Matthew Berardo Appointed Vice President and General Manager of LiveJournal Inc.

LiveJournal Inc., one of the world's leading global online communities, today announced that Matthew Berardo has joined the company as Vice President and General Manager. Berardo will lead the LiveJournal team from its Californian home. He will report to Andrew Paulson, CEO of SUP, the owners of LiveJournal.com.

Berardo's appointment coincides with the recruitment of a new senior management team to support him and grow the business. These appointments include Wally Finley as Sr. Director of Operations, Stephanie Gravelle as Director Finance & Administration, Tupshin Harper as Director of Development, and Gregory Kennedy as Global Creative Director.

Berardo joins LiveJournal from Yahoo!, where he was most recently Sr. Director of International Business and Product Management. In that role, Berardo was responsible for managing the executive international agenda from Yahoo! corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Prior to that, Berardo was the Sr. Director, Global Platforms in the Technology Division. Berardo spent nearly 7 years in London in various positions at Yahoo! Europe, most recently as Sr. Director of Broadband and Network Services where he was responsible for the Yahoo! Frontpage, My Yahoo! and BT Yahoo!, a strategic partnership with British Telecom. Berardo was also responsible for other network-wide services such as billing and registration across the Yahoo! European network.

"Signing up an experienced general manager to lead LiveJournal Inc. has been a top priority since SUP acquired LiveJournal last December," said Andrew Paulson, chief executive of SUP. "Matt brings to the job the perfect blend of experience, rigor and passion; characteristics which will be drawn on in equal measure as we continue to improve LiveJournal. Matt's experience also makes him the ideal leader for our growing senior management team in San Francisco. I'm proud to be working with such a capable and committed team."

"Having spent the last ten years of my career working to expand Web-based media internationally, LiveJournal represents a truly unique opportunity," said Berardo. "LJ is inherently global in its goals, its community and its culture. I’m very excited about the opportunity of leading such an interesting product and diverse and passionate community."

Berardo is joined by an experienced and well-rounded executive staff, including:

• Wally Finley joins LiveJournal as Sr. Director of Operations. Prior to joining LiveJournal, Finley was Principal Data Center Architect at Expedia. Wally was responsible for capacity planning and among other accomplishments organized the consolidation of 30+ worldwide data centers into 3. Finley joined Expedia as part of their acquisition of Hotwire, where he was responsible for organizing and streamlining Hotwire's IT operations team.
• As Director Finance & Administration, Stephanie Gravelle is responsible for all financial and administrative roles at LiveJournal. Prior to joining LJ, Gravelle spent 13 years in the advertising industry at Publicis & Hal Riney, where she served as CFO. Prior to those positions, Gravelle was a Senior Audit Manager at KPMG.
• Tupshin Harper, Director of Development, oversees all U.S. engineering for LiveJournal Inc. Tupshin also manages all aspects of LJ Labs, the LJ forum for discussion and development of new features, applications and ideas. Tupshin joins LiveJournal following two years as lead architect and head of engineering at Jangl, where he developed their mobile communications platform.
• Global Creative Director Gregory Kennedy comes to LiveJournal Inc. following a position as Sr. Creative Director at Millions of Us, an agency specializing in virtual worlds. Prior to that, Kennedy was Creative Director at Cyworld, a division of South Korea's SK Telecom. Kennedy is an award-winning designer with more than a decade of experience of multidisciplinary design and creative experience. Kennedy's portfolio is available at www.gregorykennedy.com .

Berardo joins LiveJournal six months after its acquisition by SUP. In that time the new owners have, among other things, introduced measures to improve the speed and usability of the service, convened an advisory board of technology industry visionaries to advise management on how best to develop the service, overseen the election of two LiveJournal community members to the advisory board, and launched a series of new features to engage new and existing users.