Ted Meisel

Ted Meisel is a Senior Advisor with Elevation Partners. He brings to the firm extensive experience in the operations and strategy of digital media and advertising companies. He provides input to potential investments and is an active board member at Forbes Media and Marketshare Partners, where he works with the management teams on strategic, operational and organizational issues. Ted is the former CEO of Overture Services, the pioneer of search advertising. He joined the company (originally GoTo.com) in 1998 and led it to $1 billion in worldwide revenues by 2003, its fifth full year of operations – when Yahoo! acquired Overture for $1.8 billion. Ted stayed on as president of the newly-named Yahoo! Search Marketing division for two years, integrating with other Yahoo! units and leading it to continued and rapid revenue growth and an expanded worldwide footprint. Prior to Overture, Ted was an executive at CitySearch, now a division of IAC/Interactive Corp. CitySearch became the leading internet city guide, ultimately absorbing its main competitor, Microsoft’s Sidewalk. His responsibilities at CitySearch included editorial, product management, product design, professional services, business development, and engineering. Before he became an internet executive, Ted spent eight years with the consulting firms of McKinsey & Company and Strategic Planning Associates (now Mercer Management Consulting) in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Singapore. Ted is also an active angel investor in and advisor to a number of early stage companies. He is the Chairman of WiserCare (shared decisionmaking for patients with a diagnosed condition), a board member of Tap11 (platform for marketers to leverage social media), and an advisor to FatTail (workflow and yield management platform for publishers). In addition to his business interests, Ted is vice-Chairman of the board of Hope Street Group (www.hopestreetgroup.org), a bipartisan group of business leaders and professionals devoted to changing socioeconomic policy so that we have a vibrant middle class as the century unfolds. HSG is especially active in reforming our education and health care systems. Ted holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and lives in Los Angeles.