DAMIEN PATTON

CEO/FOUNDER

Damien Patton is the Founder/CEO of Banjo, the mobile technology that provides real time content discovery by location across all major social networks. He leads the product development and technology strategy, resulting in a global presence with over 3.5 million users in just 17 months.  Under Damien’s leadership, Banjo’s patented mobile location technology has received multiple awards.

Damien’s passion for problem solving is at the hallmark of everything he does. He has put his talents to use in some vastly varied disciplines. In addition to being a four-time entrepreneur, he served in Desert Storm, was the Chief Mechanic of a top NASCAR team and a crime scene investigator (no joke!) while working full time in the role of COO for a technology company.

A trailblazer in the industry, Patton speaks frequently at conferences on subjects ranging from social, mobile and location-based technology to agile development and privacy. He currently serves as a mentor for the Harvard Innovation Lab, Silicon Valley Immersion Experience Program (IXP).

Chris Seth

Executive Vice President

Acting as the Executive Vice President at Banjo, Chris Seth is focused on developing the company’s business and strategy. Before Banjo, Chris helped build successful global companies at Stardoll, BBDO, Time Out and the New York Times. Chris is passionate about brand creation and the impact it has on the strength and value of an enterprise. He is a professionally trained chef, lived in 5 countries, speaks 4 languages and has won numerous industry awards for his work in advertising and marketing. Chris is most proud of his family and finds time to compete in triathlons.

Rish Mehta

Director of Mobile

Rish brings more than 10 years of product management know-how to Banjo. A master of both hardware and software development, Rish previously lead the team that created the noted social networking mobile app, “Orbit Social Phonebook.” He also developed several new startups for Intel Capital’s New Business Initiatives and co-founded the mobile technology company, Blipstream.

Rish holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley and has three patents pending. He is the snack-eating champion at Banjo.

Fredrik Björk

Director of Engineering

Fredrik came to Banjo after helping build Second Life’s social networking site as the Director of Web Engineering at Linden Lab. They used technologies from his previous Swedish venture which was acquired in 2010. Before moving to San Francisco, Fredrik lived in Barcelona for 7+ years building mobile content delivery and payment systems for Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile. He is an alum of Rochester Institute of Technology.

At Banjo, Fredrik currently oversees agile development, cloud hosting and deployment processes. He is a champion of cloud-based platforms and software services as a means of boosting productivity and focus.

Fredrik dreams about buying a house in Ibiza.

Yann Landrin-Schweitzer

Director of Data Sciences

Yann is a master at data research and analysis. His PhD background in Artificial Intelligence helped develop Netflix’s famous recommendation engine prior to joining Banjo. Yann moved to the Bay Area from France to pursue his interest in Artificial Intelligence for the web at French startup, Yoono as their Lead Scientist. He is notably skilled in designing highly scalable software systems and developing state-of-the-art research into intelligent programs.

If his passion for Artificial Intelligence hadn’t gotten in the way, you would find Yann chasing storms, analyzing tornadoes.

Rodrigo Lopez

Director of User Experience

Rodrigo is a passionate, Peruvian-born mobile user experience veteran with over 11 years experience in product design. His tenure started at Adobe Systems and went on to include Yahoo! Mobile (as their 16th employee), Bluepulse – a mobile social messenger, Aardvark (acquired by Google) and Intuit GoPayment. It is likely that his work can be found on the phone you use every day.

A true food lover, his kryptonite is rare filet mignon. He lives by his motto: “How can you enjoy life without a nice steak?”