Jason Liebman
Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer
In 2007, Jason Liebman cofounded Howcast with the goal of creating the largest – and highest quality – library of how-to videos on the web, providing users with the answer to almost any question, whenever, wherever they need to know how. Jason is also a cofounder of the Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM), a nonprofit organization that helps young people to effect nonviolent change around the world using 21st-century tools.
Before Howcast, Jason worked at Google, for the YouTube, Google Video, and AdSense teams. Prior to Google, Jason was Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Applied Semantics before it was acquired by Google in 2003 – one of the largest acquisitions in Google's history. Jason began his career at Credit Suisse as an investment banker.
A New York City native, Jason graduated from Duke University.
Empowering youth activists and global citizens to use 21st-century tools to stand up against oppression, Jason's favorite video is How to Smart Mob.
Daniel Blackman
Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer
Daniel Blackman has built a career working in new media development, including content strategy, e-commerce, advertising, and film/video production. At Howcast, Daniel oversees operations and content/programming strategy, and also works on overall strategic, business, and product development.
Before cofounding Howcast, Daniel worked at Google building strategic content relationships for both the YouTube and Google Video teams, where he spent every waking hour convincing big media companies to put their content online. Prior to Google, Daniel was the General Manager, VP at Barnes&Noble.com, overseeing the merchandising, editorial, and production operations. Earlier at HarperCollins Publishers, Daniel created and ran its first Internet Development Group. Daniel has also produced digital media for Lollapalooza where, in 1994, he exposed rock-addled youth to the internet for the first time. Daniel also worked as a commercial TV/radio producer for advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.
A native of Chicago, Daniel graduated from New York University with a degree in film production and also attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
A life-long musician, photographer, and avowed gadget junkie, Daniel is currently teaching himself bass guitar with the help of Howcast. He is married, has two kids, two Labradors, and lives in a drafty 106-year-old house.
Daniel digs Howcast's How to Create a Grassroots Movement Using Social-Networking Sites, which empowers individuals to leverage social media tools for world good.
Sanjay Raman
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer
Sanjay Raman serves as Chief Product Officer, leading all product and engineering strategy across the company and driving several strategic business development initiatives. Prior to cofounding Howcast, Sanjay worked at Google as a product manager for Google Apps, charting product vision and strategy for the distribution of Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar to enterprises, technology partners, and small businesses. As one of the initial members of the Google Video team, Sanjay launched the first user-generated video upload platform and defined several key areas of the product.
Before Google, Sanjay spent two years at Morgan Stanley as an analyst. He cofounded and served as a chief architect of an enterprise wireless software company that launched in early 2000 and was acquired in 2001.
Sanjay holds a BS and MS in computer science, both from MIT.
As an avid skier and cyclist, Sanjay enjoys all the outdoor activities that San Francisco has to offer, and if his adventures ever lead to him encountering a polar bear or a cloud of black smoke with a mind of its own, he's covered with his favorite video: How to Survive While Lost on a Mysterious Island.
Alex Ellerson
Senior Vice President of Business Development and Legal Affairs
Alex Ellerson oversees business development and is also the company's counsel. Prior to joining Howcast, Alex was the Head of Entertainment and Premium Content Partnerships for Google Video and YouTube. Before joining Google, Alex was the Senior Director of Business Development for Yahoo! Search. During his seven-year tenure at Yahoo!, Alex also held positions as the General Manager of Yahoo! Health, and Director of Business Development for Yahoo!'s media group.
Earlier in his career, Alex was the COO and general counsel of CMJ until its acquisition in 1999. He was also an associate at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and a law clerk to The Honorable Amalya L. Kearse (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit).
Alex holds a JD from the Columbia University School of Law and graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in English literature. He also serves as a member of the Programming Committee of the N.Y. Chapter of the U.S. Copyright Society when he's not running marathons, like the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.
A family man, Alex’s favorite Howcast video is How to Buy Hanukkah Gifts for Kids, starring his two beautiful daughters.
Courtney Stuart
Senior Vice President of Sales
Courtney Stuart serves as Head of Sales for Howcast, leading the strategy and execution of Howcast's client and agency business. An industry veteran, Courtney provides Howcast's partners with over 14 years of online media sales, partnership, and business development expertise.
