Maroon Ventures decloaks ...
When I told people I was leaving Scripps, I fielded a lot of questions about what Maroon Ventures is. No, it's not a cult based in the mountains of Colorado. Here's the press release we issued today announcing that Wes Jackson, former head of Belo Interative, and I are joining Chris Tippie and Charity Huff in MV. This is going to be a blast ...
News Release
February 12, 2008
Maroon Ventures Announces Addition of New Partners from Across the
Local Media Industry
Crested Butte, Colorado - Maroon Ventures, a professional services firm that is playing a key role in helping 21 newspaper companies leverage their relationship with Yahoo! and HotJobs, announced Wednesday the addition of new partners with diverse local media backgrounds.
Wesley A. Jackson and Robert Benz will join existing partners Christopher W. Tippie and Charity J. Huff in Maroon Ventures. The new partners each will be responsible for strategic ventures focused on identifying and building new technology and businesses.
Jackson joins Maroon Ventures after having served as corporate senior vice president for Belo Corp. and president/general manager of Belo Interactive Media. He was responsible for P&L, operations, strategy, national sales and product development for more than 30 Web sites. In addition, Jackson has represented Belo in the newspaper consortium’s strategic partnership with Yahoo!
Benz previously served as vice president of interactive media for E.W. Scripps Company’s newspaper division. Key achievements in his role at Scripps included the installation of content management systems, implementing extensive financial benchmarking, establishing an innovation fund and managing an interactive staff of 40 that handles ad serving, sales, operations, product management, search engine marketing and programming.
“Maroon Ventures was founded in 2006 to take venture capital and new technology development
beyond the ideation phase to operational execution,” founding partner, Tippie said. “By bringing our deep, local media industry knowledge and operational expertise to bear on new opportunities, Maroon Ventures will create businesses that produce a high return for our partners and clients. Adding Wes and Bob to our team provides us with invaluable operational experience from corporate development to business execution.”
About Maroon Ventures
Maroon Ventures is a professional services firm that connects emerging business opportunities with media companies to help them execute in local markets. Its members draw on extensive operational and strategic experience to drive innovation throughout the business lifecycle.
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Posted by Bob Benz at February 12, 2008 6:41 PM
Comments. . .
Sorry. Wouldn't intentionally inflict that image on anyone. It's a Star Trek allusion that apparently went astray. My bad.
Posted by: Benz at February 13, 2008 11:03 AM
i don't know... your headline kinda leaves me with visions of you and young wesley in trench coats....
Posted by: jo at February 13, 2008 9:27 AM