Big Stage Entertainment is led by a remarkable mix of entertainment industry insiders and technology veterans with notable track records building successful content, distribution and technology ventures.

Phil Ressler
President & Chief Executive Officer

Phil Ressler is president and chief executive officer. Prior to joining Big Stage, Phil served as vice president at Clearstone Venture Partners, where he provided operating perspective on investment evaluations, decisions and guidance of portfolio companies.

Phil has been engaged in building businesses in technology, consumer electronics and advertising sectors since 1979, including 16 years in executive and management positions in software and Internet companies. His technology career is comprised of executive marketing positions in raw start-up, growth-stage and public companies ranging from pre-product, pre-revenue to billion-dollar environments. Phil has been part of executive teams that raised over $100 million in capital for growth companies and he has created market demand for well over $600 million in incremental new product sales in the software sector, in addition to sustaining base revenues.

Whether in turn-around or start-up efforts, throughout his career Phil has propelled early-stage and established companies into mainstream acceptance and revenue growth for groundbreaking product innovations, including object-oriented development tools, enterprise client/server tools and databases, collaborative groupware, software change management, Internet and enterprise business performance applications. His technology career includes executive positions at Nantucket Corporation, Lotus, Gupta, Continuus Software, inquiry.com and Callidus Software.

Phil received an MA in political development and comparative politics from University of Connecticut and a BA in political science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Jon Kraft
Co-Founder, Executive Vice President of Business Development

Jon Kraft is co-founder and executive vice president of business development. Jon has 18 years of experience as an entrepreneur in software and new media, including serving as co-founder and CEO of Pandora Media, one of the largest online radio sites in the world; president of worldwide marketing and distribution for Auryn, Inc., a cutting edge, VC-backed animation technology company; and co-founder of Stanford Technology Group, which was funded by Sequoia and Hummer Winblad, and acquired by Informix Corporation. Previously, he worked with Oracle and consulted for numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Outside of his role with Big Stage, Jon serves as chairman of the Technology Council of Southern California.

Jon holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University.

Jon Snoddy
Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer

Jon Snoddy is co-founder and chief technology officer. He brings 25 years of experience in the entertainment and technology industries, including executive roles with GameWorks, Timeplay Entertainment, Disney, Lucasfilm and MyTelescope.com.

Key accomplishments include design and concept development of the Indiana Jones theme park attraction ride system and founding the Disney Virtual Reality studio, an integrated design studio that leveraged the engineering talent of Disney’s R&D group and the artistic talent of Feature Animation, to create new interactive experiences. The group advanced the state-of-the-art of digital animation, simi-autonomous characters, interactive storytelling and realtime rendering. While there, Jon produced the award winning Aladdin VR Magic Carpet Ride. The group continues to produce successful MMORPG titles. At Lucasfilm, where he transitioned while working on “Captain Eo,” Jon helped launch the THX program.

Jon was recruited from Disney by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Hayamo Nakayama to launch GameWorks, with Universal Studios, Sega and DreamWorks. He led the games, architecture and engineering groups, reporting directly to Steven Spielberg. The company built a successful chain of cutting-edge entertainment centers throughout the United States and Japan featuring attractions that combined thrill rides and video games.

With backing from Spielberg and others, he co-founded MyTelescope.com, an Internet astronomy company featuring internet remote controllable telescopes. The company’s proprietary technology delivers NASA accuracy at a mass market cost.

All told, Jon has five issued patents and 12 pending in interactive systems, business processes, astronomy and video game systems.

Jon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering degree from Piedmont Technical College.

Jonathan Strietzel
Co-Founder, Chief Creative Officer

Jonathan Strietzel is co-founder and chief creative officer. He leads the company’s overall creative vision and champions our groundbreaking approach to personal projection into online media and activities. Jonathan is a true pioneer and entrepreneur in the world of digital media. In addition to founding Stritz Studios, a boutique specific effects studio, he has invented multiple systems for delivering digital advertising and currently holds a U.S. patent for his work in particle-based advertising. Jonathan has worked with numerous TV studios and Fortune 500 companies, including developing the highly publicized online clue delivery system for NBC’s “Treasure Hunters.” In his spare time, he serves as an active public speaker, including CES, Digital Hollywood, Under The Radar, and OnHollywood. In the case of CES, he presented with Intel CEO Paul Otellini as part of their keynote address at the 2008 International CES. Outside of his business obligations, Strietzel advises students at the University of Southern California and Chapman University.

