Xavier Kochhar
Managing Partner

Mr. Kochhar both manages and executes the strategic planning, business and corporate development, operations and business science advisory services for MediaLink. He has spent more than a decade bringing together corporations and their brands with Hollywood and its many media and entertainment assets; both as an agent representing corporate clients, and as a principal on behalf of the media assets themselves.

Mr. Kochhar recently served as one of three corporate executives within Disney’s Corporate Alliances group dedicated solely to the procuring and developing of new, value-creating strategic relationships between outside corporations and the various assets across all the divisions of The Walt Disney Company the company including Studios, Theme Parks, Consumer Products, and Media Networks (ABC, ESPN, and the various Disney cable assets) in order to work with third-party B-to-B and consumer brand companies in various aspects of strategic and/or tactical relationships. These relationships included marketing, media buys, sponsorships, promotional activity, purchasing, corporate development, joint or integrated content opportunities, or co-branded joint ventures.

Prior to The Walt Disney Company, Mr. Kochhar was a corporate packaging agent at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills, representing the entertainment industry's top creatives and content producers. There, he represented both distributors for acquisition of programming and producers in the partnership of their content to advertisers, as well as in the network television, cable, and syndication markets. Mr. Kochhar was a managing partner for an entertainment marketing company, at which he was responsible for extending top consumer brands and retail companies into the world of media by identifying and/or generating integrated marketing opportunities based on or around top entertainment properties and franchises.

Mr. Kochhar was also a strategy consultant in the Media and Entertainment group for London-based L.E.K. Consulting. He began his professional career in corporate finance, after graduating from U.C. Berkeley's Haas School of Business, working as an investment banker for Tucker Anthony Sutro, where his focus was mergers, acquisitions, and private placements of emerging growth and middle market companies.

Elissa Coughlin was most recently Director of Sales Strategy & Development at Joost, prior to which she spent nearly five years at Google, where she led national marketing and sales strategy for the Classifieds and Local advertising sales teams. She then helped launch the Branding Initiatives team developing products to address the needs of Fortune 1000 advertisers across media platforms.

Elissa played an integral role in repositioning Google to top executives by developing the vision and content for six regional CMO Summits in 2006 and the second annual series in 2007. With the acquisition of a new media platform, YouTube, Elissa built the Super Bowl XLI & XLII packages, creating opportunity for sponsors to extend their investment into the digital environment and measure brand response across search and YouTube.

Prior to Google, she was an Associate Manager of Business Development at OMD where she helped the agency's management team acquire substantial billings from new accounts and made significant contributions in securing OMD's first global relationship with McDonald's. Before joining the new business team, she worked in the company's national broadcast buying team on the PepsiCo account. Elissa's career began at Sapient, a business technology consultancy where she managed Investor Relations

Kathy Crawford, a 40 year veteran of the local broadcast business, most recently was President of Local Broadcast for MindShare (New York) working with the Ford Dealers’ Association, Six Flags, and Burger King among other major companies. She was named a Media Maven in December 2003 and the 17th most influential person in the advertising industry by Mediaweek in 2008. Ms Crawford started her career as a TV rep in New York and then on the station side at WTTG. She joined Western Initiative Media Worldwide in Los Angeles as a broadcast supervisor specializing in retail. Ms Crawford went back into sales for TeleRep and Petry TV in both Los Angeles and Denver. In 1987, she rejoined Western on the Circle K account. Moving to Phoenix, where she currently lives, she founded the DR division for Western, with accounts such as Brinks Home Security, The LDS Church and Jenny Craig.

Sean Cross brings over 20 years of experience in general management, technology, sales, business development and strategic marketing to MediaLink assignments. Mr. Cross most recently served as the Executive Vice President and Operations Officer for iAmplify, where he led the company through substantial growth and three rounds of funding. Prior to iAmplify, he led the strategic technical initiatives for the sales, marketing, editorial, publicity and international divisions for HarperCollins Publishers/News Corp. In addition, he drove technical distribution initiatives for clients such as Scholastic Books, including the Harry Potter book series. Mr. Cross began his career running a consulting company in Los Angeles, owned and managed restaurants in New York, then returned to strategic consulting in technology with Sanwa Bank/UBJ and INET/Instinet (Reuter's).

Donald Davis is an experienced marketing and communications professional with 30 years of agency/media background that includes general marketing strategy, consumer insight, integrated cross-platform execution, sports sponsorship, event evaluation, promotion and advertising. Don was an EVP, Managing Director at Young & Rubicam overseeing global accounts including Holiday Inn, United Airlines, Paramount, Vanguard Funds, Star Alliance and Colgate. He was instrumental in leading Accenture’s rebranding effort from Anderson Consulting across 40+ countries. After Y&R spun its media unit into Mediaedge:cia, Don became Managing Partner, where he ran its global solutions unit in NY with clients including Xerox, Accenture, DHL, Star Alliance and Chevron. Don’s leadership, in tandem with the creative agency, was key in the repositioning of Xerox under CEO Ann Mulcahey and CMO Nancy Wiese. After leaving Mediaedge:cia, Don has consulted at a variety of companies including TargetCast where he was a key new business development force.

Eric Fernandez spent a decade and a half as a marketer for AT&T, most recently as Executive Director of Sponsorships and Events, where he oversaw global sponsorship strategy, contract negotiations, development and implementation of industry-leading programs aimed at driving AT&T’s market leadership position. Mr. Fernandez oversaw a sponsorship portfolio of 50+ best-in-class partnerships and an annual operating budget in excess of $150 million. AT&T partnerships led by Mr. Fernandez include the US Olympic Committee, The Masters, NCAA, Williams Formula One, PGA Tour, numerous MLB, NFL, NBA and NCAA team properties as well as music and entertainment partnerships. Mr. Fernandez also led the sponsorship integration and brand transition initiatives for AT&T in the mergers of SBC, BellSouth and Cingular Wireless.

