Our Team
Vishen Lakhiani Co-Founder
Vishen started his career with a BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering from the prestigious University of Michigan School of Engineering. He was recruited by Microsoft straight from university—but within 11 weeks realized that he was more captivated by running a software business than writing code. He turned entrepreneur at the age of 24 but his early ideas had the nasty habit of failing and leaving him broke. When he realized that his handicap was sales and marketing, he quit his business to take a commission only sales gig at LegalMatch, a then up-and-coming legal technology firm in San Francisco.
Despite zero experience, within 9 months he was running the company’s slick New York office. He left LegalMatch 2 years later to turn bedroom entrepreneur. Armed with an astute understanding of marketing and technology—his first idea, started in a small Manhattan apartment with just $500 of capital, turned profitable in the first month and continued to grow and evolve.
MindValley Media was born from that bedroom business and life for Vishen has never been the same again.
Michael Reining Co-Founder
Before MindValley Media, Mike worked at eBay, the world’s largest eCommerce company, where he served as Head of New Venture Strategy and was one of the leading players that drove eBay’s expansion into the person-to-person classifieds and communications space.
His first accomplishment was driving eBay’s entry into the local classifieds space with a 25% investment in Craigslist, and the acquisitions of Rent.com, GumTree, Loquo, and Opusforum combined with the launch of Kijiji.com—eBay’s international network of nearly 50 classifieds websites, its biggest expansion since its 10 year old auction business. Yet Mike’s biggest accomplishment at eBay was a wild idea with Skype. Mike first conceived of the idea and strategy that lead to the acquisition of Skype (for USD$4 Billion).
Mike was also an Associate Consultant for The Boston Consulting Group for two years in Chicago. Mike received a BBA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Stanford.
Kenneth Branding & Marketing Maven
In his previous life as copywriter for the largest multi-national ad agency network in the world, Kenneth has won a ton of awards in the field.
His string of awards includes D&AD. Cannes Lions. London International, AdFest, Young Guns — 15 in total, to be exact. Over just the past 2 years.
He now brings his proven award-winning expertise in Copywriting, Branding and Marketing to MindValley’s partners and clients.
Kenneth wants to make YOU famous, just as he has made brands like Heineken, the Economist and Gillette famous as well.
KhaiLee Marketing Strategist
His various awards include HSBC’s Regional Young Entrepreneur Award 2006 and KLue Magazine’s Blue Chilli Award for Outstanding Youth. Khailee has spent his life in music, theatre, debating, business studies, web design, entrepreneurship, and photography.
He graduated a top student and Valedictorian, having studied in University of Technology Sydney, San Francisco State, and UC Berkeley. He also co-founded a successful online sociopolitical youth magazine, and a local indie music promoter and distributor.
Jiangti Chief Developer
Jiangti leads our programming team. He is a whiz-kid at web application development, and one of Malaysia’s top web 2.0 developers. In 2005, Jiangti developed BlinkList, which rapidly became one of the top Web 2.0 creations emerging from South East Asia and turned profitable in 2006.
In 2007, he’s been working with MindValley to launch SocialRank.com, our content analysis engine that powers some 80 websites.
He is also an avid rock climber and shuffles his time between Malaysia and Australia.
Nika Affiliate Manager
She brings with her a package of optimism, idealism, and 6 years of experience dealing with the international talent pool of AIESEC. Nika was a leader of her local AIESEC chapter and organized the largest educational conference in the world (1,000 participants from 95 countries).
She holds a Masters in International Finance from the Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland and was accorded “The Dean’s Award for the Most Active Student”.
Living for experiences, she used to be a professional dancer, swimmer, life guard, model and a farmhand driving tractors. Besides working for MindValley Media, Nika is busy traveling and discovering the beauty of Asia.
John Writer & Editor
John has a degree in Communication from the State University of New York and previously worked in the advertising world for BBDO, Publicis and EuroRSCG. At MindValley Media he works on producing content and traffic for our network of websites.
An established DJ and dance music producer, John also runs FoundationKL.org , a non-profit music promotions portal for up and coming DJs.
Katalina Project Manager
Hailing from Colombia and Canada, Katalina is responsible for managing two ecommerce properties that collectively do $1 million per year in sales. She manages a list of 200,000 subscribers, communicates with Joint Venture partners and handles email marketing.
Like most people at MindValley Media, she’s highly accomplished, having won writing competitions in Canada and a scholarship to the University of British Columbia.
Bilingual in Spanish and English, Katalina enjoys being immersed in new cultures and dancing!
Wu Han Chief Designer
As MindValley Media’s design and UI expert, Wu Han wears two very different hats—one as the structured, well-mannered programmer and other as the epicurean, conscientious designer.
His career path meanders through the kitchens of a top restaurant in Australia, a pre-publishing firm, a high profile dot-com, an e-learning company, and an interactive agency to name but a few places that have contributed to his experience. He holds tight to his principles and his Science degree from Curtin University of Technology.
Meike Community Manager
‘Made in Germany’ she holds a degree as an IT Specialist from the German Chamber of Commerce. Besides being an award winning writer, she was a tour guide for the Basilica San Marco in Venice, lead hikes through the Swiss Alps, worked her way through New Zealand and volunteered for AIESEC in Cologne.
Meike carries a valid shooting-licence in her pocket—she always hits the mark.
Currently on a detour experiencing Asia and the depth of the World Wide Web, she is on her best way to a Diploma in Social Science.
Janne Ruby Developer
Our resident polymath, Janne’s personal studies span psychology, business, philosophy, meditation, spirituality, social entrepreneurship, and computer science.
He applies himself to fire-twirling, running online businesses, and software development in XHTML, CSS, PHP and more passionately, Ruby on Rails.
Janne hails from Finland.
Talat Chief Mathematician
After completing his Integrated M.Tech in Mathematics and Computing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he was involved in JSP, Javascript, JAVA and Algorithm Development as a developer in various IT companies. Extremely passionate about Mathematics and Technology, he is advocating basic research in Mathematics and Physics.
Currently Talat is heavily into Artificial Intelligence, Swarm Intelligence, Machine Learning. While working on MindValley Media projects he is applying modern mathematics into IT and Economics.
As a child, he believed in magic. He still believes in magic. He calls it Technology.
Caroline Community Manager
Caroline has several years of experience in sales and marketing during her work with non-profit organizations promoting management and youth leadership, including JA-YE (Young Entrepreneurs) and AIESEC in Belgium.
Her Master’s thesis “Critical Success Factors when launching eCommerce products” is driven by her love for technology and marketing.
Caroline is fluent in French, English, Dutch and Italian, but doesn’t use it much during her frequent travel across Asia. She spent a year in the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and holds a Masters Degree in Management Science from The Solvay Business School in Belgium.