degree from New College's public interest law school in 1982 and a Bachelor of General Studies from Ohio University in 1971. Kathy works as an artist in her free time and has exhibited her paintings, short films, and mixed media art that moves in SF Bay Area gallery shows.

Jens Horstmann

Grand Poohbah Kachingler - Chairman of the Board of Directors

Jens is a veteran entrepreneur, angel investor and trusted advisor. Up until several years ago, he was also the CEO of DVDplay until he sold it to NCR, at which time he became the VP of Entertainment Technology at NCR. Previously he worked in various executive and management positions at Sun Microsystems, LSI Logic, Siemens, OpenGrid, and Ensemble.

Jens hobbies include piloting his own plane, photography and travel.

He has a BS & MS in EECS, University of Brauschweig, Germany and Stanford University.

Languages: German (native speaker), American English. Originally from Braunschweig in Germany.

Yves Huin

Euro Kachingler - Director Kachingle Europe

yves@kachingle.com

Yves has deep international business development experience for U.S. and European companies in software, computer services, internet and communications. He also has expertise in business engineering and internet business models, international trade, and multi cultural project management.

He worked for many years for British Petroleum (BP) and has consulted for France Telecom, Oracle, NTT, EDF, Alstom, ABB, Siemens, Thomson, and the European Union. He has also served as a Foreign Trade Advisor for the French Government.

Yves currently spends about two-thirds of his time in Paris, and one-third in the U.S. He speaks English, French and Romanian. He earned a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Ecole Centrale Lyon, and a MBA from IAE Paris.

Bunny

K9 Kachingler

Read Bunny's blog

Bunny is a former stray puppy from rural Missouri. He is a one-of-a-kind mutt, and will stay that way since he was neutered at 4 months of age. He has a rodent obsession and particularly loves to read news about squirrels and their ilk.

Additional Team Members

Of course there are additional team members in the functional areas of engineering, operations, customer care, quality assurance, product marketing and management, and finance. If you wish to contact anyone else on the team please ask Cynthia or Fred.

You can reach any of us at firstname dot lastname at kachingle dot com. General contact information in contact section.