85.7 F
San Fernando
Thursday, Apr 24, 2025
Logout
Join Our Membership
Home Blog Page 41

Valley 200 – 2024: Bonnie Rosen

By
Kelly Garcia
-

General Manager, Disney Accelerator

Rosen oversees the Disney Accelerator in Burbank, an initiative to bring outside innovation into The Walt Disney Co. through investment and commercial collaboration. She assumed that position in 2021 after having been the partner and operations lead and startup advisor for the Techstars Space Accelerator, in partnership with NASA, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Corp., among other aerospace companies. Prior to that she operated her own consulting firm and was a director of strategic partnerships and legal affairs for Prizma.ai, when that startup was part of the 2015 Disney Accelerator program. Before joining Prizma, Rosen was with Viacom for six years. She volunteers as a tutor for 826LA.

Valley 200 – 2024: Blaise Simqu

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Chief Executive, Sage Publications Inc.

Simqu is the chief executive of Sage Publications Inc., a Thousand Oaks publisher of books, journals and library resources. It has be independent since its founding in 1965. Simqu has been part of Sage for 30 years. Before he was appointed chief executive in 2004 – which today includes oversight of Corwin, AM and Technology from Sage among other companies – he held positions ranging from editor to executive vice president. He serves on the board of directors for the Association of American Publishers, is an emeritus member of the board of trustees for The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks and is a member of the University of California-Santa Barbara Dean’s Cabinet. He has a B.A. from Loyola Marymount University and an M.A. from UCLA.

Valley 200 – 2024: Beau Boeckmann

By
Kelly Garcia
-

President, Galpin Motors

Boeckmann, a native Angelino, grew up at Galpin Ford and has worked in the business for over 30 years. Today, he is president of Galpin Motors which has Ford, Porsche, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar, Lotus, Volvo, Polestar Lincoln, Honda, Mazda and Volkswagen dealerships. In 2006, Boeckmann opened Galpin Auto Sports, which customizes cars of all makes and models. He starred on the show, “Pimp My Ride,” in 2006 followed in 2020 by starring in “Car Kings” on the Discovery Channel. Boeckmann, continuing his family legacy of community involvement and philanthropy, has been recognized for his community work by organizations such as New Horizons, the Boys & Girls Club, Wheels for Humanity and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Reserve Foundation.

Valley 200 – 2024: Beatriz Porto

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Vice President, Porto’s Bakery

Porto was born in Cuba and migrated with her family to California in 1971. Her mother opened the first Porto’s Bakery location shortly after arriving. Porto and her siblings worked there after school every day, throughout high school and college. Porto earned a bachelor’s degree in 1980 from Cal State LA and received her master’s degree in political science in 1982 from UCLA. Once she graduated, she focused on helping with the expansion of her family’s business. Porto serves as a member of the community engagement committee at the Adventist Health Glendale Foundation and the Magnolia Park Merchants Association Board. Porto was honored with the 2022 5th District Women of the Year Award by the Los Angeles County Commission for Women.

Valley 200 – 2024: Ara Mahdessian

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Chief Executive, Co-Founder, ServiceTitan

Mahdessian co-founded ServiceTitan in 2012 and has overseen the Glendale-based company’s development from a startup to a company with more than 1,600 employees and a valuation north of $9 billion. ServiceTitan makes software used by home services contractors. Mahdessian met ServiceTitan co-founder, Vahe Kuzoyan, on a college ski trip, where the two bonded over their shared upbringing. Both are Armenian-American immigrants who saw their parents work their way up from service technicians to business owners. ServiceTitan combines scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, sales, marketing, reporting, accounting integration and more in a mobile, cloud-based platform. Its backers include Bessemer Venture Partners and Dragoneer.

Valley 200 – 2024: Art Poghosyan

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Chief Executive, Co-Founder, Britive

Poghosyan is a seasoned entrepreneur and information security expert with over two decades of experience in cybersecurity. Prior to Britive, Poghosyan co-founded Advancive, an identity and access management consulting firm, which was acquired by Optiv Security Inc. in 2016. Motivated by the challenges he observed in securing identities and access across rapidly expanding cloud environments, he founded Britive in 2018 in Glendale to protect modern cloud operations and development teams. Britive’s patented ephemeral access technology is designed to secure teams against cybersecurity threats without compromising on the speed or flexibility of cloud computing. Poghosyan is also a mentor and participates in industry events.

Valley 200 – 2024: Andrew Dervin

By
Kelly Garcia
-

President, Valencia Pipe Co.

Dervin is the president of Valencia Pipe Co., which he founded in 2007 to be both a manufacturer sales representative and a product distribution company for plastic pipes and other plumbing-related products. He is also the chief executive of its parent, VPC Global. Prior to founding Valencia Pipe Co., Dervin worked for PMC Global, a diversified manufacturing company in Sun Valley, starting in sales and working his way up to become president of its plastic pipe-manufacturing division, Plastic Services & Products. Dervin was the president of the company from 1997 until its sale in 2008 to a private investment trust. He serves on the board of the Harold & Carole Pump Foundation, a Sherman Oaks nonprofit that fights cancer.

