About

Mr. Mittman brings more than 30 years in technology and direct marketing, as well as substantial experience in building startups to exit with creativity and agile development. Before starting KERV he held numerous top-ranking leadership roles, Founder & President of Nami Media (which was acquired by Lin Media / Nextar Media Group), CEO & Founder of Marina Communications (also acquired), and Vice President of New Business Development – Direct Response at Western International Media (now Initiative Media).

Mr. Mittman also brings a decade of experience in the entertainment industry, including managing all booking for New York City’s premiere performance night club ‘The Ritz’ as its Executive Manager and Booking Agent, Executive Producer of the MTV concert series ‘Live At The Ritz’, a Professional Manager at Chappell Music Publishing, and started out as an Assistant to legendary Clive Davis at Arista Records.

Before Co-Founding KERV in 2017, I have spent the previous 35 years founding six start-ups in various verticals such as publishing, licensing, med-tech and ad-tech. Within these companies, I have enjoyed two meaningful exits which has provided me with the ability to continue my passion as an entrepreneur. I attribute my successful journey to the ability to acquire/incubate intellectual properties and bringing together the most talented team members to attain mutual success.

Aside from bringing together ‘Rock Star Talent’, my main focus has been in raising over $50M primarily for the startups identified above and creating strategic partnerships.

I currently live in Westlake Village, CA and am blessed to have an amazing wife and two kids. In addition to my entrepreneurial journey, I enjoy working out, traveling and an addiction to sushi.

Marika brings Operational expertise to the KERV team with Fortune 500 Executive Operational experience, M&A Operations Management, along with Agency and Technology leadership.

Marika comes with experience in leading media and technology organizations and building scalable infrastructures.

I love helping people, products, and process thrive. I lead revenue and partner growth for KERV and passionate about accelerating our industry with cutting edge solutions.

In my spare time I love food, sports, spending time with my family, and watching my little girl, Olivia grow up (#girldad alert).

People are my passion – it is wonderful to learn about people and help raise them up. I don’t have a super power, but if I did it would be the gift of gab.

I’ve been at KERV since December 2017, and working professionally in software since 2012. When I was a kid I wanted to be an artist and spent most of my spare time working on painting/drawing or making things. I started my career in the games industry working as a character animator, and over time became very interested in writing code to automate tools for the art team. The pinnacle of my career in games was working on Sims 3 Pets :). My passion for code eventually evolved into a love of all things software, and I kept taking on new opportunities with projects, eventually landing at RMM/LIN and working with some great people you may have heard of… I love what we do here at KERV, it’s the most ambitious, exciting thing I’ve ever worked on, and an amazing group of people to work with!

Outside of work, my main hobby at the moment is playing chess. I’ve been playing online and studying for a little over 4 years now, and it’s been a humbling experience to say the least. Though it can be frustrating at times, I like how there’s always something new to learn. My other hobby is studying Japanese. I started learning almost 4 years ago and it’s also been a crazy yet rewarding journey.

My super power that has helped me accomplish all of the above: I’m super stubborn and never give up. Most people just quit too early and don’t push long enough to get really good.

I joined KERV in January of 2022 with over 30 years of experience as a CFO in the Media & Ad Tech sector. I enjoy working with the passionate and dedicated teams to help accelerate business growth and KERV clearly aligns with my passion. My background includes building National, Regional and Local Cable Television Programming Networks, M&A with the last 10 years as CFO of an Ad Tech Company ‘Digital Remedy’ where I still sit on the Board.

I currently live in Long Island New York and enjoy spending time in NYC where my 3 kids live and work today, 2 of which are in Ad Tech and one in Commercial Real Estate. Outside of work my passions are tennis, biking, travel and spending time with family and friends on the weekends

Grant has been with KERV as VP of Creative for 4yrs, and has worked as a designer and creative director at agencies and media companies for the last 17yrs.

Grant’s team is responsible for all Sales and Ops support materials, including spec docs and pitch materials, as well as developing KERV’s brand and voice and all social and marketing initiatives.

I have worked in the Digital space for 17 years +. I have done Media Buying, Ad Operations, Analytics and Optimization, Account Management and now Creative.

I am an artist by nature and have learned over the years that creativity can be leveraged in every thing we touch whether it be a spreadsheet, a conversation or a splash of paint on canvas. I feel fortunate to be able to work with such a creative group of people in every aspect of what we do at Kerv. In a former life I was an assistant Golf Professional at a large Resort in the Highland Lakes area and a Computer Sales person at Dell.

I have 3 Sons and a wonderful wife named Staci. Hobbies include Golf, Mountain biking, Snowboarding/Skiing, Video Games, Painting with Acrylics and gluing plastic stuff together to create cooler plastic stuff. I call it Kitbashing. That pretty much it, The favorite thing about me is my Family of course but Me personally is my inability to hold a grudge.

My business career started as an intern at a smaller digital media agency while attending the University of Texas. It is there that the path to where I am now began. I am pleased to say several of my Kerv colleagues today were also employed alongside me, which is awesome to be connected to people for that long in business. From there, that same small agency was acquired 3 different times, so I’ve been through my fair share of mergers.

Along the way, I met several other great colleagues that are also employed today at Kerv. Needless to say, we’ve got years together and are basically family at this point. I am highly competitive by nature from my athletic background and love strategy, which is naturally why I chose a strategy-related field. I have worked in the programmatic/video space for almost 15 years now and I often times reminisce about how far it’s come over that time span.

