Board Members

Arthur co-founded Active International in 1984.

Prior to co-founding Active, Art gained a reputation as one of the industry’s most knowledgeable media experts. He held senior sales and management positions at four important broadcast companies: Seltel, Inc., Katz Communications, Field Communications and Kaiser Broadcasting.

Art has also made community involvement a priority. Through the company’s Active Cares program, contributions have been made to over 600 charities since 1997.

A principal of the company, a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Leadership Team, Alan has direct responsibility for global strategic development as well as strategic oversight of Active’s domestic and international media and non-media trading products, models and strategic partnerships.

Known for his innovation and creativity, Alan has developed trading programs and products that have become industry standards.

Bill Georges is Active’s President & Global CEO. Bill joined Active in 2007, energized by the company’s inventive concept and its potential to redefine corporate trade. Bill has brought more than 20 years marketing, advertising and sales leadership experience to Active.

Bill was previously Senior Vice President, Advertising and Affiliate Sales for Comcast Networks and Senior Vice President at Liberty Media, spending more than 10 years at both companies.

Earlier in his career Bill played competitive tennis, competing at the U.S. Open and playing on the ATP Tennis Tour. After a sports-related injury, he transitioned to the business world, becoming Vice President of Sales and sponsorships for the ATP Tour.

Having escaped a life in accountancy, Mark started his career in the advertising sales teams of Granada TV and Thames TV, parts of the ITV network. He moved to the agency side as Group Head of Planning and Buying at Geers Gross and then Director of Planning and Buying at Austin West Media, sitting on the industry board of the Association of Media Independents.

In 1990 Mark moved to Sky Television two weeks prior to the merger with their rival BSB. He stayed there for 14 years rising to Director of Sales. In addition to Sky’s channels, his team represented Paramount, Nickelodeon, Arts and Entertainment, Discovery, and National Geographic across multiple platforms. During his time at Sky, he was the business owner of the Interactive Advertising (Red Button) Launch Project and worked on two Fundamental Business Reviews of the company, alongside Ernst and Young and Anderson Consulting (Accenture). He was a founder member of the group that became Thinkbox, the TV industry’s trade body, and sat on the 2003 committee of the Edinburgh International Television Festival.

In 2005 he became Vice President of Sales for Yahoo! Across Europe generating all display advertising revenues for the company in the region. He is on the Executive Committee of the IAB and the European Interactive Advertising Association.

He joined News Group Newspapers in August 2006. In his role as Media Director was responsible for all advertising revenues across print, online, and mobile for The Sun and The News of the World.

Mark has been president of the advertising industry’s Solus Club welcoming, amongst others, Sir Martin Sorrell and Lord Sebastian Coe as his event speakers. He captained the industry’s golf society, SW1GS in 2021.

He joined Active International as Managing Director of the UK on 29th February 2012, which made celebrating annual anniversaries somewhat tricky. He is proud to have built a first-rate team that enjoyed significant growth in revenues and clients, introducing programme finance, digital signage, and energy utilities into the Active model for the benefit of media partners. He stepped down from the UK team at the end of 2020, joining the Active International board of directors as an advisor.

He loves spending time with his wife Louise and grown-up children Lauren, Benedict, and Joshua. Downtime is spent traveling, hiking, playing golf (poorly), and watching cricket and rugby. His guilty pleasure for the last 30 years has been playing in his rock band, The Breaks.

In March of 2019, Erhardt Media Ventures was founded as a Global Advisory and investment entity with unparalleled experience access and insight into Advertising/Marketing, Media, and Sports Key. Areas of expertise include first mover experience in streaming services for sports and entertainment, media monetization across multi-platform, cross media offerings enhanced advertising driven by data and content analytics. I also advise and serve on boards of private, public (sports wagering) companies that are across the entertainment, sports media and marketing industries.

Recent clips and bios of my career at ESPN are included below.
https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/01/21/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Marketing-and-Sponsorship.aspx

The above links reflect my bio that was produced by ESPN and Disney. While I spent 20 years leading Global Sales and Marketing for the multi-platform brand that is ESPN. It also includes recent press about my retirement in January of this year from Variety. The top link is a story recently done in Sports Business Journal about accomplishments and industry milestones and industry firsts while leading sales and marketing for-the ESPN ABC Sports and Disney Sports properties. Most recently, I led the ESPN team in its marketing and sponsorship advertising strategy for the launch of ESPN+ – the the first direct to consumer sports streaming service in the US continuing the ” First” narrative.

I have been at the forefront of the ad sales and marketing business first as Publisher of Advertising Age, the industry bible for 10 years from 1990 through 1999, where I had P&L responsibility for the Ad Age Group including Ad Age the magazine, Ad Age.com , which I launched in 1995, Ad Age international and Ad Age Events and Radio. In my years at ESPN from 1999 to 2019, I merged the television sales groups of ESPN and ABC Sports into one cohesive unit. I then added all digital, print, international, and event sales as well as Business to Business Marketing to my portfolio. I successfully launched and led the first ever multi-platform sales and marketing team globally designed to deliver business winning solutions to advertisers and marketers through sports. In 2015, I added consumer marketing , Global Data and Research oversight to my role as a member of the ESPN Senior Executive team and a member of The ESPN Hearst Corporation Board.

I am skilled in marketing, media positioning, global ad sales, senior sales leadership. My knowledge of data and consumer research and its impact on marketing media and advertising is well regarded throughout the media, advertising and marketing business. I speak often at industry events, college and universities about these topics and I am passionate about making the industry more effective and efficient in how it goes to market and launches products, services and brands that WIN.

