Management Team
Kelly Conlin
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Kelly Conlin has been at the intersection of content, technology and media for more than twenty years, having been CEO of a billion dollar private media company, a billion dollar public media company and, at NameMedia, a high-growth, venture-backed online media company.
Mr. Conlin began his career at CNN, where he was the Chief Assignment Editor in New York during the network’s start-up era. At The New York Times, he worked on the editorial side of the company’s newspaper and on the business side of the company’s magazine group. In 1995 he was named President of IDG, which he had joined in 1989, and added the CEO title in 1999. IDG is the world’s leading technology media company, with more than 500 targeted publications, websites, subscription research services and events in more than 85 countries. In 2003, he joined Primedia as President and CEO. Primedia is the country’s leading special interest media company, with more than 100 brands operating through print, online, event and video platforms.
He was named by Media Industry Magazine as one of the Top 5 executives in the business publishing field and to its annual list of the Top 21 media innovators; Business Week has named him to its list of the Top 25 “Next Generation” media executives.
He is a magna cum laude graduate of Carleton College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.
Jeffrey S. Bennett
President and Chief Operating Officer
Jeff Bennett, a leader in the digital economy for more than ten years, led the effort with Highland Capital and Summit Partners to acquire BuyDomains and develop the YesDirect Network that is the foundation of NameMedia. Today, Mr. Bennett oversees the day-to-day business operations for the company.
Prior to joining NameMedia, Mr. Bennett served in several executive roles at Terra-Lycos and Lycos, including Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Vice President and General Manager of E-Commerce. Mr. Bennett founded the Lycos E-Commerce business and led this business unit to extraordinary growth that included establishing a 1,000 merchant marketplace in six months and growing annual revenue to over $100 million in just two years. Mr. Bennett was also the architect of several strategic acquisitions and alliances during his tenure, establishing joint ventures for Lycos across the world and served on the Board of Directors for Lycos Europe and Sympatico-Lycos.
Prior to joining Lycos, Mr. Bennett held various business development and sales management roles at SunGard Financial, DST Systems and Wang. Mr. Bennett has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Bentley College, focusing on the intersection of the Internet and E-Commerce for emerging businesses.
Mr. Bennett earned a B.S., cum laude, from Bentley College. Mr. Bennett serves on the Business Advisory Group at Bentley and is involved with numerous charitable organizations in the Boston area.
Vincent Chippari
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Vincent Chippari oversees the company’s financial planning, mergers and acquisitions, legal, and compliance and asset management functions.
Mr. Chippari joins NameMedia from The Thomson Corporation, a $9 billion information services company where he was Chief Strategy Officer of Thomson Healthcare and responsible for corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and business development. Other positions he held at Thomson included Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Thomson Business Information during a period when the group grew from $200 million to $1 billion in revenue. From 1998-2004 he was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Information Holdings, a Warburg Pincus-backed information solutions business where he had responsibility for finance, corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, tax and investor relations. Joining the company as the second corporate employee, he led the company’s successful initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange and the subsequent tripling in revenues before the company was sold in 2004. He has completed more than 30 transactions, ranging from small tactical acquisitions to a $500 million strategic acquisition and has led financial teams in companies with revenue from $30 million to $1 billion.
He began his career as an auditor at Price Waterhouse. He is a CPA and holds degrees from Bryant University (BSBA) and the University of Connecticut (MBA).
Brian Farrey
Chief Technology Officer
Brian Farrey oversees NameMedia’s technology strategy, development and operations.
Prior to joining NameMedia, Brian was the President of Technology for Monster Worldwide, the leading global online career and recruitment resource and consistently one the of the world’s Top 20 most-visited websites. In his capacity of leading Monster’s technology strategy and operations, he managed more than 700 technology professionals in 20 countries, launched dozens of new products, integrated a series of acquisitions and developed an R&D center to drive the company’s technology innovation. He led the development of technology infrastructure and product development as the company grew from less than $100 million in revenue to over $1.1 billion in revenue, and from less than 25 technology professionals to more than 700. He also held the position of COO of TMP Interactive and Group President of Monster.com during his tenure at the company. Prior to Monster, Brian was the CTO of OrderTrust where he built a large-scale order and payment processing network that scaled to more than one billion yearly transactions.
He has a BA from Rochester Institute of Technology, an MA in Computer Science from Worcester State College and has been recognized by Computerworld as one of the country’s Top 100 CIOs and by Infoworld as one the Top 25 Most Influential CTOs.
Peter Lamson
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Domain Marketplace
Pete Lamson has a twenty-year history of managing high growth businesses to their full potential. At NameMedia, Mr. Lamson oversees the company’s Domain Marketplace businesses.
