Eric is the co-founder of Playa Tech and long-time resident of Playa Vista. With a long commute to work, Eric was searching for potential carpoolers with other techies and decided to launch a private Facebook group dedicated to Playa Vista tech employees. The group grew organically, with hundreds of entrepreneurs, marketers, product managers and engineers meeting each other for the first time. Eric has yet to find a carpool buddy.
Eric was born, raised, schooled and has worked in LA all his life, from management consulting to startups. Currently, he is a Principal Product Manager at Amazon in a team called Personalization, surfacing the right shopping recommendations at the right time.
Eric is an Android fanatic, lurking in Android forums daily. He enjoys Sunday brunches with his wife and 2 kids and still watches music videos on TV.
Feel free to reach out at eric@playatech.io or https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericthomasian/
Eric was born, raised, schooled and has worked in LA all his life, from management consulting to startups. Currently, he is a Principal Product Manager at Amazon in a team called Personalization, surfacing the right shopping recommendations at the right time.
Eric is an Android fanatic, lurking in Android forums daily. He enjoys Sunday brunches with his wife and 2 kids and still watches music videos on TV.
Feel free to reach out at eric@playatech.io or https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericthomasian/
Mike Mouawad is a UX research manager at Belkin. He first stepped foot in the field when he joined a human factors and applied psychology program in graduate school. His academic background helped transition him into the workforce shortly thereafter. For the next decade or so, he specialized in user experience research and design. Mike acquired experience in various fields like medical, networking and IoT while working for companies like Medtronic, Cisco and Linksys. In the last few years, he’s been managing a team of UX research, beta testing and analytics. What he loves most about his job is mentoring his team, evangelizing research cross-departmentally and influencing product experiences in insightful and data-driven ways. When he’s not busy with research, Mike enjoys reading about technology, business, psychology and management. His other hobbies include walking, self-contemplating, meditating, and watching thought-provoking debates on some of life’s biggest mysteries and challenges. He’s currently working on a blog and reading up on various self-help topics and philosophies that may contribute to the writing of a book in the near future. You can reach him at mike@playatech.co or http://linkedin.com/in/mike-mouawad-5a66073
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jesus shares a deep interest for everything tech related. He currently heads up the Cinema Technical Services team for Dolby Laboratories. Jesus spent the last 10+ years in the Digital Cinema industry conducting industry and global product trainings, management of trade shows and leading a team of support engineers. Jesus has spent the last few years focusing his efforts into capturing and prioritizing user experience data from the field to then design solutions in collaboration with Product Management, Engineering, Production, and Sales to provide the best customer experience and product services.
Jesus has always had a strong sense of team and community. At an early age he joined his local Neighborhood Council where they discussed matters that affected community and prioritized escalation efforts. He has played organized baseball from a little age through post high school and eventually started coaching t-ball but now finds himself in an underperforming recreational basketball team. Recently, Product Management has sparked an interest and Jesus has been integrating those skills into his current profession. In his spare time, Jesus loves to read biographies, business books, and the occasional novel.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/JesusAlvarado365
Email: jesus.alvarado@me.com
Jesus has always had a strong sense of team and community. At an early age he joined his local Neighborhood Council where they discussed matters that affected community and prioritized escalation efforts. He has played organized baseball from a little age through post high school and eventually started coaching t-ball but now finds himself in an underperforming recreational basketball team. Recently, Product Management has sparked an interest and Jesus has been integrating those skills into his current profession. In his spare time, Jesus loves to read biographies, business books, and the occasional novel.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/JesusAlvarado365
Email: jesus.alvarado@me.com
Raised in Los Angeles, it was evident that Kathleen enjoyed meeting people and engaging in conversation when she was voted “friendliest” in her high school yearbook. Kathleen’s curious nature and love for building relationships helped set the stage for her career. With her degree in psychology, her expertise lies in building and leveraging organic business relationships with vendors/clients and implementing worldwide initiatives for industry-leading companies in competitive landscapes.
Kathleen is a dynamic and adaptive professional who has accumulated a very diverse work history that runs the gamut of digital/tech, entertainment, dental/healthcare, fashion, creative/marketing agency, retail, publishing and culinary arts. The last 10 years of her work life have been dedicated to the entertainment technology vertical, specifically the digital cinema realm, where Kathleen was part of the big industry push from film to digital. At Doremi Labs she led an industry-crucial global rollout for 8000+ field servers to meet industry compliance. When she went to Dolby Laboratories she managed top-tier customer relationships and global cinema dealers.
In the recent years, Kathleen led the implementation of IMAX’s global rollout for their new electronic content delivery system aiming 1300+ IMAX sites. In her day-to-day, she manages client and vendor relations, interfaces with C-level executives and stakeholders to deliver status updates on her projects which typically consists of recruiting commercial exhibitors and selecting ISPs for each territory.
Enjoying business development, Kathleen also has a creative side and has dabbled in entrepreneurship. In 2012 she founded Socialista LA. A social media consulting agency that educates small businesses about social media platforms, helps them make a shift into the digital world and maintain a positive online presence. You can reach her at kathleentahmasian@gmail.com or www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-tahmasian.
