The Rypple Team
Daniel Debow
Co-CEO
Daniel Debow is a co-CEO of Rypple. Daniel was one of the founders and the VP of Corporate Development and Marketing for Workbrain, an enterprise software company. He holds a JD and an MBA from the University of Toronto and an LLM in Law, Science & Technology from Stanford University. He's a huge music fan, plays the bass (badly), and spends far too much time online. He lives in Toronto with his wife.
David Stein
Co-CEO
David Stein is a co-CEO of Rypple. David was one of the founders and the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Workbrain. He is a recognized HCM strategist and has helped some of the biggest companies in the world to get the most out of their people. David holds a BSc in Computer Science from McGill University. He lives in Toronto with his wife, two sons and far too much wine.
Dan Portillo
Vice President, Organizational Development
Dan Portillo is VP of Organizational Development at Rypple where he is focused on customer success. Previously Dan was on the executive team at Mozilla where he lead Recruiting and HR. He served as an advisor to Rypple before joining full-time. He has been working with successful technology companies for over a decade. He studied Economics at UCLA and lives in San Francisco with his fiancée.
Charmaine Abalajon
Product & Community
Charmaine Abalajon is a member of the Product and Community group at Rypple and works tirelessly to help users get the most from the service. Charmaine has a BMath from the University of Waterloo as well as a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University. Prior to joining Rypple Charmaine dabbled in many industries; from Fritolay to PWC and McCain to TELUS. Fun Fact: she once complimented the tie of the German Minister of Agriculture during Oktoberfest in Munich (it was lime green with little tractors)!
George Babu
Corporate Development & IP
George Babu is responsible for Corporate Development and IP at Rypple. Prior to joining Rypple, George spent the last several years working on a variety of technology and intellectual property-related projects with both Research in Motion (RIM) and Bereskin & Parr, one of Canada's leading IP law firms. George holds B.A.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering and is currently completing his JD and MBA degrees, all at the University of Toronto. Given all that's on his plate, George doesn't sleep all that much!
Tihomir Bajic
Development
Tihomir Bajic is a member of the development team at Rypple and a part time male supermodel (at least, that's what he tells us!). As a fan of both agile software development and the value of immediate feedback, Tiho loves connecting with our users and learning about their vision for the service. Tiho holds a B.Sc degree in Computer Science from University of Toronto. He is an avid sports fan and is a regular at professional soccer and basketball games in Toronto, where he lives with his wife.
Iurie Cangea
Development, Security
Iurie Cangea is a member of the development team and enjoys designing extensible and scalable architectures, as well as working on code that involves math, machine learning algorithms and numerical simulations. Iurie has worked for a number of startups and enjoys an environment in which everyone's effort is visible on a daily basis. Prior to joining Rypple, Iurie has worked on IntelliJ IDEA for JetBrains, the A/B/N Testing Offermatica product for Offermatica and Omniture Test&Target for Omniture (now a part of Adobe). Iurie holds a 1st of the class BSc in Theoretical Physics and an MSc with Distinction in Computer Science. He loves his recent move to Toronto and the diversity that comes with it.
Ryan Dewsbury
Development
Ryan Dewsbury is a member of the development team and is our resident expert on building applications using the Google Web Toolkit (a good thing since he's apparently written a book on the topic!) Ryan is excited to share his wealth of dev knowledge with the Rypple crew having built all manner of web applications ranging from online poker to instant messaging clients. Ryan holds a B.Sc degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, lives in Toronto with his wife, and is enjoying being a new dad.
Jay Goldman
Marketing & Community
Jay Goldman has been providing a human side to technology for over ten years, as a technologist, user experience specialist, and visual designer. At Rypple, Jay focuses on building interest in our service through social media and on making registration as easy and smooth as possible. Jay led Radiant Core's Professional Services Team on a wide variety of award winning engagements across many industries. Jay has been published in the Harvard Business Review and has written The Facebook Cookbook for O'Reilly Media. Jay is the host of Status Update, the weekly video podcast from Butterscotch.com.
Jesse Goldman
Business Development
Jesse is responsible for business development at Rypple. Jesse was one of the early team members at Endeca where he contributed to its growth in a variety of ways, including as co-founder of the EMEA operation and head of retail industry marketing. Jesse plays piano, is an aspiring golfer, and used to play lots of baseball, including for the Canadian Junior champions. Jesse holds a BA from Harvard.
David Priemer
Product & Community
While you may know David best as the voice on the Rypple videos, when he's not in the recording studio, David spends most of his time heading up the Product and Community group at Rypple; working with the team and our community of users to deliver on all the great feedback and suggestions we hear from you to make Rypple even better. Previously David served as the Director of Solutions Consulting at Workbrain and as a Sales and Services Director at Varicent Software. David holds a B.Sc in Chemistry and Atmospheric Science from York University and a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto. He is an avid ice hockey player and lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
Austin Tam
Development, Security
Austin Tam is a member of the development team and the guy who wants to help you "Rypple" from as many places as possible. Whether it's your Blackberry, iPhone, blog, or Facebook, Austin is always thinking about new tools and tricks to get you closer to your feedback. Prior to joining Rypple, he's worked at Workbrain developing rich web enterprise applications. He's also worked for IBM where he initiated and lead the development of web-based team scheduling and collaboration tools for the WebSphere Tools and Collaboration Center Support Teams. Austin holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from Ryerson University.
James Tam
Development
James Tam is a member of the development team and to say he's a "dev machine" is an understatement. James works tirelessly (often sleeping under his desk) to ensure that every button, link, and feature works to perfection! James also brings with him both extensive software and technology experience, having previously held a variety of technology-related roles with Workbrain, Celestica, and the Canadian Department of Defence. James is a licensed P.Eng and holds a B.Sc.Eng in Electrical Engineering (Gold Medalist) from the University of New Brunswick. He's an avid athlete and sports fan (Go Cowboys!).
Alfred Yang
Development
Alfred Yang is a member of the development team and is specialized in building fast, robust, and scalable web applications. Previously Alfred served at Tungle as primary back-end developer. Alfred holds a B.Math degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. He used to be a varsity soccer player.
Trusted Advisers
Matt Downey
Front-end Design & Development, 45Royale
Matt's been involved since Day 1 helping to craft each and every design for Rypple's interface. In other words, he's completely obsessed with where to put every pixel and aims to provide the most usable design possible. When Matt is not advising Rypple you can find him pursuing other nerdly interests at 45royale, the small web design studio he runs with fellow Ryppler Adam Little. When Matt gets a little time off (which isn't often), he enjoys hanging out with his wife, digging through dusty record crates at Goodwill, and watching college basketball.
Adam Little
Front-end Design & Development, 45Royale
Adam has been involved with creating the Rypple experience since the very first sketches. He's done everything from laying out new pages to planning the design schedule to slicing up Photoshop comps and creating delicious XHTML and CSS. When Adam is not advising Rypple he's busy trying to make the web a better place as the "Multiple Hat Wearer" at the web design studio, 45royale along with fellow Ryppler, Matt Downey. He lives just north of Atlanta with his wife and two cats and loves being bald.
Stuart Starr
Prototyping & Development
A long time contributor to Rypple, Stuart advises all members of the Rypple team on designing and building many of the new features within the application. The ultimate blend of gourmet chef and short-order cook, Stu's strengths lie in his ability to take everyday ingredients and quickly whip them up into new and innovative online treatments. Stu is a web developer and entrepreneur and manages and develops web applications for clients at his development firm, Newbox Solutions. When not working on web stuff, Stu likes to travel, golf, and record music on his Mac.