Prior to joining NameMedia, Mr. Lamson served in several senior operating roles, including four years as Chief Operating Officer of MonsterWorldwide’s consumer relocation division, MonsterMoving.com. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of DirectoryM, the internet’s largest provider of private-label business-to-business directories, and was a co-founder of P.D. Circuits, a leading electronics manufacturing outsourcing provider.
Mr. Lamson holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an MBA from Harvard University.
Brian Carr
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Direct Search Network
Brian Carr oversees NameMedia’s affiliate operations and domain optimization strategies.
Prior to Joining NameMedia, Mr. Carr was General Manager of Business Operations at the Terra Lycos network, overseeing partner services, reporting, customer service, advertising operations and the daily site experience for the network’s 38 million monthly unique visitors. Prior to joining Lycos, Brian was the Vice President and Executive Producer at CMGI’s entertainment portal, ICast.com. He previously worked as the Director of Production and Executive Editor at Altavista.com and Deputy Managing Editor and Director of Production at CBS SportsLine.com. He is a former newspaper reporter and assistant city editor at the Syracuse (NY) Herald-Journal.
Mr. Carr holds a B.S. in Communications from Babson College.
Hugh O’Neill
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Portfolio Management
Hugh O’Neill oversees NameMedia’s domain acquisitions, pricing, and portfolio risk and return.
Prior to joining NameMedia, he was Senior Vice President, Derivatives and Investment Strategies for Sun Capital Advisors, LLC. In that role he oversaw the worldwide derivatives strategies and operations for all of Sun Life Financial, Inc., managing a book of over $30 billion notional of fixed income, equity, and currency derivatives. He developed numerous market-leading hedging strategies, a very successful and innovative set of synthetic convertible bond strategies, as well as best-selling annuity product features. Mr. O’Neill has extensive experience in modeling, analyzing, and managing the price and risks of complex financial and insurance products and portfolios, and has been a speaker and panelist at numerous conferences, including RISK.
Mr. O’Neill holds an M.S. in Physics from Drexel University and a B.S. in Physics, summa cum laude, from West Chester University.
Brian D. Lucy
Senior Vice President of Finance
Brian Lucy oversees NameMedia’s finance, accounting and administration functions.
Prior to joining NameMedia, he was an executive at Lycos and Terra Lycos, most recently as CFO of the US business unit. During his tenure at Lycos, Mr. Lucy played an integral role in the successful integration of the finance function for 15 diverse acquisitions. Additionally, Mr. Lucy participated in two NASDAQ equity financings, raising nearly $575 million for the company.
Prior to joining Lycos, Mr. Lucy was employed by KPMG LLP, in the High Technology, Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution group. While there he provided both audit and consulting services to both privately held and publicly traded organizations, primarily in the high-tech area.
Mr. Lucy, a certified public accountant, holds a B.S. degree in accounting from Salem State College, cum laude and a B.A. degree in political science and philosophy from Villanova University.
Melinda Brown
Vice President and General Counsel
Ms. Brown oversees the company’s legal affairs. Prior to joining NameMedia, Ms. Brown was a partner in the corporate practice group of McCarter & English, a general practice law firm, where she specialized in representing technology clients. She has extensive experience managing the legal and governmental affairs for technology companies, with expertise in intellectual property matters, mergers and acquisitions, securities law compliance and public policy issues. Previously, Ms. Brown served as Vice President and General Counsel of Sonus Networks, Inc., a next-generation telecommunications products company and as Vice President and General Counsel of Lotus Development Corporation, an enterprise and workgroup software applications company. Ms. Brown holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School.
Brian S. Taff
Vice President of Corporate Development
Brian Taff oversees business and corporate development at NameMedia. He was a founding member in 1999 of the predecessor company, BuyDomains.com, and has played a key role in the strategic development of the company since its inception. Mr. Taff has also been a speaker and panelist at industry conferences.
Mr. Taff brings experience as an entrepreneur, executive and legal counsel to his role at NameMedia. Prior to joining the company Mr. Taff served as: the Chief Executive Officer of a cutting-edge retail systems internet technology venture; an advisor and counsel to an internet service provider; an attorney with the law firm of Silver, Freedman & Taff, L.L.P. specializing in business ventures and combinations; and as an attorney for the Office of Chief Counsel in the Financial Institutions and Products division of the Internal Revenue Service’s National Office in Washington, DC.
Mr. Taff received his MBA and JD with honors from George Washington University, and degrees in finance and economics from the University of Maryland.
