Sam is a Founder of Nitro and has been CEO since late 2007. Under his leadership, over three years, Nitro revenues have more than quadrupled, and the company has profitably expanded operations in the United States, Europe, and Australia, growing to over 50 employees in five countries. Sam has led the company through a Series A capital raising, a capital restructuring, and multiple asset acquisitions. Sam was the primary architect of Nitro's free product strategy that has seen the company acquire one of the world's largest software user bases. At Nitro, prior to his appointment as CEO, Sam was COO. Before joining Nitro, Sam was Founder and Managing Director of Aliqua, a marketing services firm. Aliqua's operations were merged with Nitro in 2004.
Sam has served as a member of the board of directors of Australia's largest community foundation, the Melbourne Community Foundation, and as an advisor to startups in the US, Asia, and Australia. Sam has studied business and economics at both Melbourne's RMIT University and Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Gina oversees Nitro's global sales and marketing across all channels. Gina brings over ten years of software industry experience, having held executive-level positions in marketing, sales, channel partner management, and business development. Prior to joining Nitro, Gina was Director of Sales & Marketing at activePDF, a leading provider of server-side PDF software solutions, where she was responsible for enterprise sales and corporate marketing. Before joining activePDF, Gina managed international relations and marketing for a leading European software distributor in Paris, France. In this position, she played a major role in the establishment and management of European reseller sales channels and local marketing strategies for several global software publishers, including VMware and Business Objects.
Gina holds an MBA with an international marketing specialization from the University of Phoenix in addition to a bachelor's degree in International Marketing and Languages from Dublin City University, Ireland. Fluent in French and Spanish, Gina has also studied at the distinguished Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d'Angers, France, and the University of Salamanca, Spain.
Appointed CTO in 2007, Chris is responsible for leading Nitro's engineering, product management, and technical support teams. Having been involved with the company since 2001, Chris has been instrumental in Nitro's success, most notably as a key architect of the award-winning Nitro Pro. Prior to his appointment as CTO, Chris was Senior Product Manager, and before that, CTO of ARTS PDF Global Services, a leading provider of custom PDF software development. Before joining Nitro, Chris was CTO at Aliqua, a marketing services firm.
Chris holds a Bachelor of Business (Information Systems) from RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia.
Paul leads Nitro's marketing, communications, and user growth strategy. Before Nitro, Paul served as VP User Growth for Automattic, makers of WordPress.com, and brings more than fifteen years strategic marketing experience, with a focus on brand building, user acquisition and large-scale community development. Previously, Paul was Mozilla Corporation's first full-time marketing hire, serving as VP, Marketing during a four-year tenure marked by the growth of the user base for the Firefox web browser to over 300 million people worldwide. Paul began his technology marketing career leading product marketing for creative professional software at Adobe Systems.
Paul holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and an AB from Stanford University.
Tiho is in charge of the San Francisco engineering team. He is the product owner of Nitro Reader and oversees Product Management, Engineering and QA. He is also leading the effort to extend the current desktop features to the web and mobile platforms. Tiho was the first employee at Rypple, a startup that revolutionized the world of social performance management where he rose to Director of User Acquisition. At Rypple, he was responsible for building a product that allows businesses to fundamentally enable their people to work smarter together — very much in line with his goals at Nitro.
Tiho holds an Honors Bachelor of Computer Science from University of Toronto.
Kurt has more than 24 years of management experience, including public and private company leadership, initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, recapitalizations and venture stage investing.
Previously, Kurt was president and CEO of Fastclick (NASDAQ: FSTC). Under his leadership, the company tripled revenue to $85 million, completed a $75 million private placement offering and a $78 million IPO. Kurt then orchestrated the sale of Fastclick to ValueClick in September 2005, achieving a $285 million valuation. Before joining Fastclick, Kurt was CFO of ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) and was instrumental in the company's growth from an early-stage enterprise to a $500 million international media technology company. Before ValueClick, Kurt was an investment banker with Olympic Capital Partners in Seattle.
Andrew was a founder of Hitwise, one of Australia's most successful global technology companies. Hitwise has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne, employing over 200 people worldwide. Hitwise was acquired by FTSE 100 company Experian (LSE:EXPN) in 2007 for US$245m.
Andrew is also a founder of Max Super, an Australian retail superannuation (pension) fund that allows its members to easily manage their retirement savings and investments online. Max was sold to Orchard Funds Management in 2007. Andrew is a founder and CEO of Adslot. Adslot provides automated ad sales platforms to online publishers wishing to maximize yield from their display and video ad inventory. Adslot was recently acquired by Webfirm Group Limited (ASX:WFM).
Richard has been involved with Nitro since 1998, when he joined the company as CFO and Executive Director, having been involved with all aspects of the company's financial and legal structuring. Now in the role of Treasurer & Secretary, Richard is responsible for all facets of compliance, reporting, and shareholder management and communication. Prior to joining Nitro, Richard was an advisor at the Kerry Packer-controlled Challenger Group, in Melbourne.
Richard returned to Melbourne from Milan, in 1995, where he managed funding requirements for the Italian office of Bankers Trust (now part of Deutsche Bank AG), prior to which he was in London, where he worked as a trader in the treasury department.
Richard holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Richard became an Executive Director of Nitro in 1997, and today oversees all facets of the company's search marketing, and management and architecture of web properties. Prior to this role, Richard worked in the capacity of Product Director, having been instrumental in the launch of Nitro properties Planet PDF and PDF Store, the expansion of the ARTS PDF product range, and the launch of Nitro PDF Professional, in 2005.
Richard holds a Bachelor of Technology from Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia, and is currently completing a Masters Degree in Writing & Literature.