Michael Lazerow
Michael is a serial entrepreneur whose last company, Buddy Media, was acquired by Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) for $745 million. He currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer of the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.
ExactTarget Marketing Cloud delivers a powerful combination of ExactTarget’s digital marketing apps and platform with salesforce.com’s social marketing products – Buddy Media, Radian6 and Social.com, and the world’s #1 CRM platform, salesforce.com.
Michael and his wife Kass founded Buddy Media in 2007, which pioneered a new category of software-as-a-service – the social media management suite – that became a must buy for the world’s largest brands and agencies. Before Buddy Media, Michael founded Student Advantage, University Wire, Lazerow Consulting and GOLF.com, which was purchased by Time Warner's Time Inc. in January 2006.
Michael is widely recognized as one of the most innovative leaders in digital media and marketing. His byline has appeared in Fortune, Advertising Age, Dow Jones’ AllThingsD, Fast Company and Inc., among other publications, and he is a frequent guest on CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, the BBC and other broadcast outlets.
Michael is regularly called upon to speak at prestigious industry events, including ad:tech, the Consumer Electronics Show, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), Procter & Gamble Signal, Monaco Media Forum, Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit, Mashable Connect and iMedia Brand Summit.
Michael is an active investor in digital media companies through Lazerow Ventures, an investment fund he launched in 2011. Current investments include Tumblr, Saving Star, Scopely, Namely, Tagman, ChatID, Twice, Bitium, Have to Have, Social Touch and Copious. He sits on the board of directors of Harmonix, one of the world’s leading independent game development studios that created the blockbuster Rock Band and Dance Central franchises, and were the original developers of Guitar Hero.
Michael is active in many non-profit organizations, including Charity: Water, Cycle for Survival, and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Michael believes in living without fear and uses his two near-death experiences as a cardiac surgery patient to inspire others to do the same (VIDEO: http://bit.ly/lazerowfear).
He lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, two sons, Myles and Cole, daughter Vivian and Bernese Mountain Dog Brownie. He graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. and M.S. in Journalism in 1996.
