Business Team

Paul Walborsky brings two decades of entrepreneurial, financial, and executive expertise to GigaOM. A former Wall Street executive and founder of two companies, Paul has the unique ability to grow a disruptive business idea into a highly successful company. Prior to GigaOM, Paul founded WorldStreet Corporation, a collaborative, peer-to-peer communication platform for the financial services industry acquired by Thomson Financial in 2002. Paul has served as an advisor/investor to numerous companies, including Mobilocity (acquired by Qualcomm), Starmine (acquired by Thomson Reuters), Peanut Labs (acquired by eRewards), WeGame, and Santa.com.

Paul has raised over $100 million in venture capital funds for startups during his career, and grown startups from the ground up: he has experience working with top-tier venture funds, establishing strategic alliances, acquiring customers, building revenues, creating marketable products, and disrupting established markets. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Paul held senior positions at major Wall Street firms including Swiss Bank, Lehman Brothers and ING Barings. Paul holds a MA degree in economics and finance from Brandeis University.

Mike Sly has more than 17 years experience in the technology media sector. He began his career at IDG in 1992 working for Publish magazine. Mike was the 10th employee at Red Herring magazine in 1994 and as West Coast Advertising Director went on to help build Red Herring Communications into one the more successful media companies of that decade. He later helped launch AlwaysOn, the events company. He now lives in Mountain View, California.

Skip Hilton owns the P&L and drives all aspects of the GigaOM’s paid research service, including sales, marketing, product development, distribution and partnerships. Prior to GigaOM, Skip served as the VP of Business Development at Focus Research, an online media company that provides vendor selection research to buyers, and lead generation to B2B vendors. He also led successful teams in sales, marketing, business development and corporate strategy for silicon valley startups and enterprise software companies such as Octel Communications, Lucent Technologies, and Nuance. Skip is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Michael Wolf has spent more than 10 years as an industry analyst, starting at In-Stat and launching the company’s consumer networking and digital media research services, and more recently was the digital home practice director for ABI. He’s been a columnist for Network World and has written a book on home networking for consumers. At GigaOM Pro, he oversees overall research efforts and serves as curator for the Connected Consumer.

Surj Patel has more than 15 years of experience in the intersection of technology and media. Surj started his career in 1993 at the BBC, where he helped launch the original BBC web site. In later years, he formed an award-winning digital design agency in London, helped establish BBC Imagineering, studied at the MIT Media Laboratory in the Object-Based Media group, and became an Imagineer at the France Telecom/Orange advanced research lab in Cambridge, Mass. He now lives with his young family in Portland, Oregon.

Asanka heads our product team, providing technology leadership and defining GigaOM’s product vision. He brings deep experience managing concurrent development projects and high achievement teams, with a disciplined approach to improving customer experience. He has played varying roles from coder to CTO in his career with early stage companies. Asanka holds a MPA degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a MSc in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

Alison Murdock has more than 18 years experience in the technology media business. Prior to GigaOM, she co-founded Songcrusader, a music licensing platform. In 2008, she founded Silicon Valley Rocks!, a benefit concert for Music in Schools Today, featuring bands using technology and geeks to make music. From 2003, she was president and co-founder of Dealmaker Media, producer of the Under the Radar startup showcase. Alison was also VP of events for Red Herring magazine and spent four years in various roles at Key3Media. Before moving to San Francisco, she was health and beauty editor for Boulevard magazine in Paris, France. Alison graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in international relations and French from Scripps College in Claremont, CA.