Management
David Lord
President and CEO of Knowledge Adventure
David Lord is president and CEO of Knowledge Adventure, the leader in adventure-based games for 3-to-10 year olds. As head of the company, Lord’s extensive background and 15+ years in the toy industry makes him uniquely qualified to lead Knowledge Adventure and solidify its position as a multi-faceted kid’s entertainment company with retail, online, and mobile components. The company’s long, rich history in creating fun learning products is sustained by Lord’s expertise in producing quality educational toys for all ages, along with his talent for building a multi-faceted growth strategy for online businesses and brand development.
A recognized and respected leader of the industry, Lord was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2006 Award in the Emerging Growth category in the Greater Los Angeles area.
Prior to his role at Knowledge Adventure, Lord served for four years as president and CEO of RazorGator Interactive Group (RIG), a leading event company for premiere sports and entertainment events worldwide, which he grew over 100% per year to well over $100 million dollars in revenue. While at RazorGator Lord spearheaded the growth of the RazorGator brand and raised Series A and B financing. Prior to RazorGator, Lord served as chief executive officer and chairman of the board for Toysmart.com, a venture-backed catalog company for educational, e-commerce, and retail products. During his time there, Lord established the company as the #1 brand in “Good Toys”, building brand awareness from zero to 45% in less than four months while increasing revenue over 500% each year.
David was raised in Boston, Massachusetts and holds a BSA in Accounting from Northeastern University.
Jim Czulewicz
Chief Revenue Officer
Mr. Czulewicz, a veteran of the gaming and children’s market, joined Knowledge Adventure in Spring 2007. At Knowledge Adventure Mr. Czulewicz is responsible for managing all business operations including revenue management, marketing/user acquisition, business development and strategic partners.
Prior to 2007, Mr. Czulewicz served as VP Financial Planning and Analysis with Riverdeep, Inc. where he held responsibility for the revenue and expense management of all departments within one of the largest educational publishers in the world. During his tenure at Riverdeep, Mr. Czulewicz also served as a member of the product and operational committees as they integrated the assets of The Learning Company, Broderbund and Mindscape into one organization building out reporting, operations, strategic relationships and distribution services for the consumer and school divisions.
Before Riverdeep, Jim held various senior level sales, merchandising and sales management positions within the gaming and educational software markets. At Mattel, Inc. Mr. Czulewicz managed a growing merchandising and sales team responsible for the continued growth and distribution of various PC software brands including Barbie, Hotwheels, Reader Rabbit, Print Shop, PrintMaster, etc. Prior to Mattel, Mr. Czulewicz served as VP Merchandising/Sales for Broderbund, Inc. with responsibilities for the sales and distribution of a growing line of PC games and consumer software.
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
CTO of Knowledge Adventure and General Manager, KA India
Sudhir Krishnaswamy has a 20+ year track record of driving change and transformation in technology organizations. As the CTO of Paciolan, he developed key technologies that connected legacy back office software into scalable Internet facing storefronts, which quickly led to a Series A funding round for the company. Sudhir then joined Openfield Technologies as its CTO. Here, he built one of the largest ticket exchanges in the US secondary ticket market, and quickly transitioned to Openfield's parent company Razorgator, where he renovated and scaled up the e-Commerce platform and integrated that same exchange. Sudhir then moved to India to set up and run Razorgator's 60-person India operation as its GM, where he led the rapid creation and deployment of TicketOS, the premier ticket management software in Fortune 50 companies.
Sudhir joined Knowledge Adventure in June of 2008, and quickly set up and staffed KA's office in Bangalore, regarded today as one of the better game development teams in India. As CTO and the GM of India, Sudhir has been an integral part of the rapid transformation of KA and the creation of a highly scalable technology platform that has supported the creation of multiple virtual worlds and social and mobile gaming in addition to console and retail games.
He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University, India.
Bill Kennedy
Vice-President Finance and Administration
With over 25 years of experience in financial planning, analysis, reporting and accounting, Bill Kennedy joined Knowledge Adventure in 2005 as Corporate Controller and is currently its Vice-President of Finance and Administration.
Prior to joining Knowledge Adventure, Mr. Kennedy was Corporate Controller at Digital Media Campus and Vice-President of Finance and Administration at Dunk.net. He was also previously Corporate Controller at Applause, Inc. (toy and gift industry) after having spent 10 years at Mattel, Inc. in various senior financial positions, including Director of Corporate Financial Planning and Director of Finance for its Mattel USA, Mattel Interactive and Mattel International sales and marketing divisions. At Mattel, Kennedy was also heavily involved with new business start-ups, direct marketing initiatives, systems development, and mergers/acquisitions/divestitures.
Kennedy received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Claremont McKenna College. He is a Certified Public Accountant (active status) and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Lori Berget
Executive Producer
Lori Berget is Executive Producer for Knowledge Adventure with over 15 years of experience designing and developing award-winning educational gaming for 3-to-10 year olds. Berget guides project development from concept to release by evaluating market opportunities, accessing customer trends and prioritizing key opportunities to drive the JumpStart brand. Berget also has an extensive background in creating educational curriculum for 3-10 year olds.
Berget graduated Cum Laude with a BA from California State University, Long Beach
Christopher Williams
Creative Director
Chris Williams is Creative Director for Knowledge Adventure with over 15 years of experience designing and creating art for award-winning games. Williams has produced 2D and 3D art for over 75 games and commercials. Williams guides the overall style and look of each project while contributing to the overall creative design and technical specifications. Previously, Williams spent 3 years as a medical illustrator creating surgical videos and medical text books. Willliams is currently the Studio Chair for 2011 Siggraph Conference in Vancouver Canada.
Williams graduated with a Masters Degree in Biology from University of California - Riverside
Teresa Tersol-Wiseman
General Counsel
Teresa Tersol-Wiseman is General Counsel of Knowledge Adventure, the company leading the way with www.jumpstart.com – an incredible online 3D virtual world for children. Tersol-Wiseman’s background in the software industry including an emphasis on quality, customer service, contract management and operations brings a different perspective to her role as General Counsel.
Prior to her role at Knowledge Adventure, Tersol-Wiseman was a consultant to multi-national companies assisting them in establishing world-wide business processes and key customer metrics. Prior to consulting Tersol-Wiseman was General Manager and Vice President of Softbank Services, Inc. and was responsible for opening and running the first international customer service center and fulfillment facility in Dublin, Ireland. During her tenure in Ireland she grew the company from 5 initial employees to more than 200, handling inbound customer service calls for twenty high tech companies in seven languages, supporting currencies and calls from twenty-two countries. Prior to that she was World-Wide Vice President of UCA&L.
Teresa was raised in Carmel, California and holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a JD from the University of California, Davis.
