Management Team
Mark DiPaola
CEO and Cofounder
Mark DiPaola founded Vantage Media and served as its president for 6 years. During this time, Mark grew Vantage into one of the largest and most successful operations of its kind, ranking #31 in the Inc. 500, and #1 on the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50.
Vantage’s pay-for-performance model added accountability to the often unruly world of online advertising, and attracted attention from top private equity firms including Scale Venture Partners and Tudor Ventures. In 2007, Mark led the largest Series A funding of any US company in nearly two years, at a valuation of over $150 million. Previous to Vantage, Mark was a strategy consultant at Monitor Consulting.
Mark was recently named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, and received the Award for Excellence in Achievement by a Young Alumnus from his alma mater, UC Berkeley. Mark is a board member of The Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica and a Trustee of the Dipaola Foundation.
 Todd DiPaola
President and Cofounder
After an early career spanning both venture capital and venture philanthropy, Todd co-founded performance marketing agency Vantage Media and served as its CFO. He architected Vantage’s core search technology allowing the company to profitably optimize millions of keywords in realtime and scale across verticals.
After the sale of Vantage Media, Todd spearheaded the creation of the Dipaola Foundation, which has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, to work on environmental and systemic issues.
Todd serves on several boards including the Los Angeles Social Venture Partners, and the Goldman School of Public Policy. As Chair of California Common Cause, he worked to pass redistricting reform that eliminates gerrymandering in California.
Todd graduated as a Regents Scholar from UC Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology with emphasis in Immunology.
 Bob Longo
Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Bob brings to CheckPoints over 25 years of experience in consumer package goods marketing, marketing services sales and business development for early stage ventures.
Bob started his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and Carnation Company (now Nestlé). Bob then joined the Marketing Corporation of America’s NCC coupon division as Senior Vice President, West Coast Sales, growing sales from $10 million to $15 million in his first year.
After NCC was acquired by Valassis Communications, Bob served for nearly10 years as Division Vice President. During his tenure at Valassis, Bob led the Western Division team’s growth from $60 million to $126 million and saw the company go public with a successful IPO.
In 1996 Bob founded Cross-Sector Communications, a consulting company focused on developing and implementing marketing and sales strategies for start-up companies. Most recently, Bob served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Unicous Marketing, a paperless coupon provider.
Bob received his bachelor and MBA degrees from UCLA. He is a US Navy veteran and a former board member of the UCLA Alumni Association and New Directions, Inc., a homeless veterans rehab program headquartered at the VA in Los Angeles, CA.
 Kiran Rao
Vice President of Technology
Kiran began his career at Microsoft, where he led one of the company's Digital TV initiatives. In this capacity, he was responsible for the deployment of the first interactive TV broadcasts that aired nationally. Kiran was also involved in the launch of several products including Microsoft Money, Windows CE, the Sega Dreamcast and XBox gaming consoles, and Windows Media Center.
After Microsoft, Kiran focused on rapidly evolving mobile services - spanning streaming video, social networking, and gaming. By working closely with Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm, he produced the first broadcast-enabled mobile applications to debut in the U.S.
Kiran has been responsible for several Top 50 iTunes apps, including a series of exclusively licensed TV Guide mobile applications, an original children's property developed with Twentieth Century Fox animators, and a fitness service for Equinox Fitness. Kiran is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University,
 Ricardo Juarez
Vice President of Production
Ricky Juarez has 10 years of online marketing experience – from creating and managing a $11MM email marketing department to planning and developing multiple online advertising portals. As Employee #3 at Vantage Media, Ricky led the development of key marketing tools that increased productivity and responsiveness to both clients and end users.
Ricky is an expert at translating business goals into software specifications, and ultimately into a successful product. He approaches projects with an end user’s perspective while still making sure that management goals are met.
In his spare time, Ricky enjoys educational shows and has been known to build computers from parts, or take apart electronics to see how they work.
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