Russell Perry

Russell co-founded kompany together with his long-time friends and business partners. He drives the direction of the business and loves finding business opportunities others might have overlooked. Prior to a short exec stint where he returned to the telco world in South Africa, Russell was the start-up CEO of the largest people-search engine with more than 50 million monthly uniques, operating in 13 countries in 11 languages. He expanded the company from a garage operation to a profitable business within six months and oversaw the sale to a publishing company for EUR 15 million, generating up to a 5x return for private and the Austrian venture fund gamma capital partners within 18 months. For nearly six years Russell was a member of the senior management team at the online gaming company bwin. He led product management betting with more than EUR 2.5 billion in wagers, established strategic and media partnerships in 25 countries and was instrumental in establishing bwin as the dominant player in mobile gaming. Russell's mobile and telecommunications roots go back to 1998 when he joined Austria's third mobile operator ONE (which first became Orange Austria and then Hutchison 3 Austria) as head of product management data. There he oversaw several European firsts, such as mobile banking, SMS content services, SMS payment for vending machines and the first real-time multi-user gaming platform. Russell then joined Telefonica Movile's 3G Mobile AG in Zurich as Director of Products & Services where he defined and led the launch portfolio of the 3G green field mobile operator. Russell was born in New York City but lived in Austria for half of his childhood. He holds a BA in International Studies from Maryville College, a Master's in European Integration, and a dual MSc/MAS graduate degree in Telematics Management. Russell has enjoyed teaching several post-graduate courses on telecommunication and business modeling at his Alma Mater, Danube University Krems and other universities.