Julian is our CEO, and the founder of VacationRoost. Julian is passionate about the vacation rental industry, and has built a team that shares his vision for building the leading online marketplace for vacation rentals. A veteran media executive with more than 18 years of senior-level operating experience and a world-class institutional background, Julian is also the CEO of Castles Media Company.

Before founding VacationRoost, Julian served as Chief Financial Officer of Primedia, a $300 million Internet media company that owns and operates leading brands: Apartment Guide/Apartmentguide.com, New Home Guide/Newhomeguide.com, Auto Guide/Autoguide.com, and Rentals.com. While at Primedia, Julian also served as President of the Autoguide.com business, and he was also responsible for the launch and development of Rentals.com.

Julian previously served as CFO of PageNet, a $1 billion public telecom company. He also was a founder and managing director of Cabrillo Advisors, a boutique financial advisory firm. Julian began his career as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and Co. in 1990, later serving as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Company. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Amherst College.

George leads our sales, back-office and financial teams. He brings more than 20 years of senior-level executive experience in finance, accounting, operations, and sales and marketing to VacationRoost. He is also a founding member of the Castles Media team.

Prior to VacationRoost and Castles Media, George was Director of Finance with Nokia Inc. Enterprise Solutions business group, with global financial responsibility for the ES Sales and Marketing group. While at Nokia, George led Six Sigma projects, winning national and global awards and becoming a Six Sigma Certified Green Belt, making him a master at identifying and removing causes and defects of the business process.

George has held senior-level controller, director, and manager roles at GTE (Verizon) and ILD Telecommunications. His experience includes IPO filings, SEC filings and acquisitions. He has had extensive international business experience, having worked in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and China.

George has an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Michelle is the chief steward of our VacationRoost brand and is responsible for ensuring that the voice of the customer is heard and considered at every point in a product's life cycle. Her department includes VacationRoost's Customer Experience, Software Development, Marketing, and Customer Acquisition teams.

She joined VacationRoost in 2008 as vice president of customer experience and product management, and helped design and launch the company's next generation booking engine.

Michelle has held a number of senior management positions in product management and marketing. Prior to joining VacationRoost, she served as director of product management for Hotels.com (Expedia, Inc), where she was involved with developing and implementing the company's new product development lifecycle. Previously, she was vice president of market and product planning at Avao, a venture-backed, B2B business process integration company. Michelle holds a B.S. degree in medical technology from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

Rob Michalik, Chairman -- Board of Directors

Rob is a founder and Managing Director of Kinderhook Industries, a $470 million private equity firm based in New York City. Rob and his partners have completed more than 50 Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance transactions, investing more than $1 billion throughout their investment careers, and have partnered with Castles Media to build VacationRoost. Rob is also a Director of Raleigh Cycle Ltd., Perrin Manufacturing Company, Lodis Accessories, Inc., EAM Corporation and Trubiquity.

Cor Carruthers, Director

Cor is a Principal at Kinderhook Industries and has had a distinguished career in investment banking and private equity. Cor played a key role in getting VacationRoost started through the acquisition of OTravel in 2007. Cor also serves on the Board of Directors of KN Rubber, Nurse-On-Call and Mastro's Restaurants.

Elan Blutinger, Director

Elan has led the successful launch, IPO, and sale of two well-known travel companies: Travel Services International and ResortQuest International. He subsequently was a Director at Hotels.com and chaired the special committee that sold the company to IAC/ InterActiveCorp. He is currently a Director of Great Wolf Resorts.

Michael Sands, Director

Michael is a former senior executive at Orbitz Worldwide. He served as Chief Marketing Officer from the company's formation, launch, and IPO. He then was COO following the company's sale to Cendant in 2004 through its spin off to Blackstone in 2006. Previously, he held senior marketing positions at General Motors, Giant Step, and Leo Burnett. A career marketing executive, Michael advised United Airlines during the launch of UAL.com.