UpTake Team
Yen Lee, President of UpTake, has been helping launch and grow travel and local search businesses since 1996 when he co-founded CitySearch San Francisco. As Executive Vice President at WorldRes and Places to Stay, his team captured nearly 12% of 2001 online hotel bookings (source: PhoCusWright). Most recently, Yen was General Manager for Travel at Yahoo!, where he helped grow the travel business 40% annually and exceeded targets for 10 straight quarters. Before being saved by the internet, Yen used to work in the railroad and newsprint industries as a McKinsey consultant in Canada.
He received his masters from MIT and undergraduate degree from University of Western Ontario. Yen is a frequent speaker in technology and travel conferences, including Goldman Sachs, PhoCusWright, EyeforTravel and USTA events and he has provided analysis and interviews for New York Times, Travel Weekly, Bloomberg, MSNBC, Venture Wire and others on search, social media, e-commerce, and travel. He served as board chair of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of San Francisco and competes in open water swims.
Yen's Favorite Vacations: I still recall with surprisingly color my last trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands with my late brother and a posse of friends from Sault Sainte Marie: the long summer days, unspoiled temperate rainforest, marine life, mossy beds, and chocolate fondues. My most recent trip was a two week vacation this spring to Bali, Lombok and Gili Trawangan for surfing, eating, diving and snorkeling – without the encumbrances of digital life, not even a Blackberry!
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.
Clive Beavis, VP of Engineering, has more than twenty years of software development management experience at both public and start-up companies where he has managed the development of a wide range of technologies including commerce platforms, globally distributed applications, and fraud detection systems. As Vice President of Engineering and CTO at Micro Focus, Clive oversaw research and development of the entire product range. As Vice President of Products for PeerLogic, he coordinated the projects of four recently acquired development teams and was part of the management team that positioned PeerLogic for acquisition by Critical Path.
Clive's Favorite Vacations: I was fortunate enough to be invited by the leader of an Inuit Eskimo tribe to a place called Point Hope. Point Hope is on a barren stretch of land sitting on a peninsula about 200 miles inside of the Arctic Circle. To be a guest at the three day whaling festival was really special and a unique experience for me. The weather was perfect during my visit; clear sky, no wind, making it a perfectly calm, clear and peaceful place, the silence was deafening. The sun of course shone all day, and all night!
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