Our Team

Ariane de Bonvoisin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Chief Change Optimist
Ariane is a life-change expert, having embraced the certainty of change. She regularly mentors the staff on the psychology of change and the business of helping people through changes. As the “face” of First30Days, she can be found jet-setting around New York City and the rest of the country inspiring people and companies to embrace change. Ariane is committed to helping people see the positive in any change and improve their lives.

To read more about Ariane, click here .

Ariane’s Current Changes: Buying a New Home, Having a Gratitude Journal, Getting Organized, Finding a Dream Relationship, Getting in Shape, Writing a Book, Moving to a New Office.

Joe Pierce, Chief Operating Officer
Change Meister
Joe is our resident “firefighter.” Anything that is set ablaze in the First30Days world is easily extinguished by Joe’s quick wit and business acumen. True to the “all hands on deck” mentality, he works closely with all departments to ensure that the best product is presented to users every day.

Joe is a graduate of Bellarmine University, a small liberal arts university in the Midwest and never thought his bio would be published on a site like this. In 1994, he joined International Data Group (IDG) in Boston as a publisher. While there, he launched one of the internet's first email-focused businesses, Tipworld, and developed an appreciation for the Red Sox. Since then, he founded, sold and re-purchased Emazing.com, had a torrid three-year affair with Sony Music as senior vice president and later ran back into the arms of IDG as resident email geek. He is married to a beautiful woman whom he believes is too good for him, and has two sons.

Joe’s Current Changes: Having More Money, Starting a New Business, Switching to HDTV.

Steve Hardin, Chief Technology Officer
Change Scientist
Steve is our site mechanic—he keeps the First30Days machine running. His techno-savvy ensures we’re able to offer the best features and functionality. And, if it doesn’t work properly, he’s usually able to fix it. He’s often heard saying, “We are all about change here. If we don’t get it right the first time, we’ll make it work.” We can ask him for anything, and he will figure out a way to make us better.

As a youngster, Steve worked in a hardware store and spent 11 years as a dedicated volunteer firefighter. After graduating from Indiana University with a Chemistry degree in 1996, this little thing called the internet started to pop up and grow. He got a job at a small internet service provider that eventually grew—and rose the ranks to chief technology officer. He then succumbed to the same love affair that Joe had with Sony, working as the director of development for Sony Music Digital in April 2001, and moved over to Sony Pictures in 2003 as the senior director of development for customer relationship management.

Steve’s Current Changes: Starting a New Business, Switching to the Mac.

Victoria Bianchini, Community Director
Change Champion
Victoria is the thoughtful neighbor who knocks on your door, holding freshly baked banana bread, to welcome you to the neighborhood. As the host of the First30Days community, she makes sure that everyone can join the general conversation, while still feeling comfortable enough to share a personal story.

Before arriving at First30Days, Victoria worked as the customer experience manager at Register.com and director of guide marketing at About.com. Before that she was the marketing manager for Prodigy’s communities. All of her positions have the same theme—Victoria is always listening and learning, trying to understand what people want and working to engineer better web environments to meet those needs.

Victoria’s Current Changes: Going Green, Improving Any Relationship, Buying a New Home.

Ashley Rutledge, Vice President of Sales
Change Magnet
Ashley is the leader of our sales force for change. Her goal is to make advertisers feel good socially, while helping our bottom line. She works tirelessly finding marketers who embody our vision of change and partnering with them to bring great content to our members.

Before First30Days, Ashley held positions at media companies including CNN, Atlas Solutions and Avenue A|Razorfish. She thought about going to business school, but realized that working at a start-up was a better education without the pay cut and the hassle of school loans.

Ashley’s Current Changes: Getting Married, Going Green, Living Healthier, Planning for Retirement.

Arnulf Agbunag, Vice President of Business Development
Change Hero
Arnulf is our traffic guru, implanting great plans to ensure people are actually driving by and stopping in to visit the site. He does this by striking partnerships with like-minded individuals and companies. As our West coast contingent, Arnulf is also coming up with ideas to enhance our members’ experiences by offering video, mobile and offline activities with other companies.