Before joining Howcast, Courtney was with Vibrant Media, where he was responsible for east coast advertising sales and business development. Prior to Vibrant, Courtney was a Senior Manager on the Global Alliances Team and a Senior Account Executive with Yahoo! He graduated from St. Lawrence University.
Because he's always looking for an edge, Courtney's favorite Howcast video is How to Win at Heads or Tails Every Time.
Darlene Liebman
Cofounder and Vice President of Production
Darlene Liebman is Vice President of Production responsible for running Howcast Studios. She’s tasked with finding talented filmmakers who make the vision of cool how-tos a reality. The favorite part of her day is getting to meet new filmmakers and then watching as they produce their first Howcast spots.
Before her twin brother Jason called on her to help launch Howcast, Darlene could be found creating short-form animated content with the Nickelodeon On-Air Promos department and producing interstitial programming for such shows as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents. Before Nick, she was asked to help launch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Earlier in her career, she was called by the sunny rays of California, where she worked on Nash Bridges in San Francisco, and then in L.A. with the William Morris Agency. Darlene started her career in New York, working tirelessly on a variety of Independent films and learned what every person in a movie's credits actually does.
Darlene was born and raised in Manhattan and loves to collect fun historical facts about New York City. She graduated from Lehigh University.
Darlene’s favorite video is How to Dance Like Beyonce because she really likes to get her groove on.
Jeffrey Kaufman
Vice President of Strategic Programming
Jeffrey Kaufman oversees strategic partner programming for Howcast, including content development, and client management. Before joining Howcast, Jeffrey was Vice President of Programming and Editorial at NBCU, leading content integration, distribution, programming strategy, and editorial design for both NBBC and Hulu.
Prior to NBC, Jeffrey spent over a decade at MTV in programming and research and strategic development, holding many positions and ultimately serving as Vice President of MTV Research & Planning. He was involved in developing some of MTV's signature programming, including Jackass, Celebrity Deathmatch, Total Request Live, Made, Cribs, and Laguna Beach. He also oversaw the strategic planning for the launches of MTV2, MTV Films, MTV Games, MTV Overdrive, and Urge.
Jeffrey graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
Because he used one to propose to his beautiful wife, Jeffrey's favorite video is How to Create a Modern Scavenger Hunt.
Russell Taga
Vice President of Engineering
At Howcast, Russell Taga oversees software development, quality assurance, infrastructure, IT, and customer support. Prior to joining Howcast, Russell managed engineering for the Web team at Adobe. He was also an architect on the professional services team at Idiom/SDL, a start-up with an enterprise application that managed translation and localization for multilingual websites.
He started his career as a consultant at Accenture, where he specialized in security and networking. He graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a degree in electrical engineering.
A happily married man, Russ’s favorite Howcast video is: How to Make a Move on a Girl While Watching a Movie on a Couch.
Matt Wilsey
Senior Director of Business Development
Matt Wilsey is Senior Director of Business Development, responsible for content licensing, expanding the Howcast distribution network, and building strategic relationships. Before Howcast, Matt worked for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. on the Capital Markets team focused on new initiatives, capital raising, and investor relations.
Prior to that, Matt spent five years as Vice President of Business Development at Zazzle.com Inc. and was responsible for all content and distribution deals. He started his career in Washington, at the White House and the Department of Defense.
Matt graduated from Stanford University and holds an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Always prepared, Matt’s favorite Howcast video is How to Survive a Bear Attack.
Bene Cipolla
Editorial Director
Bene is Howcast’s Editorial Director, overseeing all of Howcast's editorial operations, including scriptwriting and programming. A life-long lover of words, Bene joined Howcast after a 10-year career in journalism, where she worked at such diverse outlets as Cosmopolitan and the exhilarating but short-lived Talk magazine. Her work as a religion writer has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Salon, among other publications.
Prior to her tenure in New York media, Bene spent six years in Italy, where she studied film as the winner of a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, worked in film production, anchored and produced news programs for Vatican Radio, contributed to Fodor's travel guides, and covered the Vatican for Catholic News Service.
