Simetric, located in Arlington, Virginia, is focused on using the social web to create positive change through consumer insights that are timely and actionable. The leadership of the company consists of senior executives and advisors with experience in technology, marketing and sales fields.
Steve Alexander - CEO
Steve Alexander provides the overall leadership of Simetric. He began his career with IBM working in both engineering and sales positions and subsequently went on to start two technology firms providing technology consulting services to Fortune 1000 firms. Most recently, he was co-founder and CEO of Digital Focus, a technology development firm that designed and implemented large-scale enterprise applications for firms such as Fannie Mae, AOL, McKesson and OnStar. Digital Focus was acquired by Command Information in 2006. He holds BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech and is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization.
Jon Kulok - Advisor
A co-founder and Principal of Edge Research, Jon Kulok has spent over 12 years in the survey research field developing strategic quantitative and qualitative research for clients in the corporate, political and non-profit sectors. Jon has developed, executed and analyzed strategic market research studies for such diverse companies as Nextel Communications, Citrix Systems, Intuit, Household Finance Corporation, and The PGA Tour. A pioneer in the online research revolution, Kulok has also provided tactical online research to such companies as CBS Sportsline, Discovery Channel Online, and Hollywood.com. Jon Kulok began his marketing research career at Peter Hart Associates, followed by almost a decade as an analyst for The Mellman Group. A graduate from Trinity College with a degree in political science, Jon also studied policy issues at American University. His professional affiliations include membership in CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations), as well as formal training at RIVA Market Research.
Dr. Usama Fayyad - Advisor
Dr. Usama Fayyad is Yahoo!'s Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solutions. In this role, he is responsible for Yahoo!'s overall data strategy, architecting Yahoo!'s data policies and systems, prioritizing data investments, and managing Yahoo!'s data analytics and data processing infrastructure. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad co-founded and led the DMX Group, a data mining and data strategy consulting company. In early 2000, he co-founded and served as CEO of digiMine Inc. (now Revenue Science, Inc.). Dr. Fayyad also spent five years leading the data mining and exploration group at Microsoft Research and building the data mining products for Microsoft's server division. From 1989 to 1996, Dr. Fayyad held a leadership role at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Fayyad earned his PhD in engineering from University of Michigan and also holds BSE's in both electrical and computer engineering, MSE in Computer Science and Engineering and M.Sc. in Mathematics.
Dr. Lisa Singh - Advisor
Dr. Lisa Singh is Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, where her research includes social network and graph mining, knowledge discovery in databases (KDD), uncertainty modeling in data warehouses, privacy preserving data mining, and data mining of semi-structured data. Prior to Georgetown University, she held technology development roles in a variety of startup firms in the San Francisco Bay Area and also held roles at both Booz, Allen & Hamilton and American Management Systems. She received her undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and English from Duke University and holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northwestern University.