About Us
Jim Connell, CTO
As CTO, Jim directs MeeGenius' technology strategy and is responsible for architecture, implementation and operations of the MeeGenius platform. Jim has over 14 years of broad technology leadership and implementation experience ranging from large enterprise software to low-level device drivers. He is deeply interested in using technology to solve problems and has spoken at several conferences and meetups about his solutions. Jim previously worked at Schematic as Director of Java Platforms where he was awarded the Schematic Innovation Award in 2009 for his insights and leadership on several client projects. Jim's past startup experience includes Amici, a digital document management company, which later sold to Xerox.
Katherine O'Connell, Content Manager/Production Assistant
Graduated from Wake Forest University with a BA in Communication and Journalism. An experienced project manager, Katherine works with our authors, illustrators and publishers to produce the content featured on the MeeGenius site and apps.
Jackie Evers, VP, Content
Evers directs content acquisition and partnerships for MeeGenius. Jackie joins the MeeGenius team from Findaway World, makers of Playaway. While at Playaway she grew the catalog from 30 titles to 15,000 in just 5 years and created lasting partnerships with industry leaders like Sesame Street, Scholastic and PBS among others. Jackie is also dedicated to children's education and serves on the Board of Directors for STEMout, a non-profit dedicated to inspiring youth to choose STEM careers.
Chris O’Brien, Marketing Director
Chris come to MeeGenius with more than a few years experience developing awareness campaigns for major consumer brands, government organizations and most recently game-changing tech startups among them Giftiki and Freelancer.com.
David Park, Co-founder, Co-CEO
David Park is a book author and academic who was inspired to create MeeGenius! with co-founder Wandy Yeap Hoh in order to be able to read to his twin sons at home in New York City while he was a professor in Washington, DC. Park has taught and held academic posts at the country’s top universities including Washington University in St. Louis and George Washington University. He is currently a Fellow at the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. While earning his doctorate in Political Science at Columbia University, Park focused his research on American campaigns and elections and co-authored the book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (Princeton University Press, 2008). In 1999, Park co-founded TrueMetrix, a company focused on allowing users to create, conduct and analyze online surveys. Park’s inspiration to start MeeGenius! came during a time when his teaching at George Washington University prevented him from being home in the evenings to read to his twin boys. He loved to share children’s books with them and tried to do so by reading to them over the phone while they followed along with their own book at home. Yet that approach, as well as Skype video, did not quite capture the experience of his sons hearing their own dad’s voice as they moved through the pages of classic children’s stories together. Park spent an entire summer looking for a product that allowed him to record his own voice reading the words of a beautifully illustrated book. When he could not find one, MeeGenius! was born. Park’s twin boys have given MeeGenius! top reviews. They especially love being able to change the characters’ names in the stories, as well as hearing their stories read in their own parents’ voices. When not reading to his children, he is busy building MeeGenius! into a great children’s digital media company and occasionally writing a few academic articles. He no longer commutes and lives full time with his family in New York City.
Wandy Yeap Hoh, Co-founder, Co-CEO
Wandy Yeap Hoh, co-founder of MeeGenius!, is a “mompreneur” with a mission to entertain and educate. She and co-founder, David Park, created MeeGenius! with a view to make reading more engaging and interactive and as a way to share their love of reading children everywhere. Yeap Hoh has a distinguished business background, with 15 years as an executive with some of the world’s leading corporations, including Credit Suisse First Boston. She left her role as Vice President of Pomona Capital, New York City, in 2007 to pursue her dream of starting her own business. Yeap Hoh did not see a product on the market that was suitable to her children’s needs, as well as her own as a parent, so she was inspired to create MeeGenius! After 16 months of research and development, MeeGenius launched to rave reviews in April 2010. Yeap Hoh says, “My previous experience as part of a new business in a large investment bank and my experience as an investor in companies and funds have certainly helped me establish best practices at MeeGenius! and form our strategy, which evolves as we grow. The biggest learning curve is doing everything yourself. As a start-up where we had zero employees for the first year, you have to learn to roll your sleeves up quickly. A far cry from being at a large company where there are amazing resources available at all times.” Yeap Hoh is an active philanthropist; she is on the Friends Committee of Baby Buggy charity, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing New York City's families in need with essential equipment, clothing, and products for their infants and young children. Yeap Hoh holds a BA cum laude in Business Economics from UCLA and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghai dialects of Chinese and resides in New York City with her husband and three young children.