Fluent in both Italian and her own personal shorthand that no one else can understand, Bene graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English. A passionate college basketball fan, Bene also enjoys cooking -- whether for herself or for one of her legendary dinner parties -- and her favorite Howcast video is How to Use a Banana in Seven Unexpected Ways.
Paul Leo
Director of Production
As Director of Production, Paul is responsible for the development and creative direction of all Howcast original video production. Before landing at Howcast Media, Paul worked in film and video production for more than two decades, writing, producing, developing, or otherwise contributing to a long list of shows, promos, docs, shorts, and pilots for a variety of networks from PBS, the History Channel, and Bravo, to MTV, ABC, and HBO.
From 1996 to 2001, Paul was the creative force behind VH1's Pop-Up Video (and its infamous bloop!), which was credited with reviving the tired old music video format, and for which he earned six Emmy nominations as show runner. At Howcast, Paul's goal is to inject the same sort of cultural relevance, inspired energy, and intrusive sound effects into the how-to format.
Paul graduated from New York University with a degree in English, and lives in Manhattan with his family. His favorite Howcast video is How to Text Your Way into Your Kid's Life, which just happens to star a close relation: his daughter, Violet.
Dustin Wahl
Director of Finance
Dustin is the Director of Finance, responsible for all day-to-day accounting activities, as well as cash management, financial modeling, budgeting, financial reporting, human resource administration, and assistance with investor relations.
Before joining Howcast, Dustin worked at FTI Consulting Inc. in New York as Managing Director in Corporate Finance and Transaction Advisory Services (TAS). Prior to FTI, he was a Business Development Manager in the Specialty Materials Division at Honeywell International and a Senior Manager in the Merger and Acquisition Services (MAS) group of Deloitte and Touche LLP. Dustin has a BA and MA in accounting from Florida International University and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Always looking for an adventure, Dustin’s favorite video is How to Get the Most from the Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera.
Rick Bashkoff
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Rick manages Howcast's strategic distribution and monetization partners, which means it's Rick's job to ensure that Howcast maintains strong relationships and provides the highest value to the company's partners. Rick oversees the delivery of content, packages and pitches our content library for feature placement and sponsorship, and runs point on all Howcast's joint sales efforts with partners.
Previously, Rick worked at Warner Music Group, where he was responsible for all digital video accounts and implementation of WMG’s first digital video strategy. Previous to that he held numerous sales positions at Warner Music Group and served as New Media Coordinator for Warner Bros. Publications in Miami. He graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park with a degree in communications.
With his background in the music industry, it’s no surprise that Rick’s favorite Howcast video is How to Do the Moonwalk.
Heather Menicucci
Managing Producer, Emerging Filmmakers Program
As the Managing Producer of the Emerging Filmmakers Program, Heather loves seeing filmmakers from all over the world bring Howcast scripts to life with their production chops and unique storytelling styles. Before she made her way to Howcast she shot, produced, and edited award-winning shorts, corporate video for brands like Converse and Hewlett-Packard, educational programs for Channel 4 UK, and an Aerosmith documentary.
Heather has always been a big fan of all things DIY, and is the author of Let's Get Primitive: The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping. She has been interviewed by MTV about sex in the great outdoors, attended way more weddings (as a videographer) than she'd like to recall, taught high school students video editing, and blotted the sweat from Steven Tyler's forehead. Heather earned her degree in film from Boston University.
Currently a Brooklynite, Heather still tries to pitch her tent as often as possible, and live vicariously through her favorite Howcast video, “How to Forage for Wild Edible Plants.”
Katy Zack
Communications Manager
As communications manager at Howcast, Katy directs public relations, social media strategy, and marketing support. Before joining Howcast, Katy was a PR gal at Articulate Communications, a B2B technology agency based in New York, leading accounts for a variety of enterprise software companies. Prior to Articulate, Katy worked in industry analyst relations at British marketing agency Metia for a variety of financial technology companies.
Katy graduated from University of Michigan with a degree in biopsychology and cognitive science after spending two years at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Katy is originally from just outside of Detroit and currently resides in the East Village.
A student of the human condition, Katy’s favorite video is How to Interpret Body Language.