Michael Ginn has 25 years of experience in advertising and media, most recently as Senior Vice President of Sales for V-me Media Inc., a U.S. Hispanic media company with public television partnerships. Prior to joining V-me, he was Vice President of Media Sales for Reactrix Systems, instrumental in the development and launch of Wannado Entertainment, where he served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development. Mr. Ginn spent 14 years with Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. and held several increasingly senior positions, helping lead Turner's international efforts and the Latin American expansion of CNN International, Cartoon Network, TNT Network, and CNN en Español. Prior to taking on the Latin America assignment, Mr. Ginn led the development of global business for CNN International and Cartoon Network International with US west coast clients and played an instrumental role in the development of CNN U.S. domestic sales. Mr. Ginn began his career on the agency side, at Campbell Mithun and DDB Needham before transitioning to the media side with Katz Communications and ABC.

Dee Salomon’s experience and expertise spans brand marketing, business development, traditional and digital media and creative ideation/execution. Most recently, Ms. Salomon ran the digital media sales group for Conde Nast’s CondeNet as its Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. She was responsible for the revenue of 26 websites including Style.com, Epicurious.com, Glamour.com and VanityFair.com. Prior to CondeNast, Ms. Salomon held key marketing positions in the fashion/retail industry including Senior Vice President of Creative Services and Advertising at Donna Karan International. At Anne Klein, where she was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications, Ms. Salomon successfully helped to restore this venerable brand to its fashion roots, resulting in the sale of the company to Jones New York. Ms Salomon began her career in investment banking, working both for Hambrecht and Quist in San Francisco and Ladenburg, Thalmann in New York.

Kathi Sharpe-Ross has more than 20 years of experience with sponsorship, strategic alliances, promotions, consumer products, licensing, brand-building, public relations, corporate and entertainment marketing, and strategic and tactical campaign building. She is the Founder and President of The Sharpe Alliance, an integrated brand building, marketing and promotion company that specializes in strategic alliances and partnership programs. Earlier, Ms. Sharpe-Ross spent two years as the Executive Vice President and head of the west coast office for The Leverage Group, a global marketing/consulting firm where she developed campaigns for: Smashbox Cosmetics, LA Fashion Week, Warner Strategic Marketing, Kathy Smith, Quincy Jones' Global "We Are The Future" concert, Broadway Video, TD Waterhouse, Sony Music, Redken, and Lava Life among others. Ms. Sharpe-Ross also spent a year as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Public Relations, and Promotions for DIC Entertainment, one of the world's leading children's television animation companies. In her early career, Sharpe-Ross owned and operated SHARPE Public Relations and Marketing. For 15 years the agency represented a diverse client base including: Coca Cola, Super Bowl XXXII, World Cup Soccer 1994, Saban/Fox Kids/”Power Rangers,” “The Wiggles,” Nelvana Entertainment, and Jakks Pacific, among others.

Cleary Simpson has three decades of experience in media general management, including sales and marketing, business development, partnerships and alliances, brand management, new market identification and product development. Most recently, Ms. Simpson was Senior Vice President for Global Marketing Solutions at Time Warner where she managed relationships with major companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Campbell’s, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and Cadbury, developing integrated deals across television, print, digital, film and book publishing. Earlier, Ms. Simpson worked in senior positions at Time Inc. properties, including Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated, where she was responsible for managing circulation, ad sales and brand development as well as expanding the franchise through internal development and acquisition. She launched Sports Illustrated for Women and brought Sports Illustrated for Kids to consistent profitability.

Karl Spangenberg brings 25 years of experience in general media management, advertising sales, business development, strategic marketing, online market research, and media consulting to MediaLink assignments. He held leadership positions at four start-up companies since 1995 including Infoseek, (1996 IPO and later sold to Disney); @plan, (1999 IPO, 2001 sold to DoubleClick and later sold to Nielsen Net Ratings); Lightningcast, (2002 strategic partnership with AOL Entertainment and later sold to Advertising.com); and The Hotel Networks (2004 sold majority stake to Liberty Media and later sold to LodgeNet). Earlier, as Vice President, Advertising and Commerce at AT&T, Mr. Spangenberg drafted a strategy for cross platform, integrated advertising and commerce while serving as lead advertising liaison between AT&T and Yahoo! for revenue on the broadband portal. Mr. Spangenberg also worked at various magazine companies in general management and advertising sales roles including: US News & World Report, Time Magazine, Business Week and Datamation Magazine.

Jason Spradlin is a media, marketing and sales executive, who has worked within the entertainment and consumer products industries, specializing in cross platform solutions and the digital space. Most recently, he was with the Disney-acquired DigiSynd, working on their marketing and syndication team for clients such as Warner Brothers, Disney and Jawbone. Prior to that, Mr. Spradlin worked in the Creative Affairs group at Paramount Pictures and in the Motion Picture Talent group at Creative Artists Agency.

Jenna Trabulus worked as an analyst for CIM Group, a mixed-use development firm and private equity fund focused on urban regeneration. Earlier, she led new business development efforts for Cushman & Wakefield Retail Services, initiating and securing relationships with tenants and developers, including major global REITS and brands from Wal-Mart to Gucci. Ms. Trabulu’s prior responsibilities also include, Business Analyst and Marketing Associate for the Capital Group Companies, manager of the American Funds. Among her recent projects was Tripology.com, a lead generation service for travel agents and long tail travelers for which she conducted market segmentation and developed a framework for cultivation of strategic partnerships, development of marketing strategy and website content to maximize search engine optimization, and the preparation of fundraising presentation and competitive analysis.