Neil Amdur
Mr. Amdur has had an extensive career in all areas of journalism – newspapers, television, magazines, books and the internet.
His journey began in Northeastern Pennsylvania where at age 15, he had his own sports radio show in Wilkes-Barre. After graduating from the University of Missouri, he started his career at the Miami Herald.
Mr. Amdur joined the New York Times as a sports reporter (1968-75) then left for a stint as a producer for CBS Sports before returning to The Times. In 1984, Mr. Amdur moved to magazines as editor-in-chief of World Tennis Magazine. In 1990, he returned to The Times as sports editor, a position he held for 12 years before taking on a position as senior editor in news administration.
He is the author of five books, including collaborative autobiographies with Arthur Ashe, Chris Evert and the 1972 Olympic 400-meter champion, Vince Matthews. His first book, The Fifth Down, is currently in development as a film project.
Mr. Amdur’s journalistic life has been anything but dull. He was the first reporter aboard a hijacked plane, in 1972; he also covered the 1972 Munich Olympics and the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympians.
Mr. Amdur and his wife Marilyn live in Harrington Park, N .J. They have two sons, Michael and David.
Andrew Hallowell
Mr. Hallowell has been active in the formation and running of financial services firms and private equity funds for thirteen years. Mr. Hallowell co-founded and raised Arcadia Partners, L.P. in 1999 to exploit technological changes occurring in the for-profit education industry. At Arcadia Partners, Mr. Hallowell served as chairman of the board of both Chancery Software and KnowledgePlanet (now Mzinga). Arcadia Partners has demonstrated a track record of success that has established Arcadia Partners as the leading venture capital firm focused on education investing. In 2003, Mr. Hallowell co-founded Midwood Capital, L.P. a hedge fund focused on the micro and small-cap market.
Prior to founding Arcadia Partners, Mr. Hallowell was a principal of Foster Management from 1997 to 1998, where he was responsible for managing portfolio company investments and actively identifying and reviewing new investment opportunities. At Foster Management, Mr. Hallowell repositioned Apogee Inc., a publicly-traded portfolio company, to take advantage of changes in the U.S. mental healthcare industry. Under his guidance, Apogee embarked on a new strategy leading to the sale of non-strategic assets, a strategic acquisition and the company’s re-branding. Mr. Hallowell led Foster Management’s fund-raising and oversaw much of its administrative and investor communications activities. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Hallowell was a general partner with Industrial Capital Group, a leveraged buyout fund established in 1977 to purchase small capitalization private companies.
From 1988 to 1994, Mr. Hallowell was with Brown Brothers Harriman & Company most recently as head of the Financial Institutions Group working predominantly with insurance companies. At Brown Brothers, Mr. Hallowell led numerous debt and equity placements. Mr. Hallowell co-led the creation of Riverside Partners plc, the first U.S. corporate vehicle at Lloyd’s of London. In executing this transaction, Mr. Hallowell developed the strategy and financial structure, prepared the private placement memorandum and oversaw the raising of £25 million.
Mr. Hallowell, 47, received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School where he won the Award for Outstanding Service to the Community. Mr. Hallowell received a Bachelor of Science in Political Economy of Natural Resources from the University of California at Berkeley.
Daemon Anastas
Mr. Anastas has wide experience as a software developer and high tech entrepreneur. He has worked on video and image processing systems, compilers, device drivers, digital hardware design and verification as well as network test equipment design.
In 2000 Mr. Anastas was a co-founder of AtomTechnology. At AtomTechnology Mr. Anastas developed a software Service to distribute applications with a proprietary Network Linker. AtomTechnology was sold to Vesta Inc. in that same year. In 2002 Mr. Anastas was a co-founder of Veriwave. Veriwave provides test and measurement equipment for the Wireless industry.
In 2005 Mr. Anastas left Veriwave to help start Ambric, Inc., where he helped develop a custom ASIC with over 360 RISC processors. At Ambric he developed IO hardware, software drivers and video Encoding software to run on Ambric chips. Ambric was sold to Nethra Imaging in 2009.
Mr. Anastas currently works for Insitu, Inc., where he works on new ways to process in real time the images received from video cameras on board their planes.
Mr. Anastas graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987 with a degree in Physics.
Jonathan A. Thompson
A veteran advertising and media management executive, Mr. Thompson has held senior positions at some of the largest media companies in the country including Tribune Co. and Gannett Company, Inc. Mr. Thompson served as Sales Manager at Miami Herald Publications, Marketing Director at the Miami Herald, Marketing Director at the New York Daily News and General Manager at Family Weekly. He also held senior management positions at CBS Magazines and Gannett and was the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Advertising for Meximerica Media, Inc., publishers of a network of Spanish-language newspapers in the United States. He was also President and CEO of Sawyer Ferguson Walker, the nation’s largest independent newspaper adverting representative firm.
Mr. Thompson has also worked on a number of successful media launches including El Nuevo Herald, the first major newspaper SMC product, Neighbors Publications, NYNews Radio, Newstar, and Publicitas/N.Y. (a re-Launch).
Along with his expertise in the field of advertising sales for print and online, Mr. Thompson is also experienced in the fields of accounting/financial management, HR, data management, CRM, production and distribution management.
Mr. Thompson is currently a principal at two online ventures and is a consulting principal at INDOC, Austin.
