Bill Townsend
Bill Townsend (born 1964) is a businessman who helped build several Internet properties, most notably search engine Lycos, social networking pioneer sixdegrees.com, whose intellectual property formed the basis of LinkedIn, GeoCities (sold to Yahoo!) and Deja (sold to Google and ebay.
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[edit] Career
Townsend has founded, co-founded or served on the executive management teams at several leading Internet companies most notably Internet search engine Lycos[1] and Newegg.com.
He serves on the Board of Directors of Newegg.com, the 2nd largest pureplay e-commerce retailer,[2] and created the company's FirstFromASIA division, [3]which brings Asia's hottest, trendsetting products to the U.S. market. He is also a board member at YourOffers. [4]
He was formerly Executive Vice President, Office of the CEO at biometric authentication, transaction and loyalty firm, Pay By Touch and CEO at technology incubation firm Interminds. He served as VP Business Development at Deja News (now Google and eBay), and developed the advertsiing model at GeoCities (now Yahoo!), and led the turnaround of NewsAlert, now Dow Jones MarketWatch and SixDegrees.com whose intellectual property was sold to create LinkedIn. He was founder of YouthStream Media Networks, now Alloy, at the time the largest young adult marketing and media firm in America.
[edit] Education
Townsend earned an MBA from Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business where he held the John Schoen Entrepreneur-in-Residence chair and lectured on leadership and entrepreneurship.[5] He earned his BA at The College of Wooster.[6]
[edit] Philanthropy
In 2000, Townsend founded The Amati Foundation, to help expand the stringed arts, specifically education in playing, making, and preserving the violin.[7] In 2006, he released a seminal study on consumer attitudes toward classical music events and how those attitudes affect attendance at orchestras in the United States and Europe. The study was featured in The Strad magazine. In 2009, The Amati Foundation moved its headquarters to California and opened an office in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. In 2010, The Amati Foundation partnered with ABC Television's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Townsend began studying violin making under the tutelage of Ziang Mei then continued learning techniques from William Hilton (a student of Vhakn Nigogosian), and Alberti Genduso (who has studied with the German masters Horst Kloss and Karl Roy, director of the Bavarian State School of Violin Making in Mittenwald, Germany). In 2005 he introduced a wood treatment system to increase sonority and harmonics in instrument making. This system, Il Cremonese Violin Treatments, creates a base chemically matching the ground used by Antonio Stradivari from which to apply varnish and protect wood.[8][9] One of his instruments was featured in The Smithsonian Institution's Heart & Hands exhibition about musical instruments and their makers.[10]
[edit] Politics
Townsend was the 1992 Republican candidate for United States Congress in Pennsylvania's 20th Congressional District, narrowly losing by 1½% to 16-year Democrat incumbent Austin J. Murphy.[11][12]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Amati Foundation
- Interminds, LLC
- Baylor Business Review Podcast: Entrepreneurship and Innovation (interview with Townsend)
- Baylor Business Review Podcast: Four Things to Look for in a New Business Venture (interview with Townsend)
- High-Tech Entrepreneur Shares Lessons (video of speech at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business)
- YourOffers biography
