David Yaskin

CEO and Founder
Fish Name: Star-Fish
LinkedIn

David Yaskin is the visionary behind all things Starfish. As the former vice president of product strategy for Blackboard Inc., David conceptualized, developed, and communicated the product road map for Blackboard. During his nine-year tenure at Blackboard, he helped transform the company from a successful start-up to the world's leading provider of e-Learning technology. He is credited with such Blackboard innovations as defining the enterprise course management strategy; pioneering the Blackboard Building Blocks open programming framework; defining the vision for the Community Portal System; and inventing the Blackboard Outcomes System, a platform that unifies the assessment activities of the whole institution. Prior to his time at Blackboard, David led software development projects in the areas of education, healthcare, safety testing, and earth science at such industry leaders as IBM, SAIC, Thomson, and Hughes. David holds a B.S. in computer engineering and mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Ana Borray

Vice President of Client Success
Fish Name: Bella-Fish
LinkedIn

Ana Borray is the go-to person for ensuring that our clients are achieving their goals. Ana leads all client-facing services, including system implementation, account management, and technical support. In addition, she guides our clients' efforts to measure and optimize outcomes related to student success and persistence initiatives using the Starfish system. Over the past three decades, Ana has worked with hundreds of academic institutions to define systems and processes that improve an institution's ability to serve its students. Ana held a series of management positions at Datatel Inc., where she worked for more than 11 years to implement complex enterprise systems. She also has held administrative positions at Barry University in Miami, Fla., and Columbia University in New York City. Ana holds an M.A. in education administration from Columbia University and a B.A. in business administration from Florida International University.

Sam Leiber

Chief Technology Officer
Fish Name: Einstein-Fish
LinkedIn

Sam Leiber spends his days preparing the company to respond to challenges we don't even know we have yet. Prior to his current role as Chief Technology Officer, Sam served as the company's Chief Software Architect and has been with Starfish since its founding. Sam's background includes extensive work in enterprise architecture, software architecture and development, and strategic management. He has spent more than ten years as a technology consultant focused on higher education and educational technology projects. Prior to joining Starfish, Sam served as the Director of Educational Technology for Becker Professional Education, where he was responsible for all Web and mobile applications. Sam is a graduate of the George Washington University, where he earned an M.S. in computer science.

Zahra Safavian

Director of Product Management
Fish Name: Go-Fish
LinkedIn

Zahra Safavian designs software that provides positive user experiences for our clients. She acts as a liaison between our client community and the development team, ensuring that user feedback and suggestions are translated into future product features. Zahra brings deep academic technology experience, having served at Blackboard Inc. and Learning Objects, Inc. where she designed and managed the development of a variety of online applications for education '" from social networking and collaboration software to ecommerce applications. In addition to product management, Zahra has more than 10 years of experience in user interface design, usability, and accessibility. A lover of higher education, she has served as an adjunct faculty member, teaching Web design, development, and usability to undergraduate and graduate students. Zahra earned an M.A. in publications design from the University of Baltimore and a B.A. in graphic design from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Brian C. Mills

Senior Director of Product Development
Fish Name: Virtual-Fish
LinkedIn

Brian C. Mills leads a team of talented software engineers who are passionate about applying technology to improve student success. He is responsible for all aspects of the development life cycle, quality assurance, release management, and production operations. Brian comes to Starfish from Network Solutions LLC, where he was responsible for maintenance and new development of multiple essential order-fulfillment systems capable of processing millions of requests per day. In addition, Brian led R&D projects that resulted in the addition of many new and innovative products to the Network Solutions portfolio, including a unique approach to the management of pay-per-click advertising campaigns that automatically optimizes spending. Brian is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he received a B.S. in management information systems.

John Plunkett

Vice President of Marketing & Operations
Fish Name: Scar-Fish
LinkedIn

John Plunkett is busy spreading the great news that comes out of Starfish every day. When he's not managing the day-to-day administration for the company, John is focused on marketing programs, including marketing communications, public relations, client community activities, events, Web marketing, and industry analyst relations. For more than 15 years, John has helped start-up organizations gain their footing and become leading organizations in their respective fields. He most recently served as the vice president of marketing at GetWellNetwork, a leading provider of interactive patient care solutions. John also served for six years in a number of marketing management positions for Blackboard Inc. During his tenure at Blackboard, John helped introduce the company to overseas markets, establishing the Blackboard brand, sales support, and user communities in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. John is a graduate of Furman University with a B.A. in political science.

Lars Kontz

Vice President of Sales
Fish Name: Quota-Fish
LinkedIn

Lars Kontz focuses his time helping our team introduce Starfish to academic institutions all over the world. He brings more than 20 years of experience working in the education market. Lars joins Starfish after working for the previous 13 years as the Regional Vice President at Blackboard Inc. Prior to that, he served as Senior Vice President of Sales for GetActive (CONVIO). Over the past decade, Lars has worked with hundreds of academic institutions within the US, Mexico, and Canada to design enterprise eCommerce solutions to secure and provide better services to students. He has also held administrative positions at South Dakota State University, Arizona State University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Western State College of Colorado. Lars holds an M.P.A. from Arizona State University and a B.A. in Business Administration from South Dakota State University.