Management team
The Snapfish leadership team brings together a wide, deep range of experience in online and offline business strategy and execution.
Ben Nelson
General Manager, Worldwide
Ben joined Snapfish in 1999 as leader of the company's corporate development operations, where he raised more than $36 million for 'Snapfish''s second round of funding. In November of 2000, Ben took over company-wide responsibilities for finance, bringing the company to profitability and navigating Snapfish's 2001 sale to District Photo.
Since 2002 Ben has been both Snapfish's CFO and the company's leading business strategist. He became president of Snapfish in March 2005, just before the acquisition of the company by Hewlett-Packard.
Before joining Snapfish, Ben was president and CEO of Community Ventures (now the Community Strength Foundation), a network of locally branded portals for America's communities. Prior to Community Ventures, Ben helped start the Mergers and Acquisition practice at Dean and Co, a first tier strategy consulting firm in Virginia, where he focused on transactions in the competitive telecommunications services industry.
As a consultant, Ben was also instrumental in the launching of several ventures within both large and growing companies. Among his previous projects were the launches of Disney Regional Entertainment for the Walt Disney Company in Asia, SmithKline Beecham's first foray into the internet, and the growth plan for CDNow in the first months after its founding.
Ben holds a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors.
Helen Vaid
Managing Director (Snapfish EMEA)
Helen has spent her career taking various brands into Europe from the U.K. Prior to joining Snapfish, she was sales and marketing director at Tornado Ltd., a streaming media provider. She worked with clients such as NASDAQ, Logica CMG, EMAP, and Reed Elsevier etc. to provide systems and solutions to take their rich content online.
When Servecast Ltd. acquired Tornado, she became a key member of the management team and head of sales for Europe, taking the integrated platform of streaming media publishing to corporations as well as content owners. Prior to Servecast, she successfully launched ShopSmart, the U.K.'s leading shopping comparison engine in Europe. Helen also set up key retail relationships on a Pan-European level for various brands when working at R. Twinings and Proctor, Gamble, Europe.
Helen holds an MBA from Manchester Business School and BA in Change Management from the University of Delhi. Her book on creating successful brands was published in 2003 in the United States and the U.K.
Bala Parthasarathy
VP, Online Imaging
Bala currently leads the Emerging Markets team, as a part of Snapfish's worldwide expansion. He is an Internet veteran with several start-ups under his belt. As one of the founders and CTO of Snapfish, he grew the business to a leading online service delivering advanced sharing, display and printing applications to its 50 million members. His team architected and managed a highly scaleable network of websites which now stores over 1 billion customer images and several large retail photo sites such as Costco, Walgreens and others.
Previous to Snapfish, Bala has been involved in business and technology consulting for several startups in the consumer and technology services arena.
At Wyatt River Software, another of the companies Bala co-founded, he led the team to build a robust cross-platform license toolkit. Bala was also a part of the early team at Digital Link Corporation, where he was responsible for network management.
Bala earned a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a BS from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India.
Paul Schumer
VP of Marketing and Sales
Paul has more than 17 years of consumer marketing experience spanning start-up, mezzanine and Fortune 500 companies. He began his career at Nestle Foods, where he managed an $80M business that included Raisinets, Goobers, Sno-Caps, Bit-O-Honey and Laffy Taffy. Paul then worked as a consultant in Booz-Allen and Hamilton's Marketing Intensive Group, helping leading consumer packaged goods, retailing and media and entertainment firms improve performance and build long-term strategy. He then ran marketing and product development for Pasqua Coffee, a 56-store chain of specialty coffee shops, helping to grow the company from $19M to $27M.
When Pasqua was acquired by Starbucks, Paul co-founded and became chief marketing officer of HolidayChannel, home of Santa.com. He drove a fully-integrated marketing effort that made Santa.com 1999's highest-trafficked holiday website, surpassing such stalwarts as Macys.com, Nordstrom.com, and RedEnvelope.
Paul holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in economics and BA in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. His professional drive to achieve the next summit is complemented by an obsession with rock climbing.
Marc Chapman
VP of Product Development and Operations
Marc joined Snapfish in 2000, after 11 years with both startups and Fortune 500 companies. He began his career at Capital Formation Group, a New York investment banking firm, performing company valuations, strategic financial plans and M and A work.
Marc then spent six years with Eastman Kodak where he started with the Equipment Manufacturing Division. He later joined the Single Use Camera division, where he helped build a $250MM business in just two years. While with Kodak, Marc orchestrated the launch of numerous new products and developed the business case to support the construction of additional plants in both Mexico and China.
Just prior to joining Snapfish, Marc was a Senior Analyst for Intel, assisting the CFO on strategic planning projects including acquisitions, pro-forma forecasting, valuations and corporate reporting.
Marc holds an MBA from the William E. Simon School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester and a BA from St. Bonaventure University. While not at work, Marc is an avid golfer and loves being a full time Dad to his two daughters, Avery and Kaia.
Chris Klingebiel
VP of Partner Solutions
Chris heads the Snapfish team that powers private label photo web sites for top-tier national retail chains, web portals, and mail order photofinishers. Since joining Snapfish in 2003, Chris has also spent a year leading product management for the core snapfish.com site and services.
Chris brings 15 years' experience in business development, product management, professional services, and management consulting. Prior to joining 'Snapfish' he was Director of Product Management for Cataligent, an enterprise project management software start-up. He also spent four years as a Director with Cambridge Management Consulting where he oversaw strategy, e-commerce, and business process re-engineering projects for Fortune 500 companies such as Ford, Apple, Pacific Bell, Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, and Kaiser Permanente.
Chris holds a B.A. in Linguistics from U.C. Berkeley. When not busy working Chris enjoys running, travel, and hiking.