Victor has extensive experience in corporate management and business operations in the consumables industry. From 2015 to 2019, Mr. Herrero served as the chief executive officer and director of Guess Inc, which is principally engaged in designing, marketing, distributing and licensing a lifestyle collection of contemporary apparel, denim, handbags, watches, footwear and other related consumer products around the world. Prior to joining Guess Inc, Victor served as the head of Asia Pacific and managing director of Greater China of Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A. (Inditex Group), an international fashion retailer with brands including Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius.

In addition to Active International, Victor is a board member of Global Fashion Group S.A., (e-commerce fashion site operator and owner of Zalora and The Iconic among others, the shares of which are listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange), G-III Apparel Group, Ltd (US manufacturer and distributor operating through a portfolio of brands, the shares of which are listed on NASDAQ) and Gruppo Coppel (Mexican consumer finance and retail conglomerate) and Clarks (British based international shoe manufacturer and retailer)

Victor graduated with a Master of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from ESCP Europe in Paris, France in 1992 and a Bachelor of Law Degree from the University of Zaragoza in Spain in 1993. He was also awarded “Best CEO in the Sustainable Apparel Industry” in 2018 by European CEO Magazine.

Ms. Richman most recently served (2017-2018) as Executive Vice President, Brand, Revenue & Yield Management, Disney/ABC, reporting to the President of Advertising Sales, Disney/ABC. In this capacity, Debbie optimized and managed multi-platform business opportunities across the Disney/ABC portfolio. She lead dedicated daypart, programmatic and digital revenue teams, linking to the content across multiple platforms, including ABC Entertainment, Daytime, News, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Radio Disney and Freeform. This also included The Walt Disney Company’s online, social and mobile offerings.

Debbie had previously served as the Senior Vice President of Primetime Sales for the ABC Television Network until 2017. Debbie joined ABC in April 2010 and reported directly to Geri Wang, President of Sales. Her responsibilities included the sale and stewardship of ABC Primetime and ABC Unified (the network’s multi-platform program offering), the development of upfront and scatter to-market strategies for all dayparts and the management of key vendor relationships, including AMPAS, DCP and CMA.

Richman was previously Executive Vice President, Ad Sales, of Lifetime Networks, a position to which she was named in April 2008 . In her role, Richman oversaw all ad sales for Lifetime Television and Lifetime Movie Network – the two highest-rated women’s networks – Lifetime Real Women, Lifetime Digital (which includes myLifetime.com, LMN.tv, Roiworld.com, DressUpChallenge.com, MothersClick.com and LifetimeMoms.com), as well as Lifetime HD, Lifetime Movie Network HD and Lifetime On Demand.

Prior to joining Lifetime, Richman had been Managing Director, National Broadcast, at OMD since 2005. In this role, she was responsible for the annual purchase of $4B in media while authoring a number of industry “firsts.” With her dedicated team of digital investment specialists (online, broadband, Tivo, HD, 3D and VOD), she crafted historic combined linear/digital Upfront with ABC Unlimited and MTV Networks. Richman pioneered exclusive product integration deals with both cable and broadcast networks that spanned OMD’s client portfolio on both traditional television and emerging platforms.

Previously, Richman was Director of National Television at Optimum Media, which folded into OMD in 2002. While there, she managed the investment of billings for more than 40 blue-chip accounts, including Hershey, Universal Pictures, Mobil, Clorox, McDonald’s, State Farm and JC Penney.

Richman also ran the Johnson & Johnson National Broadcast agency of record account while with two separate advertising agencies over the span of ten years. From 1988 to 1993, she was Vice President, Media Supervisor, at Young & Rubicam, and from 1993 to 1997, continued to oversee the J&J account as Vice President, Group Media Supervisor, with McCann-Erickson. She began her media career in 1984 at Ogilvy & Mather, where she worked on such accounts as Smith Barney, International Playtex, Duracell, Campbell’s Soup and Hallmark.

A 2005 Advertising Age Woman to Watch, Richman graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. She resides with her family in New York City.

Mr. Lazar has served as one of our directors since his appointment in 1998.  He was the founder of Lazar Levine & Felix LLP, certified public accountants, was its managing partner from 1969 until 2002, and continued as a member of the firm, now known as Baker Tilly, LLC, until his retirement in 2014.  Mr. Lazar specializes in business valuations and merger and acquisition activities.

As the managing partner of a certified public accounting firm for over 30 years, a member of the board of directors of a New York Stock Exchange REIT company and the chairman of its audit committee and a former member of the audit committee of a large biotechnology company, Mr. Lazar has extensive accounting and financial expertise in a variety of businesses, which lead the Board of Directors to conclude that Mr. Lazar should serve as a director of the Company and as Chair of the Audit Committee.

Mr. Lazar received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the City College of New York in 1960 and completed the Principles of Business Valuations of the American Society of Appraisers.  He received his accreditation in Business Valuation from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in 1988.  Mr. Lazar’s certified public accounting firm was an early member of the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board.  Mr. Lazar is a life member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and he has served on their various committees.

A global business leader, Sir Bryan Nicholson GBE ran the main European operations for Xerox before serving on company boards as chairman and non-executive director and as President of the Confederation of British Industry (CPI). Sir Bryan is active in UK public life, chairing national public bodies in the fields of manpower, education, and financial regulation.