As Linqia’s CEO, Nader Alizadeh is responsible for setting and executing on the strategic footprint of the company. Prior to founding Linqia, Nader was a Senior Vice President and Co-founder for Lithium Technologies where he was responsible for driving and managing revenue growth for the business. Nader joined Lithium Technologies as a co-founder when it was first incorporated, and carried broad responsibilities in both the sales and operations departments. With a proven track record identifying strategic partners and cultivating key business relationships, Nader has also held key executive and management roles at Ofoto (now Kodak Gallery), Fuji, and Konica.
Finola Austin Director of Brand Strategy Finola runs the Creative Strategy team at Linqia, developing innovative influencer and creator campaign ideas and strategies for our varied clients. Prior to joining Linqia, she spent four years at Meta on the Creative Shop team, delivering winning creative strategies for US financial services brands across Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and beyond. Previously, she was Brand Strategy Director at Refinery29, where she co-founded R29 Intelligence, the media company’s research and strategy practice focused on better understanding Millennial and Gen Z women. Finola started her career as a Marketing Fellow on the WPP Fellowship, the advertising conglomerate’s prestigious future leadership scheme, with stints at Ogilvy in New York and Hill & Knowlton Strategies in London. She has two degrees from the University of Oxford and is a published novelist. She currently lives in New York City.
In her role as Vice President of Sales, Karla is responsible for driving revenue and leading the strategic efforts of the East Coast team to deliver best-in-class influencer marketing programs. Before Linqia, Karla was the Vice President of Global Corporate Sales at Shutterstock, the world's largest content marketplace offering the most comprehensive resources to bring storytelling to life. Prior roles include VP of Sales at Meredith and LiveIntent. Karla has extensive knowledge and experience in the media, ad tech, and digital industry, building successful teams that drive revenue growth, profitability, and differentiated brand value.
As VP of Sales, West and Central, Eric leads the sales efforts with clients and agencies in the midwest and west coast. Prior to joining Linqia, Eric was a founding member of the sales team at Placed, responsible for building and training the team, while driving adoption of its attribution platform - ultimately resulting in a successful acquisition by Snap Inc. Eric has also held leadership roles at various legacy sports media companies including Sports Illustrated, FoxSports, and Sporting News, in addition to leading national sales for sports blog start-up Yardbarker, which was acquired by FoxSports. Eric lives in Sonoma, CA with his wife and a revolving door of foster dogs.
As the VP of Creative at Linqia, Yak leads a team devoted to pushing the boundaries of creative and innovation to develop the most compelling influencer marketing concepts for our clients. Prior to Linqia, he was the Head of Creative Strategy at AOL/Verizon media, developing award-winning creative in partnership with publishers like HuffPost, Engadget, TechCrunch, and Microsoft/Xbox. Yak is an experienced public speaker, leading thought leadership presentations and discussions at global events like CES, Cannes, Mobile World Congress and Intrigue Marketing Summit. Yak lives in the Bay Area with his wife and twin children, who consistently inspire his creativity. To escape, he creates upcycle furniture, remodel rooms of his home, and is trying to teach himself the guitar (all advice is welcome).
Labeled a leading voice in the intersection of marketing and technology by Forbes, Keith has led sales and marketing strategy for some of the worlds largest and innovative brands including Bud Light, Dove, Axe, Pepsi, Nissan, and Microsoft. Keith has spoken on some of the biggest marketing stages with the brightest brand thinkers, from CPG global leaders to tech icons like Jack Dorsey. As Vice President of Brand Strategy at Linqia, Keith works with leading brands to develop 360 influencer strategies that drive scalable, measurable business results. Keith lives (and works) in San Francisco, California with his wife and daughter.
As the VP of marketing at Linqia, Sarah Fruy is responsible for everything from brand and product marketing to growth marketing and demand generation. Most recently, Fruy served in a number of growth-focused roles at Pantheon where she led the strategy, goals, and road map for Pantheon’s demand generation efforts, public-facing website, branded assets, partner marketing program, and experimentation practice. Fruy is a ScrumMaster® and Certified Agile Marketer who joins Linqia with over 15 years of experience in the online advertising, digital media, and website operations industries, along with marketing strategy and digital marketing certifications from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. Previously, she worked at emerging media companies, such as Say Media, as well as heritage brands like the San Francisco Chronicle. Fruy is a guest contributor on many popular websites as well as a frequent public speaker having delivered thought leadership presentations at conferences including Martech, DrupalCon, Digital Summit, DMWF, Growth Innovate, and more.
As Chief Technology Officer, Ted is responsible for leading engineering and product development at Linqia. Prior to this, Ted was CTO at several startup companies where he helped create, rebuild and revamp products from early stage startup technology to enterprise-ready, scalable solutions. In between startups, Ted was SVP & Chief Architect for middleware & Fusion applications at Oracle, architecting and driving the development of the next-generation, cloud-based package applications. Ted brings more than 20 years of experience building technology, teams and products.
As Chief Operating Officer, Daniel is responsible for setting the go-to-market strategy and leading all revenue generating functions for the business, including sales, marketing and customer operations. Prior to Linqia, Daniel served as the Chief Client Officer for TubeMogul, where he led the company’s global ad operations, client service and account management teams. He was also an instrumental member of the team that led the company through its IPO and subsequent acquisition by Adobe. Prior to TubeMogul, Daniel spent ten years at Experian CheetahMail, where he served as the VP of Business Development and VP of Client Services. Daniel started his career as a consultant for Deloitte Consulting and holds a BS in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Recognized as one of the leading women in technology by Forbes, Maria Sipka works closely with Linqia’s brand and agency clients and is one of the industry’s top experts on influencer and content marketing. Prior to founding Linqia, Maria was the founding COO at XING, Europe’s leading business network, where she led XING’s communities and premium group offerings, exiting shortly after its IPO. She also founded the content marketing agency Cherry Communications at age 18 and grew the agency to be one of the most respected consultancies in Australia, with a client list of over 100 brands.
