Meet The Team

Prescott Lee, Founder and CEO

Prescott's experience is both diverse and extensive. He's an expert in engineering, technology, business and windsurfing. His technical expertise stems from positions as Vice President of Product Development at Empart Technologies and as Vice President of Engineering at a start-up called Notable Technologies. Prior to joining Notable, Prescott led the product marketing rollout of the Pillar Corporation's flagship corporate financial planning application. He has also held marketing management and engineering positions at Oracle and ROLM Corporation. Prescott holds a Master's Degree from Harvard Business School and Bachelor's Degrees in Mathematics and Economics from the University of California at Davis. He is an avid windsurfer and sails frequently on the San Francisco Bay and Coast.

Joe Hayashi, Founder and VP Products and Services

Joe is a seasoned marketer of consumer and Web-based technology. As the first Product Marketing Manager for GolfWeb, the leading golf site on the Internet, he defined requirements for interactive content, made the key contributions to the company's business strategies, and launched the site's first applications. Joe was also the Product Marketing Manager for Apple Computer's Newton OS and Newton Internet Software. Before Apple, he worked with Prescott at Notable Technologies and managed efforts for the company's wireless messaging and information products. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in History from Harvard University.

Mark Yatabe, Founder and CTO

Mark is a master at designing, building and maintaining large, high-traffic Web sites. He was the principle architect and technology strategist for GolfWeb, a site that averaged in excess of one million hits per day. During his tenure at GolfWeb, Mark created the Player's Club, a Web community for golfers to share information, plan group activities and track and analyze their golf games using integrated data from various applications on the site. Previously, at Automation Consultants Group, Mark helped design and implement an enterprise object application for the automation control industry and a Web based loan-trading application. Mark also worked for the Advanced Systems Group at Loral, where he helped specify, build and acquire many of the corporation's development tools. He also participated in the design and implementation of the company's data and telephone network. Mark studied mathematics and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley.

Nazila Alasti, VP of Marketing

Nazila brings extensive experience marketing Web-based applications to eCircles. She recently served as Vice President of Marketing for Docent, Inc., a software company that specializes in Web-based training and applications. At Docent, Nazila was responsible for all facets of marketing and brand management. She was previously an independent consultant serving a number of Internet companies, including Javasoft, E*Trade, and WebChat. At Apple Computer Inc., she held key management positions in product marketing. Nazila's experience also includes stints as an associate at Glenwood Ventures, and as a product design engineer with Advanced Micro Devices. She holds a Master's Degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Michael Samols, VP of Business Development

Michael brings 11 years of financial experience on Wall Street to eCircles' business development team. As a Senior Equity Research Analyst at Robertson, Stephens & Company, he covered the information services industry, including employee benefits automation, database marketing, financial markets services, health care information technology, and payroll processing. Michael's work and interest naturally migrated toward the Internet as his clients evolved into Web-based services. Michael was Research analyst of choice for ten companies during their initial public offerings, and he was the Analyst on five follow-on offerings. Prior to that, Michael worked on the banking teams at Robertson Stephens and J.P. Morgan. Michael holds a Master's Degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and Bachelor's Degree from Harvard University.

Tim Harrington, VP of Engineering

Tim has more than 14 years of experience in software development and engineering management. He joins eCircles.com after serving as Director of Engineering at Surfwatch, a creator of Internet filtering products. Before that, he was Director of Engineering for a unit of Spyglass, Inc., parent company to SurfWatch and provider of software and Internet consulting services that integrate devices with the Web. Rich Hogan, VP of Operations and Information Systems.

Rich Hogan, VP of Operations and MIS

Rich has 15 years of Information Technology experience developing and deploying scalable, highly reliable applications solutions and architectures, most recently with NetGravity. Rich possesses in-depth knowledge in many IT areas including software engineering, data architecture and system implementation and management. A proven technical leader, Rich has been instrumental to the success of several large-scale projects in the areas of architecture design, performance optimization, network engineering and management, and database administration.

John McAteer, VP Sales

With more than 10 years experience in sales, John has worked at some of the world's largest technology-based media companies, Ziff-Davis Inc. and IDG, Inc. John has been responsible for sales revenues in the millions and has extensive experience establishing clear sales strategies and developing strategic relationships with large media agencies and technology companies. From sales teams numbering two people to 130 representatives, John has regularly demonstrated his ability in recruiting, training and managing dynamic online sales teams and instituting daily tactics and strategies to make his sales teams more efficient and productive. He holds a bachelor's degree in Finance and Economics from California State University Sacramento.

The Rest of the Team

Under the guidance of the senior management team, our employees combine their extensive array of knowledge and experience to create, maintain, and evolve the service we've all come to know and love as eCircles.com. Here is a brief list of some of the companies our employees have worked for prior to joining eCircles.