Jason is currently Vice President at ViaSat, specializing in managing the monetization of their consumer platform. Jason Knapp is a product-centric entrepreneur and C-suite executive with a consistent track record of signifiant business outcomes and building innovative, industry changing products. He has been a leader and subject matter expert across the fields of digital advertising, consumer data, machine learning, marketing automation, social media, and online music and video, working with major brands including News Corp, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Citibank, Bank of America, and Comcast:

·      Co-founded Strategic Data Corp where Jason pioneered big data ad targeting and algorithmic / machine learning based online ad optimization. There he co-invented Real-Time-Bidding and then integrated it with AOL, Yahoo, OpenX and Appnexus ushering in the multi-billion-dollar Wall Street-like programmatic advertising ecosystem

·      Negotiated a 9-figure acquisition of that 14-person startup by News Corp. There he helped grow it into the Fox Audience Network which merged with Rubicon Project.

·      Acquired Myspace as part of Viant with Justin Timberlake and led Myspace’s product, technology, and operations teams through a substantial comeback to 50 million monthly unique users

·      Built the Viant “Ad Cloud” – an industry leading online advertising technology suite driving $100s millions in business. Jason leveraged this success to help achieve Viant’s acquisition by Time Inc

·      Led the client services team at Naehas, driving marketing automation innovations that grew multi-million dollar contracts with clients including News Corp, HP, Intel, Citibank, Bank of America, and Comcast

Jason gets most excited about developing new startups, and counts himself lucky to have been directly involved (founder, investor, or advisory board member) in more than fourteen so far; six of which have been successfully acquired to date. Jason also actively volunteers and serves as a committee member at EvoNexus, a technology incubator with over $1.1 billion in outcomes to date.

 He also volunteers with and advises Casas de Luz, a charity which builds homes for working poor families in in Tijuana. Lately, Jason has become particularly interested in how to enable everyone to participate economically in the transformation underway as a result of technological advances.

Jason lives in Solana Beach, near San Diego, with his cognitive psychology PhD / UCSD researcher wife, Sara, magician son, Bryan, and accomplished teenage artist daughter Carolyn. He earned his MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and went to undergrad at UC Irvine. In his spare time, he loves hurtling himself down snowy mountains at top speed, reading escapist hard sci-fi, and going to Disneyland where he spent many adolescent days dreaming of a great big beautiful tomorrow.