UpTake Team
Yen Lee, President, has 12 years of entrepreneurial experience in search and online travel. Yen co-founded CitySearch San Francisco, was EVP at WorldRes where his team captured ~12% of 2001 online hotel bookings (source: PhoCusWright), and most recently was General Manager for Travel at Yahoo which he helped grow 40% YOY to ~$300M in annual revenue. The genesis for UpTake came while Yen was at Yahoo and observed that millions of travelers researching where to go, what to do and where to stay experienced a time-consuming and often frustrating process to filter unorganized information from thousands of sources.
Yen previously worked at McKinsey and received his masters from MIT and undergraduate degree from UWO. Yen is a frequent speaker in industry conferences, including PhoCusWright, EyeForTravel and TIA events etc. and has provided analysis and interviews for New York Times, Travel Weekly, Bloomberg, MSNBC and others on search, social media, e-commerce, and travel.
Yen previously worked at McKinsey and received his masters from MIT and undergraduate degree from UWO. Yen is a frequent speaker in industry conferences, including PhoCusWright, EyeForTravel and TIA events etc. and has provided analysis and interviews for New York Times, Travel Weekly, Bloomberg, MSNBC and others on search, social media, e-commerce, and travel.
Yen's Favorite Vacations: Before founding UpTake, I enjoyed six months off with my wife and two daughters. The sabbatical included a month long trip with my four year old daughter to visit Singapore and Malaysia. Preceding the Malaysia trip, I took a family vacation on the Big Island and afterwards I attended a 20 person family reunion in Surrey, UK. My most memorable trip was a three month, around-the-world honeymoon with extended stops in the Australian outback, North Vietnam, and Tuscany.
Gene McKenna, VP of Product, has 15 years of experience in software design and product development in direct marketing and travel. Previously Gene ran product at Acxiom Digital (formerly Digital Impact) and was responsible for the platform that sent over 5 billion personalized emails daily; during his tenure the company reached profitability for the first time. Before that he co-founded Bluedot Software, a travel company sold to Peter Ueberroth's Ambassador's International. Gene is a MIT-trained engineer and has a Masters from Stanford.
Gene's Favorite Vacations: When we travel, my family likes to explore and get exercise. We've taken a number of great bike trips usually with an organized group that carries luggage and sets up food along the way. We spent a week biking across New England, from upstate New York to Maine with 14 family members including a 1 year old niece we took turns pulling in a burley. You really get to see a place when you are traveling on a bike. You travel on more scenic roads, and you take it all in at a slow 10-20 mph instead of zooming by in a car at 60. The best part about a bike trip is after a long day of biking you can literally eat anything and everything you want.
Elliott Ng, VP of Marketing, has co-founded two successful ventures focused on consumer loyalty and engagement, Netcentives and Loyalty Matrix. At Netcentives he launched the largest online loyalty program backed by frequent flyer miles, developing online partnerships that represented over 70% of total internet portal traffic and capturing 12% market share in first 18 months. Most recently Elliott ran web marketing for Intuit QuickBooks where he accelerated sales to 50%+ YOY. Elliott started his career as the product manager for PowerPoint and Excel at Microsoft. Elliott is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School.
Elliott's Favorite Vacations: By far the most memorable trip was to East Africa. My wife, Karen, and I traveled with a referred tour operator, Thomson Safaris, through some great game parks, including: Tarangire, Arusha, Serengeti, Kilimanjaro and Ngorogoro Crater. We also climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro; I made it to Barafu Camp at 15,600 feet (altitude pains) and Karen reached the summit at about 19,000 feet. After this, we lay on a white sandy beach in Zanzibar and recovered from what was the most difficult physical experience of my life!
Huanjin Chen has over 20 years of software and search experience, most recently at eBay, where he was the Architect responsible for eBay's high performance search engine. He designed data classification system based on customer-provided tags and meta-data extraction using manually created rules. Huanjin has a PhD and does triple duty: as our search architect; as our head of engineering; and by running our China engineering team.
Huanjin's Favorite Vacations: I was amazed by the scale of the Grand Canyon, a great example of the thundering result of time and nature. I unexpectedly learned about my physical limit on this trip. My wife and I went down to the bottom of the canyon, but ran out of water on the way back. We would not have been able to reach the top if not helped by other tourists! I enjoy seeing variations of nature: mountains, rivers, beaches, canyons, etc. I also enjoy observing and exploring different cultures, societies, and peoples.
Boris Galitsky has spent the last 15 years developing innovative technologies for startups, focusing mostly on applications of artificial intelligence and natural language processing in vertical search. He has been developing search, data mining and language processing software for tax services, TV and Internet advertisement, retail and auction portals, and log management. Boris has a PhD in computer science and authored 70+ publications, multiple patents and a book on vertical search. He is our natural language processing scientist and manages our Russian engineering team.
Boris's Favorite Vacations: I love to do adventurous activities when I travel - including trekking, backpacking, climbing, caving, flying small airplanes, kayaking, rafting, and scuba diving. My real passion is going on exploration expeditions in attempt to find something untouched, unique, and surprising. I have participated in caving expeditions >85% of my life span, as well as canyon exploration, and geological and archeological expeditions. I don't like packaged trips where people serve you, except in Nepal where I didn't have enough energy to carry my backpack in sparse air.
Rob Roberts founded 2 companies focused on travel recommendations, creating personalized travel planning tools for Travelocity, Cendant, Intercontinental, and SmarterTravel along the way. Rob joins UpTake from the founding team at OurStage.com, where as VP of Product, he led the creation of the OurStage's award-winning collective intelligence tools for music. Previously, Rob was a Business Architecture Practice Leader at CSC Consulting, and a business process consultant at HP. Rob is a graduate of Bentley College.
Rob's Favorite Vacations: The beach. No matter what grand plans have been hatched for cultural and historical diversions, somehow my family always winds up at the beach for vacation. The flexibility to swim, nap, sun, and sneak a beer or two (not necessarily in that order or in that frequency) wins out in the end. Oh, and it helps that the beach supplies an almost endless supply of building materials for one of my favorite activities... sand-sculpting!
Tong Luo is a data mining and machine learning expert who joins us from SimplyHired. A graduate of Qinghua, Tong has a PhD and has a number of publications. Tong is our automated extraction specialist and helps run our China engineering team.
Tong's Favorite Vacations: Maui gets me every time. I enjoy snorkeling with exotic fish and viewing sea turtles up close. I also like swimming in the Lahaina waves followed by sunset dining with my wife on the beach. Hawaii both relaxes my mind and excites my eyes. I highly suggest hiking through the Hana rainforest. Natural beauty at its finest!
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