Kathleen is a dynamic and adaptive professional who has accumulated a very diverse work history that runs the gamut of digital/tech, entertainment, dental/healthcare, fashion, creative/marketing agency, retail, publishing and culinary arts. The last 10 years of her work life have been dedicated to the entertainment technology vertical, specifically the digital cinema realm, where Kathleen was part of the big industry push from film to digital. At Doremi Labs she led an industry-crucial global rollout for 8000+ field servers to meet industry compliance. When she went to Dolby Laboratories she managed top-tier customer relationships and global cinema dealers.
In the recent years, Kathleen led the implementation of IMAX’s global rollout for their new electronic content delivery system aiming 1300+ IMAX sites. In her day-to-day, she manages client and vendor relations, interfaces with C-level executives and stakeholders to deliver status updates on her projects which typically consists of recruiting commercial exhibitors and selecting ISPs for each territory.
Enjoying business development, Kathleen also has a creative side and has dabbled in entrepreneurship. In 2012 she founded Socialista LA. A social media consulting agency that educates small businesses about social media platforms, helps them make a shift into the digital world and maintain a positive online presence. You can reach her at kathleentahmasian@gmail.com or www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-tahmasian.
Fed up with winter, humidity, and mosquitoes, Alex drove across the country in 2016 on a mission to set roots in California as yet another east coast transplant. From food trucks to food waste, his time on the west coast has been a string of entrepreneurial endeavors that all lead back to the LA food scene. He currently manages food truck on-boarding and logistics at CrowdFood for music festivals, marches, and fairs around the country.
A data junkie and Excel aficionado who regrets not taking more computer science in college, Alex spends his spare playing catch-up waist-deep in online Python, SQL, and HTML/CSS courses. Outside the office, Alex also works with his Alma Mater, Lehigh University, to bring together their 2,500+ local alumni through a wide range of activities and events.
You can reach Alex at alexjvalentino@gmail.com, or via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/alexjvalentino
A data junkie and Excel aficionado who regrets not taking more computer science in college, Alex spends his spare playing catch-up waist-deep in online Python, SQL, and HTML/CSS courses. Outside the office, Alex also works with his Alma Mater, Lehigh University, to bring together their 2,500+ local alumni through a wide range of activities and events.
You can reach Alex at alexjvalentino@gmail.com, or via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/alexjvalentino
Raised in Vancouver British Columbia, David Shapendonk decided that traveling down the 5 Freeway was way too easy a way to move to Los Angeles; so, he decided to come via Karlsruhe, Germany, where he stopped for two years, and then through Toronto, Canada, where he paused for another 12 years….
David has made up for his bad sense of direction by serving on several non-profit board of directors, including his Alma Mater, Kwantlen Polytechnic University. An Alumni organization that he helped start. Whether the groups are local, such as the Hilltop Emergency Response Organization, or international such as Hadassah or Plan, David firmly believes in giving back to the community.
Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer for Maestro Games, SPC, he previously worked at IMAX Corporation in various technology managerial positions for 27 years.
A decent sailor and a wonderful piano player (when the keyboard volume is turned off), he spends his remaining free time annoying & spoiling his wife of 13 years, Marla. You can reach David at david@maestrogames.com or via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/davidshapendonk.
David has made up for his bad sense of direction by serving on several non-profit board of directors, including his Alma Mater, Kwantlen Polytechnic University. An Alumni organization that he helped start. Whether the groups are local, such as the Hilltop Emergency Response Organization, or international such as Hadassah or Plan, David firmly believes in giving back to the community.
Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer for Maestro Games, SPC, he previously worked at IMAX Corporation in various technology managerial positions for 27 years.
A decent sailor and a wonderful piano player (when the keyboard volume is turned off), he spends his remaining free time annoying & spoiling his wife of 13 years, Marla. You can reach David at david@maestrogames.com or via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/davidshapendonk.
Having lived in LA for over 21 years, Yalda considers herself an LA “native” proudly showing off SoCal’s beauty to anyone visiting. She has been in the entertainment and journalism fields for over 12 years starting off at a local Bollywood TV show airing in LA called “Showbiz India TV.” Then she worked as a journalist for ABC News and Inside Edition covering breaking news, award shows, murder trials, etc. After about 8 years of news, she decided to take a break by working in the digital field at Jukin Media managing the trending team. She acquired the biggest videos on the internet (think: Chewbacca mom) and led her team to reach the #1 position in viral video licensing.
Fun facts:
-She decided to become a journalist while studying for her math exam and watching a reporter at the Britney Spears concert on her local TV channel. She thought: He gets paid to go to concerts!
-She has a dog named Jellybean
-Been watching Bollywood movies since childhood (ShahRukh Khan’s #1 fan)
-The beach is therapy.
-There are no bad mochi ice cream flavors.
You can contact Yalda here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaldasadiq/
Fun facts:
-She decided to become a journalist while studying for her math exam and watching a reporter at the Britney Spears concert on her local TV channel. She thought: He gets paid to go to concerts!
-She has a dog named Jellybean
-Been watching Bollywood movies since childhood (ShahRukh Khan’s #1 fan)
-The beach is therapy.
-There are no bad mochi ice cream flavors.
You can contact Yalda here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaldasadiq/