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Michael Goff: My bio

Now:

Before:

  • Lead Volunteer (Haiti), Clinton AIDS Initiative
  • CEO, The Accelerator Group & Roamable Corp
  • General Manager, programming and technologies, MSN
  • Editorial Director, Microsoft Sidewalk city guides
  • Founder, EIC & President, Out magazine

In early 2005, Michael Goff partnered with journalist Dan Gillmor to become CEO of Grassroots Media, Inc. They collaborated on the launches of Bayosphere, an online community “of, by, and for” the Bay Area with a focus on the tech industry, and of HonorTags, recognized for attempting to raise the level of trust in citizen journalism. Goff works with other media entities through his company, Megalomedia Ventures, Inc. based in Venice, California. Over
the month prior to joining Dan, Goff led the team creating Haiti’s official national HIV/AIDS treatment plan as a volunteer with the William J. Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative. Haiti’s president, cabinet, international stakeholders and donors ratified the plan, and he went on to help a few other Caribbean countries release Global Funds for AIDS treatment programs.

Prior, as CEO of Roamable, a wireless platform and publishing company, he built a team of developers with a great idea and application into a company with shippable products, customers (including MSNBC, MTV, and Ticketmaster,) and good reviews (Wall Street Journal, trade publications).

Goff initially brought the Roamable team into the Accelerator Group where he was CEO and partnered with Upendra Shardanand, Clay Shirky, Jon Rubin, Alexandra Angle and Saul Klein. Three companies in the group’s portfolio have been acquired: Blogger (Google), Avogadro (Openwave), and Insight First (24/7).

Previously, Goff helped launch Microsoft’s city-guide business, Sidewalk and sell it to Citysearch. As General Manager of MSN, Programming and Technologies he was charged with packaging Microsoft’s top-ranked online properties — CarPoint, Investor, Sidewalk, Expedia and Hotmail, among others — with new programming and services to create a comprehensive Internet network that leveraged MSN.com’s traffic.

While he was part of the leadership team, MSN became one of the top three Internet destinations. His initiatives quintupled traffic into the network through database-driven cross-promotion, launched five new properties, re-architected and redesigned the core site, and forged a lucrative partnering strategy to bring in top-notch programming and merchants. Goff’s was that year’s highest revenue-generating individual in the online division, initiating and negotiating more than $150 million in revenue for the following years, including the largest ever internet advertising deal at the time and others.

Before joining Microsoft, Goff worked on more than 10 magazine launches and re-launches for Hearst Magazines, McCalls, Roger Black Inc., Esquire and then did one on his own, founding Out Magazine and later Out.com. As Editor-in-chief and President he grew it into the most widely read gay publication in the world, attracting every major advertiser and world-class editorial talent to the gay market for the first time.

Goff is a graduate of Stanford University, and his work has been covered widely. He served on the board of ACRIA, a non-profit group which funds and manages community-based clinical trials for AIDS treatments in New York City, for many years. He has written on social issues related to HIV, was a member of ACTUP 1989-91, and one of his 1991 columns in Outweek raised the idea and inspired Patrick O’Connell and Frank Moore to launch the AIDS Red Ribbon.

Goff has lived all over the United States as well as in West Africa, Asia and Central America. He’s fluent in French, competent in Spanish, and a happy, “longboard” snowboarder.
If your interest is professional…

Email me for a link to nice things said about my work in the press.

michaeljgoff at gmail dot com

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