Jonathan graduated from Chapman University with a Bachelor of Science degree and emphasis in Finance and Entrepeneurship.

Dr. Doug Fidaleo, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist

Douglas Fidaleo serves as Chief Scientist at Big Stage and leads the Core Technology Development group. Douglas led the development of the Big Stage Facial Capture system as a post doc in the lab of Gerard Medioni at the University of Southern California. He joined Big Stage immediately after the company was formed and began assembling a world class team of researchers and programmers to continue his work.

He has wide ranging accomplishments both in and out of academia having published over 20 papers on subjects including facial tracking, emotion driven animation, performance driven wrinkle texture animation, expression recognition and automated music composition. He has developed management simulation systems, medical applications and mobile systems.

At Big Stage, Douglas is continually advancing the fidelity and accuracy of the facial capture, voice modeling and animation systems.

Douglas holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science from Pomona College and an MS in Computer Science with Specialization in Multimedia and Creative Technologies from USC, as well as a PhD in Computer Science from USC, focused on facial expression/dynamics analysis for face/expression recognition and performance driven facial animation.

Jonas Gray
SVP of Marketing

Jonas Gray serves as senior vice president of marketing. A pioneer in the digital and entertainment marketing industry, Jonas brings 18 years of experience in entertainment, promotional marketing, entrepreneurial business development and new technology. Past experience includes serving as corporate vice president of worldwide business development at EMAK Worldwide, a leading marketing conglomerate including agencies Upshot, Equity Marketing and Logistix; and vice president, new ventures at Interpublic Group’s Foote Cone & Belding (FCB), where he led new business efforts for the company’s Southern California operation, and provided branded entertainment and new technology opportunities across the client base. Concurrently, he served in a similar capacity with FCB’s promotional marketing subsidiary, Marketing Drive Worldwide.

Prior to joining FCB, he served as vice president, global client and strategic development at WPP Group’s Maxx Marketing, a leading promotional marketing agency under Ogilvy, where he led worldwide entertainment licensing and partner marketing negotiations for clients, and oversaw the company’s agency of record relationship with KFC International. Earlier in his career, he served as vice president of business and strategic development at DVD EXPRESS and senior director of international marketing at N2K/CDNOW.

Jonas holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Rochester’s famed Eastman School of Music.

James Brennan
Vice President of Online

James Brennan is vice president of online. He brings fifteen years of experience in entertainment and interactive media, with a diverse expertise spanning content, community, and Web 2.0 strategies to support digital publishing, online gaming, PPV/VOD distribution, and interactive television programming. Past experience includes serving as president of Mandalan Media, a Los Angeles-based digital media consulting agency; president and CEO of content management services company Experiant; director of strategy for the New Ventures division of Internet consulting firm USWeb/CKS; and engagement manager for Accenture's Media & Entertainment practice. Consulting clients have included Electronic Arts, Sony Pictures Entertainment, NBC Universal and Sí TV.

Key accomplishments include leading the development of a multi-platform content production system while at Experiant, and managing the launch of numerous ad integrations across the Sony Pictures Television digital advertising network.

James is an active member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He has served as an advisor to the American Film Institute's Digital Content Lab program, where he has managed digital production of enhanced TV prototypes for PBS documentaries This Far By Faith and Accordion Dreams and Bravo TV's hit reality show Top Chef.

James holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Duke University.

Rich Diephuis
Vice President of Engineering

Rich Diephuis serves as vice president of engineering. He brings nearly 30 years of experience in software and product development, including executive roles with Lotus Development, Applicon, Polygen, Paracel (purchased by Celera Genomics) as well as Evolution Robotics and Desktop Factory (Idealab companies). Key accomplishments include leading the development and release of the first three versions of Lotus Notes, the award-winning software suite that defined the “groupware” category and has now surpassed 135 million total users. While at Paracel, Rich was responsible for developing leading edge parallel computers, text filtering software, and bioinformatics analysis software used globally by the intelligence and pharmaceutical communities. Other accomplishments include leading the development of ESRP (Evolution Robotics’ Behavior–Based Software Platform), the ER1 hobbyist robot kit, and the ER2 home robot prototype while at Idealab.

Rich holds BS, MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.