Before joining First30Days, Arnulf was vice president of corporate development at a privately held company that sold private label discounted digital services to retail stores. He also worked with Joe as director of marketing for Emazing.com, where he was instrumental in growing the site from 10,000 daily subscribers to 13 million—all in one year. Arnulf also started a small business based on a health and wellness program he developed, and did volunteer and non-profit work for an 18-month stretch. He graduated from Baylor University with a degree in Finance.

Arnulf’s Current Changes: Dealing with a Family Member in the Military, Learning a New Language (Spanish and Mandarin), Learning to Ride a Motorcycle, Living Healthier.

Sarita Coleman, Controller
Change Counter
Known as the First30Days Countess of Accounting in some circles, Sarita is really the person who keeps this company running. She makes sure that the bills and all of the hard-working folks that work for First30Days get paid. Sarita also produces our fancy financial reports that keep our investors happy. And she’s been known to bring in some homemade treats to keep the troops happy on long days and nights in the office.

Sarita has worked as an accountant for 13 years—seven of which were with start-ups. She started out in public accounting and then moved over to be an accountant for an ad agency. That’s how she met Joe and worked with him as budget manager at Emazing.com. She has also done consulting work, which Sarita says taught her a lot about how companies operate. And the best thing about all of her jobs is the fantastic friends she made along the way.

Sarita’s Current Changes: Succeeding at a New Job, Living Healthier, Enjoying an Empty Nest.

Bill Cherep, Traffic Manager
Change Scout
Bill knows that as traffic manager he’s the person who handles the actual advertisements on our site, but as he admits, sometimes it’s not as simple as that. He secures ads from their creators and strategically places them on our site with the help of some fancy high tech tools and resources. For fun, he likes to chat up the First30Days programmers and act like he knows what the heck they're talking about.

Bill started at a small advertising agency in New Jersey where he stripped the clutch in his car delivering proofs to clients. He moved to the traffic department at DraftFBC, a larger ad agency in New York City. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bill joined the Army and worked at Ft. Knox as a cavalry scout training soldiers to fight in Iraq. He left the service after two years and returned to the world of trafficking. Love led him to follow his fiancé to Louisville, where he bounced around to different ad agencies until he found First30Days, where he’s found a home.

Bill’s Current Changes: Going Green, Finding Your Dream Job, Improving His Sex Life, Having More Money, Living More Spiritually.

Caren Wachtenheim, Account Executive
Change Catalyst
Caren is the friendliest account executive you’ve ever met. That comes in handy when she’s working with potential clients and agencies in trying to ink sponsorship deals for First30Days. She serves as an excellent representation of what this company is all about—compassion, friendliness and respect come through in every phone call and email.

Caren graduated from the University of Massachusetts as a Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Administration major, and quickly realized that she really wanted to do more to help people. She worked as an assistant camp director for a non-profit summer camp and loved it, but living in New York City and working for a non-profit is nearly impossible. She started working for CNN.com and later at Fox Interactive Media, where she found her love of media. Wanting to continue to help people while staying in the media industry, she happily landed at First30Days.

Caren’s Current Changes: Training for a Triathlon, Dealing with a Family Member in the Military, Succeeding at a New Job, Switching from Western to Natural Medicine.

Elizabeth Mayo, Senior Editor
Change Aficionado
Elizabeth is responsible for writing and editing content, story pitching and arranging expert and celebrity interviews. But her editorial muscles aren’t the only ones that are flexed for First30Days—she's also responsible for replacing the water bottle in the office water cooler, opening the packaging on electronic items and putting together office chairs. And she’s done all this without breaking a sweat.

Elizabeth graduated from New York University with a B.A. in English and Journalism. She worked in event production with Dalzell Productions throughout college. Her first job in the “real world” was for CNN's "American Morning with Paula Zahn" in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. She had a quick stint at Court TV, and returned to "American Morning" in 2005, where she worked on various top news stories, including Pope John Paul's death and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Elizabeth’s Current Changes: Losing Weight, Getting Married, Succeeding at a New Job, Going Green, Dealing with a Health Diagnosis, Living on a Budget.

Kristen Ball, Senior Editor
Change Aficionado
Kristen is a spitfire who believes in working in a fun environment. She’s currently coping with the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome as she writes, edits copy, interviews really interesting people and helps develop creative content for the greatest web site in the world—so a little wrist pain is totally worth it!

