Bubble Motion Strengthens Executive Team with Technology Veterans

(Business News & Technology News, 23 Apr 2008)

Voice SMS pioneer Bubble Motion has announced significant new additions to its executive management team. Joining Bubble Motion are T.S. Ramakrishnan as Chief Technology Officer, Paul Hedman as Vice President of EMEA, Chris Dunn as Chief Financial Officer, and Rick Osterloh as Advisor to the Bubble Motion executive team.

These new additions will help the company expand its product and technology vision as the global leader for "voice SMS", and will provide a strong entrance for the Company into the European market.

"Bringing in these extremely talented and very successful veterans is an indication of Bubble Motion's momentum, and points towards immense growth opportunities for the company in 2008 and beyond," says Thomas Clayton, Bubble Motion CEO. "We're delighted to have top-notch additions like TS, Paul, Chris, and Rick on board."

"TS' product and technical vision will be a tremendous boost for Bubble Motion," says Gaurav Garg, Partner at Sequoia Capital. "To attract someone as talented and as successful as TS is really a credit to the great momentum of the company."

T.S. Ramakrishnan, a technology industry visionary, brings a wealth of experience and positive early-stage results with viral messaging and social networking companies, and will play a key role in Bubble Motion's strategic and technical direction. T.S. most recently served as VP of Engineering at AdMob, the leading mobile advertising marketplace. Prior to AdMob, T.S. worked as VP of Engineering for Facebook, where he oversaw the social networking site's architecture, led Facebook's product engineering team, built the site out beyond its primarily college-age user community and built the site's first mobile version. Prior to Facebook, T.S. served as Head of Partner Technologies for Skype.

T.S. also managed Yahoo! Messenger for over seven years from its initial development and launch, through the product's release to over twenty countries. He also pioneered the development and deployment of Yahoo!'s Mobile Messaging product.

"I am thrilled to join Bubble Motion as we start to rapidly expand the product and business," says Ramakrishnan. "The company's platform is a very exciting challenge, and the service is ripe for viral usage and extremely high growth rates. The mobile voice platform has the potential to become another core communication medium for users worldwide."

Hedman, a prominent and experienced mobile industry veteran, joins Bubble Motion as Vice President, EMEA. Paul brings over 25 years of international sales, business development, and executive management experience in the IT and telecom industry. Previously, Paul served as COO for Seven Networks, an enterprise mobility company. At Seven, Paul was responsible for all operations globally, with a focus on sales and business development activities in EMEA and APAC, where he was responsible for 120+ operator partnership across 60+ countries.

Hedman joined Seven as part of Seven's acquisition of Smartner, an enterprise mobile email provider where he served as CEO. As CEO, Hedman was responsible for building the company's organizational structure, recruiting and establishing the management team and leading the company's overall strategic direction. At Smartner, he was responsible for generating 115+ operator partnerships and all major handheld manufacturer partnerships, and leading Smartner to be one of the leading providers of mobile email.

Prior to Smartner, Hedman was Managing Director of Telia Electronic Commerce in Sweden, a subsidiary of TeliaSonera. In addition, he held various strategic executive positions at IBM, where he spent 17 years of his career. Hedman is currently a Board Member of Momail, a consumer email software company. "Paul is a very well respected and proven mobile industry veteran, and knows the messaging space as well as anyone in Europe," says Clayton. "He has the perfect set of contacts and experience to quickly build out our European presence."

Dunn joins Bubble Motion as CFO. Most recently, Chris served as CFO for Covad Communications, which owns and operates the largest national broadband network in the United States. He led a number of capital restructuring and fundraising transactions while working for Covad, and also headed a number of company-wide operational efficiency initiatives.

During his tenure at Covad, Dunn led strategic and financial negotiations with numerous carriers including AT&T and Verizon. Previously, he helped lead Santa Cruz Networks and Global Netoptex, two venture-backed communications companies as both CFO and COO.

Osterloh joins as an Advisor to the Bubble Motion executive team, and will be a valuable advisor for the product and marketing strategy of the Company. Osterloh is the General Manager of Google Android Products at Motorola. Prior to Motorola's acquisition of Good Technology, he served as the Vice President of Marketing & Product Management at Good. Osterloh has also worked as a consultant for venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and as a Product Manager for Amazon.

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