Bob Meese Email & Phone Number

Pittsburgh, PA, US

During my time at Duolingo, I've led / managed Monetization, Strategy & Business Operations, Partnerships, M&A, Assessment Science, and Original Content, expansion to new subjects like Math and Music, and the Duolingo English Test.

Pittsburgh, PA, US

• Until 2016 Duolingo ignored/struggled with monetization. After I joined we grew revenue rapidly, from an annual run rate of <$1M to $100M+ in less than three years.Responsibilities and accomplishments include:
• Leadership of revenue-focused teams including subscriptions and ads
• Created revenue forecasting process, beating plan every year 2017-2020
• Started Strategy & BizOps team to lead strategic planning for the company
• Executive leadership of Duolingo's second major product, the Duolingo English Test
• Managed creation of board materials, 2017-2020

• Select list of investments and advisory roles:
• Altera, digital human beings that live, love, and grow with us (2024)
• Dapper Labs, creators of NBA Top Shot and Flow blockchain (2020)
• Kudos, consumer smart wallet that earns more and saves time (2021)
• Tonic, music practice app that fosters connection and community (2021)
• Trala, tech-powered online music school (2018)

Mountain View, CA, US

• I joined Play just after launch, to start and lead the Global Games BD team. This team drives developer revenue performance on Play, and developer adoption of new technologies.Developer performance programs included.
• Helped drive explosive games revenue growth of >25x, from $150M to $4B+
• Led org change to merge games teams from across Google into a single team within Play
• Organized team to enable category expertise in top grossing, AAA, and indie games
• Built dedicated "torso" team to scale developer management, through tools and processes
• Influenced merchandising, especially incentives for simultaneous launch on Play and iOS

Mountain View, CA, US

• New Business Development was an early-stage BD team that worked on nascent high impact projects across all product areas globally. This role helped me develop pattern recognition for which early stage products succeed.
• Games: I started Google’s game platform efforts for Chrome and Google+, which evolved into my role at Google Play
• New Initiatives: Google’s first experiments and partnerships for Google Surveys, Augmented Reality (Google Goggles), and developer access to Google Infrastructure (App Engine)
• TV Ads: Infrastructure deals (data licensing, tech licensing/integration) for Google TV Ads, which eventually became part of YouTube
• Wireless Spectrum: Core team member of Alternate Access team, presented to Google exec leadership and received approval to bid $4.6B in 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction

Co-founded men’s apparel e-commerce startup; asset/IP sale in 2011

Mountain View, CA, US

700 MHz Wireless Spectrum Auction: Member of core team that presented to executive management and received approval to bid $4.6B in 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction, personally led capex/opex modelingGoogle App Engine: Sourced the first 3rd party developer to use Google App Engine

Early stage venture capital firm with $700M under management.Industry coverage: Internet/IT, focusing on mobile/wireless technology & servicesCompany involvement: Board Observer at Airpath (acquired by Aptilo), SensorLogic (acquired by Gemalto), and Tropos Networks (acquired by ABB); also supported Calix (CALX) and Nexidia (acquired by Nice Systems)

Management consulting firm specializing in mobile communications.Select engagements include: corporate strategy for Nextel, incubation of Enterprise Wi-Fi business for Bell Canada

Strategy consulting firm for technology clients, founded by Regis McKenna.Select engagements include: go-to-market strategy and sales tools development for IBM’s Linux servers, channel strategy for a European OCR company, and projects in mobile messaging, computer architecture, and home networking applications markets

Mba

Bs, Economics, Computer Science