Kristen’s pre-media life included being a swim instructor at Girl Scout camp, working PR for high-end hotels and restaurants in Dallas and running an after-school educational center. Most recently, she was the managing editor at Trump magazine and a freelance writer/editor for Blueprint, On Mission, Relate, HeliumReport.com and The Not For Tourist Guide to New York. She earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and attended the M.S. in Publishing from New York University.

Kristen’s Current Changes: Starting a New Business, Succeeding at a New Job, Changing Her Look.

Andy Kopp, Software Developer
Change Technician
Andy is a programming artist, taking everyone’s ideas and translating them into the bits and bytes that a computer can understand. And, like it or not, he’s the company’s personal tech support. He also serves as First30Days’s Mac troubleshooter—the person that everyone calls when the email service goes down or a file is lost. Andy obviously has the most patience of anyone on the staff.

Before joining First30Days, Andy worked as an information technology consultant—a field he’s focused on for more than 10 years. He works with programs with fun names like Java and SOAP, .Net and PHP.

Andy’s Current Changes: Switching to a Mac, Planning a Wedding, Being Awesome, Succeeding at a New Job, Learning New Things.

Tony Ennis, Staff Programmer
Hand of Change
Tony likes to call himself the “Lord of Email.” And it’s a good thing he feels so possessive about his domain, because you wouldn’t get your daily email tips without him. Tony’s intricate code systems make sure those emails get sent out timely and accurately. On his down time, he likes to eat snacks while surfing the web for tractor pull strategies.

Tony graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in Computer Science. His career path has been, let’s say, unique—from creating automated tax appraisal cards to maintaining a chemical plant simulator. After a few moves, a marriage and a number of job losses, Tony found work at Emazing.com with Joe (noticing a trend). His tenure there was cut, and after trudging through a few more jobs, he was tapped to help out at First30Days, where he is happily programming emails and…surfing for tractor pull strategies.

Tony’s Current Changes: Enjoying an Empty Nest, Growing Old Gracefully.

Larry Goodman, Sales Advisor
Larry is First30Days’ sales mentor. He’s here to impart his wisdom on the current sales trends in the internet realm. At the drop of an email, Larry quickly helps us with strategy and all things sales and marketing.

As president and founder of White Mountain Media, Larry serves as a consultant for a number of established and start-up companies, including the BBC, Coleman Media, TV One and First30Days. He’s on the board of directors for National Cinemedia, Teletrax and Medialink Worldwide. He’s also an advisor to BlackArrow and SpotExchange. In his previous life, Larry was president of sales and marketing for CNN and president of operations for Turner Broadcasting Sales from 1995 to 2003. Prior to that, Larry was a media planner at Grey and McCann Erickson.

Larry’s Current Changes: Starting Your Own Business, Enjoying an Empty Nest, Learning to Cook, Learning about the Stock Market.

Kellie Gould, Editorial Advisor
Kellie serves as the editorial mentor to Ariane and the First30Days edit team. She offers clear advice and helps with strategic partnerships that will propel our content to the next level.

A seasoned online content and audience development consultant, Kellie helps companies build or transform their online properties. She was the senior vice president, editor-in-chief of iVillage, overseeing the programming and community teams, editorial voice and creative standards for the award-winning internet destination for women. During her tenure, Kellie built and guided a skilled team of producers, editors and writers, turning iVillage.com into the largest online women’s network with more than 16 million unique visitors per month. Kellie graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin with a B.A. in Journalism and English. Kellie began her career in publishing at VOGUE and Adweek magazines.

Kellie’s Current Changes: Being a New Mom, Grieving the Death of a Loved One, Finding Your Dream Job.

David Harpe, Multimedia Advisor
David is First30Day’s media guy. He’s responsible for putting together a strategy for our podcasts and videos. If he’s not seen lugging loads of electronic equipment, he can be found editing audio and video files on his computer.

David started his career in media working at a local public television station before he was old enough to drive. He co-founded Emazing.com with Joe and served as its chief technology officer for several years. After Emazing, he opened a photography and videography studio in Louisville, KY. Somewhere in there, he also worked as a web roadie for the Ozzy Osbourne/Ozzfest tour and completed photography for a book on Stephen Rolfe Powell, a world-famous glass artist. David also freelances for the Associated Press and other news organizations.

Dave’s Current Changes: Succeeding at a New Job.