KickApps Adds To Executive Team

David Lapter Appointed as CFO and Tom Gaffney to Lead Customer Success Division
New York, December 11, 2008 – KickApps, the industry’s leading on-demand social media, video player and widget platform, today announced that it has added two key hires, David Lapter as Chief Financial Officer and Tom Gaffney to head up the company’s expanding Customer Success division. Lapter brings executive experience from the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), venture capital and strategy consulting industries, while Gaffney has extensive experience building professional services teams for software companies in a variety of different industries.

“Our accelerating growth is being fueled by an industry quickly transitioning from social media applications being viewed as “bolt on” experiences, to core components of most every website,” said Alex Blum, CEO, KickApps. “As we turn the corner into 2009, and beyond, both David and Tom will be instrumental helping KickApps meet the rise in demand we’re seeing from the market to expand our business into new markets through faster product innovation and new service offerings. I’m very excited to have David and Tom on the team and look forward to their contributions to our continuing growth.”

With hundreds of client engagements in 2008, the KickApps Customer Success team has established itself as one of the most experienced social media strategy, technical development and creative services organizations in the industry. Through its work on websites for well-known brands like National Geographic, Bonnaroo, the San Francisco 49ers, HBO and John McCain’s social network, McCainSpace, KickApps has pioneered the design and implementation of branded social and rich media experiences, and defined a new market for widgets, WidgeADs™ and other embeddable web applications.

As Vice President of Customer Success, Gaffney will be responsible for growing KickApps’ services offering to meet growing customer needs, with a focus on strategic advisory services that help web publishers and marketers more effectively reach their business goals using social and rich media. He will also be responsible for sales engineering, creative and technical services, and customer support. With a long history of building professional service teams, Gaffney was formerly the vice president of global operations for KIT digital (formerly ROO Media Group), a leading, global provider of proprietary IP-based video distribution technologies and video-centric interactive marketing solutions. In his role at KIT digital, Tom was responsible for all client implementation projects and ongoing client support.

Prior to joining KIT digital, Gaffney built and managed the sales engineering and professional services teams for Syncsort, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance software for data management and data protection. He also served as the head of professional services and managed services for Globix, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure and network services. At Globix, Gaffney and his team implemented global Internet solutions for its clients, including infrastructure, web applications and online audio and video.

Gaffney began his career at Physicians Online, an online community for medical professionals. He holds a dual major BS in Computer Science and Statistics as well as an MBA.

Lapter will be responsible for financial and administrative operations, including the company’s financial management, human resources, legal functions and investor relations. Additionally, he will work closely with Blum and the executive team to develop new business strategies in the U.S. and abroad. Prior to joining KickApps, Lapter was the CFO of CTSpace, formerly BuildOnline (which merged with Citadon in 2006), a SaaS provider of document, collaboration and business process management solutions to the construction, oil and gas, and other fixed-asset intensive sectors, where he oversaw finance, human resources and legal functions across the group’s six operating units in San Francisco, France, Germany, the UK, Austria and India.  

He also previously served as an Associate at GRP Partners, a Los Angeles and London based venture capital firm, where his roles included financial and market due diligence, deal execution, regulatory compliance, advising portfolio companies and acting as board observer. David started his career at the Parthenon Group, a Boston-based strategic advisory firm, where he undertook a variety of projects in the retail, publishing and electronics manufacturing sectors and was a founding member of the firm's London office in 1997.

Lapter graduated Beta Gamma Sigma, with a B.Sc. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and speaks fluent English, French and German.

About KickApps

Selected by BusinessWeek readers as Best of the Web 2008, KickApps provides brands, enterprises and web publishers with solutions that enable social, interactive, dynamic, distributed and data-informed web experiences. KickApps solutions consist of a suite of hosted social and media applications and services that are used by some of the world’s largest websites and brands to grow & engage their online audiences and foster deeper relationships with customers. Clients include: Budget Travel, H&R Block, U2, CW Television, Guinness World Records, Special Olympics, HBO, Cinemax, Cox Television, the Phoenix Suns, the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers and thousands of other sites. For more information, visit www.kickapps.com and www.kickdeveloper.com.

KickApps Public Relations