SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Brad Thomas, a current Forbes financial analyst and leading expert on real estate investment trusts (REITs), is bringing his research newsletter, podcast and premium website, iREITinvestor.com, to TheMaven (Symbol: MVEN).
“Brad is our first publicly announced channel partner and absolutely emblematic of our focused network of elite journalists in each field, bringing their authentic, passionate voices and loyal followers from multiple content segments,” said TheMaven CEO and founder James Heckman, a former News Corp and Yahoo! senior executive.
In addition to Forbes, Thomas is a frequent contributor to Fox Business, is the No. 1 analyst on the stock tips site Seeking Alpha, and recently published two books: “The Intelligent REIT Investor” (with co-author, Stephanie Krewson-Kelly) and “The Trump Factor: Unlocking the Secrets Behind the Trump Empire.” Brad has lectured at Cornell, North Carolina, Clemson and Presbyterian universities and has been featured by Kiplinger’s, US News & World Report, Money, NPR, Institutional Investor, GlobeStreet, CNN, NewsMax, and Fox. He also hosts a weekly online radio show, “The Ground Up,” originating in Greenville, S.C., on 94.5 FM.
“I’m honored to partner with TheMaven,” said Thomas. “James Heckman, director Ross Levinsohn and the senior executive and product team have decades of experience building professional media platforms for both start-ups and major media companies. The intellectual assets, combined with their partner-focused business model, provide a unique opportunity for the fortunate, independent publishers invited into their coalition. TheMaven brings proprietary value for me in three areas: superior technology I could never build, access to sponsors otherwise unreachable and network distribution not available to independent journalists. TheMaven’s end-to-end platform strategy has helped them amass exclusive partnerships with some of the best independent journalists in the industry.” Thomas also noted that he and his family are now shareholders in TheMaven.
TheMaven is an expert-driven, group media network whose state-of-the-art platform serves, by invitation-only, professional, independent channel partners to provide broader distribution, greater community engagement, and efficient advertising and membership programs. TheMaven enables channel partners to focus on the key ingredients to their business: creating, informing, sharing, discovering, leading and interacting with the communities and constituencies they serve.
TheMaven Network will launch this quarter in beta as channel partner signings continue to be announced. For more information, visit themaven.net.
Based in Seattle, TheMaven is publicly traded in the OTC Markets Group, under the ticker symbol MVEN. Key members of the leadership team include:
Founder and CEO, James Heckman, has extensive experience in digital media, advertising, video and online communities for major public companies and several times as founder. He served as Head of Global Media Strategy for Yahoo!, leading all significant transactions and revenue strategy under Ross Levinsohn’s tenure. As Chief Strategy Officer at Fox Digital, he architected the market-changing, $900 million social media ad alliance between Google and Myspace and was instrumental in Hulu’s formation. Prior to Yahoo!, Mr. Heckman was founder/CEO of 5to1.com (sold to Yahoo!), CSO of Zazzle.com, Founder/CEO of Scout.com (sold to Fox), Founder/CEO of Rivals.com and Rivals.net (sold to Yahoo!, post tenure and 365-Sports, respectively) and held the position of President and Publisher of NFL Exclusive, official publication for every NFL team. Heckman holds a BA in Communications from the University of Washington.
Co-founder and COO, William Sornsin, ran MSN's Core Technology team before joining Rivals as co-founder and CTO in 1999, co-founded Scout.com as CTO/COO; was VP Engineering & Operations at Fox Interactive Media after Scout acquisition. Earlier, Sornsin held a variety of product and program management roles at Microsoft. He holds a BS Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Iowa and an MBA from UCLA.
Co-founder and CTO, Benjamin Joldersma’s career spans nearly two decades of large-scale platform development, including CTO and chief architect of Scout.com. Ben held the role of Senior software engineer, Geo/Imagery at Google, a Principal Software Engineer at Yahoo!, Chief Architect at 5to1 and held senior engineering roles at aQuantive, Rivals.com and Microsoft. Ben studied Computer Science at University of Puget Sound.
Director, Ross Levinsohn is a leading industry figure who has long focused on the convergence of technology and media. He served as CEO at Yahoo in 2012 and prior to that role was Executive Vice President, Americas and Head of Global Media from 2010 to 2012. Levinsohn served as President of Fox Interactive where he helped create one of the largest digital businesses amongst the traditional media companies, and was instrumental in the formation of what is now Hulu. He serves on several public and private media and technology boards, including Tribune Media, mobile advertising marketplace YieldMo, Vubiquity, Zefr, and the National Association of Television Program Executives. He was Executive Chairman and Director of Scout Media, Inc. from 2014-2016, previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Guggenheim Digital Media and co-founded 5to1 Holding Corp, serving as its Executive Chairman. He co-founded Fuse Capital in 2005 and served as its Managing Director and Managing Partner. He served as General Manager at AltaVista Network and Vice President of Programming and Executive Producer at CBS Sportsline. Mr. Levinsohn received a BA in Broadcast Communications from American University, and is a trustee there. -end