I met my wife at the University of Texas and we are both lifelong Austinites, which has now turned into an accomplishment of sorts. We have three beautiful, smart, spoiled (me saying that but my wife would disagree) daughters with another one on the way. I know what you’re thinking – I’m overmatched. But I like a challenge. I love sports, movies, cars, and my newest love is golf, although I’m not the greatest at it. My competitive drive keeps me going back though. I also love family time and seeing my girls grow and learn new things. When my wife and I get spare time (very rarely), we try to break away and see a movie or go on a date. Luckily for us, we have two sets of grandparents in the same city!

Karen Germ is a seasoned marketing and communications professional with a nearly 15-year history serving in leadership roles across the advertising and technology landscape. Most recently, Karen served as OAAA’s VP of Marketing where she implemented industry leading initiatives to elevate and promote the power of OOH for advertisers, agencies, partners and consumers. Karen drove $210k+ in incremental revenue for the organization in just one year leveraging digital marketing strategies to drive attendance for the organizations annual conference, increase award submissions and generate new member leads. Karen formerly oversaw content and communications for Teads where she increased share of voice in the US by 80x by launching global industry research, creating content strategies, and developing strategic client partnerships. Karen also led communications for Taboola where she successfully launched growth PR and marketing programs in 11 countries around the globe and helped grow the company to over $1B in revenue.

On the agency side, Karen has worked with brands of all shapes and sizes including: Intuit, GE, WeWork, Amazon, Microsoft Stores, Belkin, eBay, Cricket Wireless, and HARMAN as well as portfolio companies for Day One Ventures and a16z. Karen is an adept storyteller – at work and in life – and has a passion for growing companies by delivering compelling content, creating immersive event experiences, delivering invaluable omni-channel marketing insights and providing useful analytics that help brands build loyalty, increase engagement, and ultimately, boost their overall value in market.

Karen loves a good dad joke, trashy beach read, and never says no to an inspired meal, whether it be fine dining or food truck. She is a proud dog-mom to a 3 year old not-so-mini husky, Klaus, and bonus mom to 5 year old, Franny

Creed Pettit TL;DR:
I am the SVP of National Sales
My leadership mantra is to leave my team better than when I found them.

Best time for deep work:
Mornings before 10am PST

Best time for meetings:
Mornings between 9 to 3pm PST.
I try to do my late night meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Preferred communication style:
Set agenda for a meeting at the beginning or in advance so I know what the purpose of the meeting to maximize our time together
Let me read any relevant docs ahead of time.

One fun fact about me:
I love to be active every single day (Walking, Hiking, Running, Peloton, Pickleball)

What gives me energy at work:
Solving problems and helping internal and external stakeholders.

What drains me at work:
Assumptions
Meetings without purpose, preparation or actionable next steps
Poor communication

The easiest way to make my day:
Talking about positive momentum with clients, Closed/Won revenue deal flow, travel, sports, real estate, bitcoin, life, kids

How I like to receive feedback:
Frequently and candidly, so I can make adjustments in real-time

Extrovert/introvert (context on how I operate):
I’m a bit of both! I enjoy reviewing the data and insights
I enjoy bringing energy and humor to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome

Personal time:
I try to spend time with my family between 6am-8am PST and even hours PST

What I value about my colleagues and team:
Trust & truth. I value it when my teammates are able to be authentic and real in all situations

I enjoy being creative, solving problems and talking through ideas to help drive the business forward.

In the early 2000s Daniel was convinced that everyone would be watching TV on their computers by the end of the decade. That didn’t exactly happen, but that belief did put him on the path that he still walks today. After spending time living in New York and working for NBC Universals first digital operations team he moved to Austin in 2009 to further pursue ad tech.

During the next decade, he has built a career working on interactive video first for Sizmek and then Nexstar. He immediately jumped at the idea to work for Kerv and was one of the first to join the company in 2017.

When not working Daniel is a dedicated music fan. He attends on average a 100 concert yearly and has over 3000 LP and 1500 7” vinyl records. He also collects sneakers, toys, and posters. Other passions include running, travel (mostly to see concerts and buy records), spending time with his family and getting tattooed.

Before joining Kerv in 2018, I spent the previous 31+ years building software products for large corporations like IBM and Schlumberger down to 3 person “garage” startups and everything in between. My passion is building innovative products that truly delight customers. I’ve spent the last 15 years discovering and refining the tools, development process, and necessary culture that create great Engineering teams capable of meeting the special demands of technology driven startups.

Outside of work, I enjoy competitive shooting, woodworking, hydroponics, and just being lazy.  I spend as much time as I can get with my daughter, a veterinarian in Hutto Texas, and my son, a computer networking specialist in the U.S. Army.

Brad Quinn is the VP of Publisher Partnerships based out of our NYC office. He has 15+ years of experience in across Agencies, Publishers and Tech. At KERV, Brad leads the Partnerships team focused on content providers and distributors. He integrates our tech capabilities across ads and content to create a real-time interactive/shoppable experience.

He holds a degree from Boston College and in addition to his professional work, Brad enjoys SCUBA and music—both listening and attending concerts.

I went into the profession of Human Resources, 30 years ago, because I believed from a young age that the way you treat your employees is what you get out of them.  My goal as an HR professional has been to help create the type of work environments that inspire folks to want to come to work. I’m also a Management/Leadership/Career Coach and my focus is optimizing humans focusing on the mind-body connection.  We, each, have tremendous potential and the abilities to level-up if we choose to understand how to get the support we need to get us there.  Helping talent thrive and helping them create success is my reason for doing what I do.