Valley 200 – 2024: Adel Villalobos

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Founder, Chief Executive, Lief Labs

Villalobos is the founder and chief executive of Lief Labs, a dietary supplement development and contract manufacturing organization based in the Santa Clarita Valley. He has been in the industry for over 25 years with extensive experience in manufacturing, product development, regulations and government advocacy. Villalobos founded Lief in 2008 with only 10 employees. Today, Lief has more than 200 employees. Villalobos is a board member of several industry trade organizations including the Natural Products Association and the Supplement Safety & Compliance Initiative.

Valley 200 – 2024: Jack O’Hara

By
Kelly Garcia
-

Co-Studio Head, Infinity Ward

O’Hara is the co-head of Infinity Ward, an Activision-Blizzard Inc. subsidiary based in Woodland Hills. He started as a senior producer, a position he held for more than five years, then for the next six years he was a game director until being named co-studio head in September. In addition to the Valley headquarters, Infinity Ward, founded in 2002, has offices in Austin, Texas, Poland and Mexico. The games developed by Infinity Ward have won over 200 “Game of the Year” awards and 100 “Editor’s Choice” awards, among many other industry accolades. Along with the original “Call of Duty” franchise, the Valley studio has also created “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,” “Call of Duty: Ghosts,”: “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.”

LA News Team Bringing Olympics Home

By
Zane Hill
-

NBC4/KNBC and Telemundo52/KVEA in Universal City announced the local talent roster traveling to Paris to provide coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

The team features NBC4 News anchor Colleen Williams, “Today in LA” anchor Lynette Romero and reporter Lolita Lopez, and Telemundo 52 sports anchor Alejandro Navarro.

Navarro began his coverage of the games on July 24 with special sports features, and profiles for Spanish-speaking audiences on Noticiero Telemundo 52 and Telemundo local stations across the country.

Romero is anchoring “Today in LA” live from Paris from 5-7 a.m. on weekdays. It features live interviews with local athletes going for gold. Lopez will report live from the sidelines of the biggest competitions for Team USA across NBC4’s newscasts.

In addition, NBC4 anchor Williams will travel to Paris to cover the closing ceremony on Aug. 11 and bring exclusive coverage of the historic Olympic flag handover to Southern California viewers. This moment will mark the official transition from Paris 2024 to Los Angeles 2028.  

Todd Mokhtari, president and general manager of NBC4 and Telemundo 52, said the stations were proud to have its Los Angeles team in Paris to help NBC4 and Telemundo 52 audiences live the excitement of the Olympic games through dynamic storytelling of Southern California athletes, experiences and culture.

“We will have Lynette anchoring live for ‘Today in LA,’ Alejandro delivering in-depth sports anchoring on KVEA, and Colleen covering the historic handover of the Olympics to Los Angeles,” Mokhtari said in a statement. “From now through 2028, Los Angeles will be the center of attention for Olympic sports.”

Williams, who joined NBC4 in 1986, has extensive experience covering Olympic games including L.A., South Korea and Atlanta. She started her broadcast career at WOW radio in Omaha, Nebraska and later joined NBC affiliate station, WOWT, also in Omaha. She went on to anchor newscasts at CBS Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Romero, the co-anchor of the morning newscast “Today in LA” airing weekdays from 4-7 a.m., has more than three decades of news experience and dozens of awards and accolades from the community. She joined NBC4 in 2022 after serving a long career at KTLA-TV where she anchored and reported on nearly every newscast, including as weekend anchor of its morning news. Prior to that, she was an anchor and reporter at the NBC affiliate KUSA-TV in Denver for 10 years.

Lopez has been an investigative reporter and anchor at NBC4 since 2011. She is part of the award-winning I-Team. Prior to joining NBC4, Lopez had a successful, decade-long career at WPIX-TV in New York, where she served as a general assignment reporter and, later, a sports anchor, where she won two local Emmy Awards for Best Sports Feature and Best Live Sports Coverage.

Navarro is the sports anchor for Telemundo 52’s weekday evening newscasts. He joined Telemundo 52 in 2007 as a sports anchor for the station’s weekend newscasts and was named sports anchor for the station’s weekday newscasts in 2009.  Navarro is a 16-time Emmy Award winner and a four-time Golden Mike Award winner for his sports segments and stories.

NBC4/KNBC is the West Coast flagship station of NBCUniversal Local, serving the vast region since 1949. Telemundo 52/KVEA is Telemundo’s West Coast flagship local television station serving Spanish-speaking viewers in the L.A. market.

1...404142...3,066Page 41 of 3,066

11150 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 350
Los Angeles, CA 90025
323-549-5225

ADVERTISE WITH US

ABOUT US

Membership Center

OTHER JOURNALS

© Los Angeles Business Journal | Inside The Valley
(formerly San Fernando Valley Business Journal)