The Team

Chairman

Adam Singer—Non-Executive Chairman

Adam Singer has launched or managed over a dozen satellite television channels, and as Chairman and CEO, helped take Flextech Plc. from a value of £60 million to its eventual sale price of £2.4 billion.

Adam created and launched 24-hour coverage of Parliament in the UK (subsequently taken over by the BBC) and launched and managed the Discovery Channel in the UK and Europe. He was one of the architects of UKTV (the Flextech joint venture with the BBC) and chaired it and has dealt extensively with international broadcasters in France, Scandinavia, Argentina, Japan and the US.

Adam was the former COO of John Malone’s TCI International, and CEO of Telewest Plc, and has been a non-executive director of the Scottish Media Group. Among other activities he currently sits on the Ofcom content board, and regularly contributes to UK press, radio, and television on digital issues.

Founders

Andy Hasoon—Chief Executive Officer

Andy has built a number of successful training and technology businesses in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. In 1996 he founded Progressive Learning, and as MD he and his team organized specialized training and learning events. From 1999–2001 he was CEO and co-founder of CourseLeader, and built the company into the fourth largest buyer of IT training in the UK, delivering solutions for a wide range of organizations including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Barclays, Bloomberg and Reuters. Andy splits his time between the US and London, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

Email: andy.hasoon@fiftylessons.com

Adam Sodowick—Executive Director, Media & Content

Adam moved to the UK from New York in 1992 to take up a post-graduate place at the Slade School of Fine Art. Upon leaving in 1994 he co-founded Crowbar Coffee, a chain of award-winning sites in Pre-Starbucks London. In March 2000 he joined First Tuesday, a global networking organization bringing together entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Most recently he launched Basic Cat with First Tuesday co-founder John Browning, where, as CEO, he engineered the launch of a highly acclaimed executive research program. Adam now heads up our Boston Office, where he lives with his wife and two adopted children.

Email: adam.sodowick@fiftylessons.com

James MacKinnon—Vice President, Production

Since graduating from the London School of Economics in 1992, James has worked in the television and video production industry. From 1996–2000 he was senior producer at Inflight Productions, producing and directing numerous and varied projects for the world’s leading airlines, filming in over twenty countries across five continents. After a year working in New Business at Inflight Productions he left in 2001 to pursue a freelance career as a producer and director. James became the third co-founder of Fifty Lessons when he joined as Head of Production. James lives in London.

Email: james.mackinnon@fiftylessons.com

Leadership Team

Sarah Porter-Braun—Chief Marketing Officer

Sarah has an extensive marketing background in IP businesses, from magazines and newspapers, to corporate training, to research. She spent eight years with Times Mirror Training Group, helping to create and launch AchieveGlobal, after which she spent three years overseeing marketing and strategy for its large International division. From there she held senior management positions with Gartner and Harvard Business School Publishing’s Corporate Learning unit. She received an MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School in 2002, and joined the Fifty Lessons Team in June 2007.

Email: sarah.porter-braun@fiftylessons.com

Bryan Hill—Vice President, Business Development

After graduating with a masters in marketing from Strathclyde University in 1995, Bryan spent nearly ten years in the visual content industry with PhotoDisc and Getty Images. He held several senior management positions during that time including European Sales Director for a division which he turned around from underperformance to become a significant growth area of the business. Bryan also held the role of Director of Operations where he was responsible for the integration of sales activities and the full ecommerce rollout in the US and Europe. Bryan brings a wealth of experience relating to IP and visual content and joined Fifty Lessons as Global Sales & Marketing Director in May 2005. He is responsible for all sales and marketing activity and will manage third party relationships.

Email: bryan.hill@fiftylessons.com

James Reed—Sales Director, EMEA & APAC

James brings an extensive track record of successful business development to Fifty Lessons, built mainly from his experience in the communications and IT consultancy sectors. His previous roles in sales management include leading new business activity for the consulting arm of Cable and Wireless and IT consulting company marchFIRST. As well as working within large corporations, James has worked in a start-up environment leading the sales effort for wireless application developer Rila Solutions. James joined Fifty Lessons in September 2005 with responsibility for managing all Sales & Marketing aspects of Fifty Lessons through the direct sales team and resellers.

Email: james.reed@fiftylessons.com

Derek Watson—Vice President, Finance

Derek brings fifteen years experience as a main board finance director, primarily with listed companies. During that time he has played a pivotal role in mergers and acquisitions, capital restructuring, architecting share incentive schemes, back office IT project management and public sector privatisations. Prior to his time in industry Derek had a successful career with KPMG.

Before joining Fifty Lessons, Derek spent eight years with SPG Media Group plc where he oversaw the acquisition of an established web publishing business and a leading conference producer for the $500bn pharmaceutical market.

His experience also extends to setting up international operations having established a 200 strong Indian subsidiary that formed the foundation of a strategic data asset of one million key decision makers worldwide.

In his spare time Derek has been active in education devising a business plan to save a local primary school which is now one of the most successful in its area.

Email: derek.watson@fiftylessons.com

Ian Winter—Head of Technology

On leaving university with a degree in Computational Science and Philosophy, Ian started out as a journalist before branching into graphic design. As a freelance graphic designer, and subsequently as a partner at Wigwam Publishing Services, he has produced work for organisations including The Independent, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems and EMAP. From 1995, Ian’s combined skills in graphic design and software development have proved a natural fit for web site, CD-ROM and other ‘new media’ projects, and as managing director of HomePage Media he has produced over 100 web sites for numerous organisations in the UK, USA, Europe and the Middle East, dealing with multimedia presentations, eCommerce and data architectures. Ian is responsible for all technology issues at Fifty Lessons and has been working with the team since the beginning.

Email: ian.winter@fiftylessons.com