Executive Team

James Heckman, Jr.

Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Heckman is a new media visionary and monetization innovator who brings more than two decades of CEO operating experience as well as major media distribution relationships to 5to1. Heckman is the founder of seven start-ups, which includes five network roll-ups. He was chief strategy officer for Fox Interactive Media, where he architected and led negotiations for the landmark alliance between Google and MySpace, which produced nearly $1 billion in cash-flow for News Corp. Among the major brands Heckman has launched are Rivals.com, Rivals.net (Europe), Scout.com and NFL Exclusive. 

Ross Levinsohn

Co-Chairman and Co-Founder
Levinsohn is managing director of Velocity Interactive Group and co-chairman of 5to1. Distinguished by his many achievements, he has a combined 20+ years of digital and traditional media experience and is the former president of Fox Interactive Media. Prior to FIM, Levinsohn was general manager, Alta Vista Search and Portal; executive producer, CBS SportsLine.com; and held senior posts at CBS, HBO and Saatchi and Saatchi.

Michael Barrett

Co-Chairman and Co-Founder
Barrett has earned his reputation as a true online ad pioneer. He brings 20+ years as a senior ad exec to 5to1 having most recently served as chief revenue officer at Fox Interactive Media. His prior roles include global executive vice president Sales-Partnerships for AOL/Time/CNN and senior vice president Sales at Yahoo! Inc. In addition, he held senior positions with Disney Online and was a sales leader at companies including Meredith Corp., Newsweek and Family PC.

Peter Foster

Chief Revenue Officer
Foster is an industry veteran having led several of the most successful online sales teams from start-up to maturity and built revenue from immaterial to hundreds of millions. Most notably, he grew sales at Fastclick to $100 million and once acquired by ValueClick, helped grow revenue to over $200 Million. Soon after, as Senior Vice President of Sales at Photobucket - a division of Fox Interactive, Peter built the business to $45 Million in less than two years. Peter also spent six years at MaxOnline (later acquired by Ask.com), where he was Vice President of West Coast Sales and the company's top salesperson from 2000 to 2002. Most recently Peter architected the new sales model for Hi5, doubling page yield. Foster graduated with honors from Kenyon College.

Mark Stieglitz

Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder
Stieglitz is a product pioneer with 20 years expertise in marketing, engineering and operations. He most recently served as general manager of Zazzle.com. Prior to Zazzle, he was vice president products at Fox Interactive Media and before that led development and marketing teams for Oracle, focusing on marketing systems and analytics, for IBM where he was responsible for enterprise messaging and at IGN where he provided reliable technology for video games used by all ten of the top 10 video game manufacturers.

John Smelzer

Executive Vice President
Smelzer is a digital media executive with substantial business and legal expertise in sports, entertainment and social networking. He most recently served as general manager of mobile for Fox Interactive Media, where he spearheaded MySpace’s pioneering ad-supported mobile website. While at News Corp. he led business development for FOXSport.com and FIM. Smelzer previously led business development for NBCOlympics.com, was Senior Business Affairs counsel for the National Football League and staff counsel for the 1994 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee.

Mitchell Chun

Corporate Development
Chun holds 17 years experience leading M&A and strategic initiatives for major media companies. He was senior vice president Corporate Development at Fox Interactive Media, where he played a key role in the ground-breaking Google/MySpace advertising deal and the development of the Hulu business model. Over his career at Fox, he executed multi-billions in transactions for News Corp. and was part of the original team that built FIM's strategy including the acquisition of MySpace. Prior to Fox, he held a senior positions at Universal.

Tony Siconolfi

Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales
Siconolfi is a sales strategist. He joined MySpace as director of sales in 2004, shortly after the company launched and at a time when there were only 2-3 sales reps. During his five years at MySpace, he worked to build the organization from the ground up, including solidifying advertising relationships to drive revenue, and was responsible for developing the procedures and systems that assisted in taking the sales division to 100+ reps and $250+ million in revenue.

Ben Joldersma

Chief Architect
Joldersma is a proven lead architect/engineer who has worked with Heckman on various ventures since 1998, including the design of the 5to1 beta product, served as lead architect of Scout.com’s content management system, was a key engineer with Rivals.com and launched his career at MSN. Ben also recently consulted for aQuantive and Selena Software.