Rishi U. Shah, CEO. Rishi brings a wealth of strategic, operational and entrepreneurial expertise to ContextMedia. Most recently, he co-founded the Northwestern Business Review, a Northwestern University-based collaborative publication distributed to more than 60 leading university campuses. Previously, he served as a senior advisor to Senator Kerry’s presidential campaign, where he successfully led the nationwide youth campaign.
In his youth, Rishi founded Simple Solutions Group, a home computer consulting firm whose clients were later acquired by Best Buy. In addition, Rishi founded the Project for the New American Dream, a Washington, D.C. think tank that included several US senators, as well as the Urban-Suburban Domestic Exchange Initiative, which partnered with groups such as the Gates Foundation to facilitate cross-school interaction.
Rishi is also actively interested in venture and corporate finance, with almost 10 years of experience in investments and derivatives. His academic background includes studying economics, learning and organizational change and political science at Northwestern University, Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is past chairman of the Institute for Student Business Education in Evanston, IL and is an avid fan of the Chicago Bulls, ancient Indian philosophy and new media.
Derek Moeller, Chairman. Derek brings a wide array of experience to ContextMedia including corporate finance, entrepreneurship and marketing. Derek is the past founder and managing partner of The Atlas Group, a college marketing firm that expanded to include universities in seven states. Derek has worked at JP Morgan’s private bank in Chicago, at Morningstar’s Chicago office in business development for a new business unit, at Northwestern University’s $5 billion endowment management office, and at Lehman Brothers in New York researching exotic credit derivatives.
Derek studied monetary economics at Northwestern University, leading Northwestern’s Federal Reserve competitive monetary economics team to two consecutive national titles as judged by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. He is the past chairman of the Institute for Student Business Education at Northwestern University.
Shradha R. Agarwal, Director of Marketing, Media & Human Capital Management. Shradha brings extensive knowledge of marketing and media with experience in management and entrepreneurship. She helped build the public relations strategy for a national law firm based in Chicago, developed the marketing strategy for a local election campaign by integrating new media for the first time at the local level in the district, and did media buying for an international building technologies company. She has also built operations for a large youth nonprofit and created a marketing plan for a nonprofit group focused on empowering young women in underserved communities. While at college, she co-founded the Northwestern Business Review at Northwestern University and served as the Editor-in-Chief for 2 years. While there, she developed the mission, plan and operations for the bi-annual magazine distributing 30,000 copies annually.
Shradha's prior experiences include working on the morning show at NBC Universal and producing the evening news for CLTV - a 24-hour Chicagoland cable news channel. She has participated in media seminars internationally. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with a concentration in Economics and Business. She was featured by the alumni association as 1 of 30 most promising graduates from a class of 2,000 students. As pastimes, Shradha enjoys traveling, swimming and dancing and was also the co-founder of an Indian contemporary dance troupe in college. She chairs the alumni board for a nonprofit group, CampusCatalyst, which helps students and young professionals incorporate community involvement into their academic and corporate lives.
Larry D. Grossman, Senior VP, Sponsorships. Larry brings 33+ years of advertising sales, marketing and management experience to ContextMedia. He created Media Encounters in 2001, which focuses on direct-to-patient and caregiver point-of-care media and content that elicits greater compliance and persistence by offering education and enrollment in programs at both the time and place where their own health is paramount and the messages can have the most impact.
Media Encounters is a direct offshoot of his years as Senior VP of Interactive Sales and Marketing for Netpulse Communications, a broadband convergent media network providing Internet access in major fitness centers throughout the country. At Netpulse, he established and executed sales and the marketing strategy that provided value to marketers, delighted users and scaled revenues rapidly. Larry joined Netpulse from the Orbis Broadcast Group, where he was responsible for growing the company's healthcare video and VNR business, online presence and in-flight video as executive vice president of sales and marketing.
From 1991 to 1996, Larry served as Vice President of National Sales for NBC Cable and Business Development, where he managed the Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles sales offices for CNBC, PRIME Network, Bravo and NewSport Television. While at NBC, he also served as President and CEO of American Medical Television, a joint venture of NBC and the American Medical Association, and was involved in numerous other business development projects in the health, new media and site-based media areas.
Jim Silverman, VP, Sponsorships. Jim brings almost 20 years of healthcare sales experience to ContextMedia. Prior to joining ContextMedia, he was VP of Business Development for MediZine, a major publisher of healthcare magazines, where he especially focused on the diabetes industry. Jim had also previously been the Sales Director for Health Association Business Development at Health Monitor Network, where he helped develop health publications for point-of-care distribution in medical offices.
For a few years, Jim managed his own consulting firm, through which he offered several clients advise on building association relationships, advertising sales and content alliances. Jim’s most extensive experience was with the U.S. News & World Report, where he spent over 15 years, and most notably worked on repositioning the America’s Best Hospitals issue. Jim has several association affiliations, including American Heart Association, Consumer Health Products Association, American Diabetes Association and American Academy of Physician Assistants. Jim lives in Scarsdale, NY with his wife and daughters.
Ted Wallhaus, VP, Sponsorships. Ted has a 20-year track record as a top sales executive in healthcare-related industries, exceeding sales goals with a keen eye for maintaining high profitability and margins.He has served in a wide range of business development roles including sales management, strategic account development, and complex consultative selling to the Fortune 500 as well as to small and mid size businesses.
Most recently, he served as Director of Strategic Accounts for WebMD, gaining extended experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device space. In addition, Ted’s expertise includes the development of strategic business units, national dealer networks and alliance partner programs. He is familiar with a wide range of industries including pharmaceutical, medical devices, high-tech, global tradeshow design/marketing and consumer packaged goods. Clients served include GE Medical Systems, Zimmer, Abbott, Takeda, Motorola, Navistar International, Bally Total Fitness and Sears. Leveraging his sales, design, marketing and project management skills, he has successfully grown business in three start-up companies.
Throughout his career, Ted has mentored, coached and taken a personal interest in the success of every individual on his teams. Ted is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences.