We are a diverse group of people, united in our passion to support athletic girls and young women. We are parents of athletic teenagers, singles without children and students who aren’t too far removed from their own teenage years. We are current and former athletes who believe sports and exercise keep us balanced in our frenetic world. We have built a culture where workout breaks are encouraged, dogs are welcome and laughter happens.
Official title: CEO + Founder
True role: Team captain
Marilou has spent more than 20 years as a dynamic force in corporate advertising and marketing. With a degree in business from UNC and after a successful career with Turner Broadcasting and CBS, she launched her own business, McFarlane Marketing, unleashing her inner entrepreneur. Frustrated by the boy-centric sports world their athletic teenage daughters face, Marilou and her husband Craig, both former Division 1 athletes, envisioned a site that would focus on the unique and specific needs of teenage and college female athletes. VivoGS was founded in June 2009 in Mill Valley, California where Marilou and Craig live with their daughters.
Why vivoGS? “The girls are like solar power, we're just here to honor their brilliance and give them the support and resources they need to keep playing. Doing so on this grand scale is incredibly rewarding."
Official title: COO
True role: Zen master
Kathy brings global sensibility to vivoGS, with over 10 years of international and business experience. She worked in international regulatory affairs for Federal Express and directed international and government affairs for Flying Tigers Airlines. Kathy’s expertise is in strategic planning and managing all operational details. She holds a MBA in international marketing from USC and a BA from Stanford and is fluent in Mandarin. Kathy lives in Mill Valley, California with her two athletic teenagers.
Why vivoGS? “vivoGS is important to me because it provides a huge platform from which I can help empower and inspire girls to lead healthier lifestyles.”
Official title: Community + Content Director
True role: 24/7 Site manager
Overseeing the core of the vivoGS operation, Laurie brings a wealth of experience in managing large, detail-oriented projects and in coordinating internal and external communications. An attorney who earned her law degree at Georgetown University, Laurie lives in San Francisco with her husband Brian and two athletic teenage daughters.
Why vivoGS? “I want young girls to believe in themselves as capable athletes and to develop active, healthy lifestyles; vivoGS supports those objectives.”
Official title: CTO to go
Ha is a lead programmer/team leader in commercial software projects across web/ desktop applications and complex mathematic algorithm modeling and middleware. He is a founder at Luxcer, and has served as Technical Director at Emotiv Systems, Research Officer at RMIT University, Engineer at Sasme Swinburne University of Technology. He soon will be a father hoping for a vivoGirl.
Official title: Product Manager
Since graduating with honors from Emory University in 1993, Jared has done two things almost exclusively—helped high-tech startups and establish himself as an artisan winemaker as a partner in Donkey and Goat Winery. Recent and ongoing projects include: RememberMe (iPhone App to improves sales conversions for Android), Brixr (wine sampling leveraging influencers), stealth video tool, social media influence measurement/improvement and work flow improvement for a large financial institution. He has worked in product development at Zentact, Earfl. Sr. and Kodak Gallery and is the father of a future vivoGirl.
Anne is the former CEO and president of Solidcore. Before Solidcore, she was president and CEO of Tablus, where she established the company as a leader in the data loss prevention market, increased customer adoption to record levels, and ultimately led the company's acquisition by EMC. Prior to Tablus, Bonaparte was president and CEO of MailFrontier, where she established the company as a globally recognized brand, accelerated organizational growth, and spearheaded the company's acquisition by SonicWALL. Bonaparte has led global multi-channel teams at VeriSign, Autodesk and Hewlett-Packard, and has guided management consulting projects at Bain & Company. She was also the founder of Buzzsaw, the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of design collaboration and project management applications for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Anne holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University and an MBA with distinction from Harvard University.
Award-winning author, speaker and consultant, Louis is President of The B.I.T. Group. Louis brings pioneering technologies for identifying emerging business and consumer trends, organizational culture, and strategic initiatives to Fortune 500 companies, multi-national corporations, and foreign governments. He writes frequently for publications in the U.S. and abroad on the most innovative individuals and companies. England's BBC-TV, SKY-TV and Canada's CBC-Radio praised him as one of America's new breed of business thought leaders. Recently, J. Walter Thompson Agency named him one of "The 20 Most Creative Minds in America." Louis’ books include The Consistent Consumer: Predicting Future Behavior Through Lasting Values (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, May, 2005), TrendSmart: The 21 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business (Chicago: Sourcebooks, 2004), which pinpoints business trends affecting leaders/managers, consumers and employees, and Tilt!: Irreverent Lessons For Leading Innovation In The New Economy (Oxford, UK: Capstone/Wiley, 1999), which was a Top 10 Business Book for 1999 by Management General. He is also co-author of the New York Times best seller, If it ain't broke. . . BREAK IT!: Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing Business World (Warner Books, 1992). He has won four amateur baseball World Series rings since 2002.
Alesha’s innovative vision and ability to integrate health and wellness into a company’s culture has helped shape vivoGS and its mission. An independent consultant with a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, Alesha excels at team facilitation and implementation of ideas. A former Division I soccer player, Alesha lives in Mill Valley, CA.
An award-winning sports journalist, Ann has spent the past two decades establishing relationships in the sports world. She has covered the major sports stories of our time: the past eight Olympics and five World Cups, including the seminal 1999 Women’s World Cup. Ann contributes to several outlets, including sportsillustrated.com and Comcast Sport Net. She lives in Mill Valley, CA with her husband Matt – a teacher and coach – and two teenage athletes.
Bert Ellis is an active entrepreneur in the media and technology industries, having founded and operated numerous companies, both private and public. He has founded and/or owned and managed two large media groups of over 25 TV and radio stations (Act III Broadcasting and Ellis Communications), the collegiate sports production company Raycom, and the internet consulting company iXL. He currently has investments in and /or serves as an executive or advisor to a wide range of companies such as Titan Broadcast Management (media management and consulting), Brookline (for profit education), Wheego (electric cars), Brash Music (music label), SecurePath (video standards and registration), GGL (social community for video gamers), Last Legion (mobile phone apps), as well as vivoGS. Ellis received both his BA and MBA from the University of Virginia, which did beat North Carolina in basketball this year. (See Founder's bio above.) More importantly, he has two grown daughters who were both very active athletes in school, and lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife, Debbie.
Nancy G. MacIntyre is the former Executive Vice President, Product Innovation, and Marketing at LeapFrog Enterprises. Previously, Ms. MacIntyre served on the executive team at LucasArts, engaged in the production of video games, and as Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing and Senior Director, Online Gaming. She also worked at Atari, Inc. as Vice President, Marketing, and with their predecessor, Hasbro Interactive. During her 12 years in the video game industry she helped launch over 100 games and eleven #1 titles, and was named one of the Top 100 Women in Gaming in 2006. Earlier in her career, she worked in sales and marketing at Broderbund Software and Lotus Development Corp. Ms. MacIntyre received her B.S. in finance and accounting from Drexel University. She married her college sweetheart, Nick, and they live in Mill Valley, CA with their two kids, Ben and Cate, who are both two-sport varsity athletes.
