Charles Silver
Charles Silver cofounded RealAge in 1999 and built the company
from scratch, conceiving of its business plan, raising capital,
negotiating key strategic relationships, and leading it through
the early Internet turmoil to its successful position today in the
health-media industry. At the beginning of 2006, Mr. Silver made a
critical decision: In order for RealAge to aggressively grow its
unique and profitable business model, it needed to merge with a
major media partner. Late in 2007, RealAge joined Hearst Corporation,
becoming part of Hearst Digital Media, an innovative new division of
Hearst Magazines in New York City. Today, Mr. Silver lives a bicoastal
business life but continues to lead the company from its San Diego base.
Mr. Silver has been developing, building, and managing new businesses
for more than 25 years. Before founding RealAge in San Diego, he began
his entrepreneurial career in Michigan, where he created the Oil Dispatch
franchise. It grew to be the largest independent quick-oil-change operator in
the state and was successfully merged with Jiffy Lube. Prior to Mr. Silver's
business endeavors, he hosted both television and radio talk shows and served
on the staffs of U.S. Congressman Sander M. Levin and the governor of Michigan, James J. Blanchard.
Rich Benci
Rich Benci joined RealAge in February 1999. He helped develop RealAge's business
plan, which includes motivating healthy behavior among consumers through a
personalized messaging platform. Mr. Benci oversees corporate operations and
business relationships developed by RealAge with major pharmaceutical companies,
CPG companies, and their respective agencies. He is very proud of the RealAge team's
ability to develop engaging content, present a complex interactive Web site in an
easy-to-use interface, deliver permission-based programs in an elegant manner,
and provide outstanding member services.
Rich has more than 15 years of management and sales experience. Prior to RealAge,
Mr. Benci held senior management positions at MyPoints.com, an e-mail-based
direct-marketing company, and PersonaLogic, an online personalized-content company
that was acquired by AOL. Rich also held marketing and sales management positions
for Lotus Development and Hitachi's document-management division.
Valorie G. Weaver
Val Weaver joined RealAge in April 2006, bringing with her deep editorial experience in magazines,
start-ups, and online publishing, including 20 years spent at
Vogue,
Working Woman, and
Self,
where she was editor in chief. She also launched HealthDay (then HealthScout), the syndicated
online-news service, and did extensive editorial consulting at
Fitness,
Seventeen,
Cooking Light,
Golf Digest Woman, The Walt Disney Company, Whittle Communications, and other major media companies.
At RealAge, she leads the editorial and design groups.
Andy Mikulak
Andy Mikulak joined RealAge in March 2004 and oversees acquisition marketing, business
development, brand management, and public relations. Prior to RealAge, he owned an
intellectual property and brand licensing agency. He was also executive producer and
COO of Canum Entertainment and vice president of sales at Tabula Rasa, where he played
a key role in identifying and negotiating licensing and partnership deals. Before
holding those positions, Mr. Mikulak was director of strategic development for VCAT,
a publicly traded high-tech incubator company in San Diego. Prior to that, he was
director of marketing for PW Industries, Inc., a fashion and action-sports trademark licensor.
Mike Wojeck
With over 15 years of sales experience, Mike Wojeck joined RealAge in July 2006. In his
current role as vice president of strategic solutions, Mr. Wojeck is responsible for
RealAge’s pharmaceutical-advertising business. Mike manages the pharmaceutical sales
team and develops strategic advertising products that enable RealAge to extend its client relationships.
Prior to joining RealAge, Mike spent several years with Optas, a leading provider of direct
marketing services to the pharmaceutical industry. Mike developed strategic solutions in the
areas of patient- and physician-relationship marketing for 17 pharmaceutical clients.
Clarissa Riggins
Clarissa Riggins joined RealAge in January 2007 and focuses on providing business leadership and
direction for the soup-to-nuts development of online products and services. She oversees RealAge's
product and user experience strategy, product definition, and product planning process. Prior to
RealAge, she was the product management leader for TurboTax Online, one of the largest online software
products in the world. There she led the product strategy and user experience efforts. During her tenure
with the Consumer Tax Group at Intuit, TurboTax Online grew paid units by over 50%. At Intuit, she also
worked in the QuickBooks division, where she was the business manager for several adjacent small-business services.
Previously, Ms. Riggins worked at Akamai Technologies and held product marketing and sales/alliance management
positions. She began her career as a change management consultant at Accenture.
Diane Maley
Diane Maley joined RealAge in August 1999. Ms. Maley oversees the member services department, which includes
ensuring delivery of all RealAge e-mail health tips and other health information to members; testing the site
to be sure it works easily and accurately for members; and maintaining a high level of personal service to members
of the RealAge community. Ms. Maley’s department ensures that the member experience comes first, with the goal of
providing the best possible Web experience for RealAge members.
Prior to joining RealAge, Ms. Maley worked for a national retailer as its regional manager of operations and spent
15 years in the health industry as a national operations manager. She has a degree in nursing science and started
her career as a registered nurse.
Larry Werner
Larry Werner joined RealAge in 1999 and is responsible for all database and information-system operations. Prior to
RealAge, Mr. Werner was IT director for a major pharmacy-benefits management company. He also worked as director of
operations at a start-up software company and as IT manager for a software company acquired by Macromedia. Before his
professional career in information technology, he was a nuclear-submarine officer in the United States Navy. Mr. Werner
has over 13 years of experience in the information technology field.
Barbara Newton
Barbara Newton joined RealAge in January 2008, bringing with her more than 20 years of experience in developing software
ranging from Web applications and large-scale/high-performance software solutions to medical-device software. Ms. Newton
most recently led the development of a sophisticated enterprise application, DecisionCenter, that enables IT managers and
executives to analyze current performance and simulate changes to their infrastructure. DecisionCenter is now in commercial
distribution by Hewlett-Packard. She has served in leadership roles at CalAmp (alert messaging system), Fair Isaac
(customizable engine for decision workflow), Aerocast (distributed content delivery), and CACI (simulation and parallel computing).
She holds a graduate degree in computer science from the University of California at San Diego.
