Team
Andreas Bodczek
Chief Executive Officer, co-founder
Andreas is in charge of advertiser relations as well as overall evolution of the company.
In his previous role as CEO of Telefónica Deutschland, Andreas was responsible for the German fixed net operation of the Spanish telecoms group. He led the development of the company’s nationwide wholesale and B2B broadband business as well as the post-merger integration with O2 Germany. Before becoming Managing Director, Andreas held sales and finance executive roles in Telefónica’s German and UK subsidiaries. Andreas started his career in 1999 as a member of Bertelsmann’s Junior Management Programme.
Andreas earned an MBA from the Munich School of Management.
Janis Zech
Chief Revenue Officer, co-founder
Janis is co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at SponsorPay. He helps publishers all over Europe, US and Asia achieve their monetization goals and has in-depth knowledge of the virtual goods industry worldwide.
Previously he was project manager at Team Europe Ventures where he was responsible for investment proposals and the company's own startup projects.
Janis developed his passion for starting businesses during his business studies at Universität Witten/Herdecke.
Sodan Selvaretnam
Chief Financial Officer
Sodan is heading the planning, controlling, performance management and international business development areas at SponsorPay.
He has worked in management capacities at the interactive units at the Walt Disney Company and Freedom Communications. Most recently, he founded and headed a business and knowledge outsourcing company with clients in Europe and delivery centers in India. He started his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers before moving into operations and finance roles at leading media companies like Bertelsmann and EMI.
Sodan earned his Master's and Bachelor's degrees at Drew University and Fordham University respectively.
He is an avid music lover and enjoys spending his free time with his family.
Markus Knoke
Chief Technology Officer
Markus is the head of SponsorPay’s product management and IT team.
He brings extensive experience in web application development from his prior work at different startups and at global management consulting company Accenture. There he held the position of Project Manager for a 50-person development team and was responsible for the successful implementation of e-commerce projects for a renowned European logistics company.
Markus studied management in Göttingen and at UC Berkeley.
Dave Westin
SVP & General Manager, US
Dave is in charge of US operations and is primarily focused on revenue acceleration and market share growth; both on the advertiser and publisher sides of the business.
In his previous roles in the space, he was the original VP, Sales for both SupersonicAds and Gambit Labs, where he led similar business development and worldwide sales efforts and significantly grew their revenues. Before, Dave worked for a division of First Data (largest worldwide direct payment provider), was a VP, Sales and Business Development for Fiorano Software and was a VC-funded CEO at ChannelAutomation, a b2b software start–up.
Dave earned his Bachelor’s in Business Administration (Finance and Real Estate Development) with a minor in East Asian Studies from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. In addition, he has a Certificate of Accounting from Golden Gate University where he finished #2 on the 1993 California State Auditor’s Exam.
Simon Kröger
Director Engineering
Simon, SponsorPay's Director Engineering, is responsible for everything that moves without having a brain on its own (besides the coffee machine).
Various projects over 12 years of freelancing have prepared him for the technical challenges of this project that has hundreds of external interfaces and millions of users everyday. He knows half a dozen languages inside out, including Ruby from the days before Rails, and happily shares his experience with everyone willing (and able) to follow.
When Simon is not at SponsorPay, he spends time with his family, gardening or playing EVE Online.
Laura Jassoy
Director Advertiser Relations
Laura started at SponsorPay in the company’s early days, developing Spain and then the southern regions and was also responsible for account management of major European publishers. She later focused on business development on the advertiser side and is now responsible for sales and relations.
Before joining SponsorPay, she worked in consulting at A.T. Kearney. Laura earned a BSc (Economics) at Universität Mannheim and studied abroad in Sydney, Australia. During her studies, she was head of thinc! – a student initiative to foster entrepreneurship. She grew up in Spain and Germany in a multicultural environment.
Laura likes to spend her time visiting Berlin's restaurants, bars and art galleries, as well as dancing ballet.
Dharmesh Damani
Director International Business Development
Dharmesh is responsible for building new relationships with advertisers across international markets. He is based in London and Berlin but can frequently be found in New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco attending conferences and meeting clients.
Prior to SponsorPay, Dharmesh worked at affiliate network TradeDoubler for almost five years. He started out managing key relationships with clients such as Apple, British Gas, Panasonic and Santander. Later, he supervised new business for their international sales team. Previously, he was at New York based agency Creative Priority. He also taught English in Japan and worked for Telstra as an analyst in Australia.
Outside of SponsorPay, he enjoys creative writing and worked as a travel journalist while at university. Wherever he is in the world, he loves to play tennis and snowboard.
Per Meurling
Director Advertiser Operations
Leading the Advertiser Operations team, Per holds ownership of the final execution of all operational advertiser activities at SponsorPay. He works closely with the key accounts to achieve the best possible results for our partners.
Per grew up in Germany and Sweden. He earned a Master of Science degree in International Business Administration from Lund University and was a consultant at the Swedish Trade Council.
In his free time, he enjoys startup culture, music, cooking and fine dining.
Projjol Banerjea
Director Marketing
Projjol’s role at SponsorPay includes overseeing the company's online and offline presence, PR/communications, industry relationships and market research.
Previously, he worked in London as VP Marketing for mobile payments company Surfpin. Projjol has had a diverse range of professional experiences that span academia, start-ups, small enterprises and large corporations in the US, UK, India and Germany. In June 2008, he was selected as a Fellow by StartingBloc, an international fellowship of young leaders who share a keen interest in corporate responsibility, cross-sector partnerships and sustainability.
Projjol was awarded an MBA by the Saïd Business School in 2009. At Oxford, he was a member of the university’s lightweight rowing program. Prior to that, he earned degrees in computer Science and informatics from DePauw University and Indiana University respectively.
In addition to physical activity, he enjoys reading (mostly non-fiction), music and travel; weaknesses include wine and dark chocolate.
Johannes Heinze
Director of Mobile
Johannes Heinze heads the mobile team at SponsorPay. Previously, he was responsible for corporate development and strategic initiatives at the mobile advertising platform Smaato. He started focussing on mobile at the very beginning of the app economy in 2008 and has worked for several seed investors and mobile companies as a consultant. Johannes holds a BA from Zeppelin University and launched his first startup while still a student.
Besides being fascinated by scaling business models, he is enthusiastic about architecture and graphic design. He can usually be found at exceptional espresso bars in either San Francisco or Berlin breaking some selvage denim while rockin' some sneakers even insiders look down to.
Debora Blass
Head of Operations
Debbie organizes all customer support operations at SponsorPay and communicates with users in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. She likes setting up and optimizing processes as much as getting so many emails from all around the globe.
Before joining SponsorPay, she spent a lot of time travelling and learning languages. During her studies, she enjoyed learning Polish on the German/Polish border, Turkish during an Erasmus year in Istanbul and Arabic in the Kingdom of Jordan. After a year as student researcher at UC Berkeley, she is happy to work for such an international company.
Debbie holds an MA in Socio-Cultural studies from Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and loves exploring the cafes in different Berlin neighborhoods in her free time.
