Leadership

Michael Edell

CEO

Michael Edell is Interneer’s CEO and comes to us from GroundWork Equity.  Groundwork Equity accelerates the growth of technology companies by providing strategic planning, execution and access to investment capital.  Michael is a Founder and Managing Partner of GroundWork Equity, LLC., founded in early 2006. He is responsible for the firm's strategic planning and investment policies and is also involved with all our portfolio companies, providing corporate growth and development leadership which has lead to high-value exit strategies.

Michael is also the founder of Warehouse Auction Centers, Inc., (WAC), a privately held online e-commerce site for collectible items. WAC is one of the leading online e-commerce companies specializing in collectible merchandise. WAC was founded to tap into the multi-billion dollar collectible market place and has become one of the largest suppliers of this type of product.

In addition, Michael is the General Partner of Warp Nine Partners, LLC, a real estate partnership. The company owns and operates several commercial properties in the Ventura County and Los Angeles areas.
Michael serves on the board of PeopleSupport (Nasdaq:PSPT), a leading business process outsourcing (BPO) provider since 2002 and Altametrics Inc. (privately held), a leading provider of hosted enterprise solutions to the restaurant industry in addition to the advisory boards of numerous other high technology companies.

From September 1983 to February 2003, Michael was the President and Chief Executive Officer of eLabor.com, a privately held technology company that developed workforce management software both as licensed and hosted solutions. He spun off the project management division of eLabor which was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 2002 and then sold the company to ADP in 2003.

Romeo Elias

Founder & COO

Chief Operating Officer, Romeo Elias is responsible for product development and the integration of complimentary technologies. Prior to Interneer, Romeo worked at Synerdyne Corp. as a mechanical project manager.  He developed various consumer electronic products from the initial concept through the manufacturing phases.  

He then founded WWWID LLC, a software development consultancy. During his tenure, Romeo honed his skills in web technologies for numerous companies. He received an M.S. in Manufacturing Engineering from UCLA, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCSD.

Jaime Sipila

Vice-President of Professional Services

Vice-President of Professional Services Jaime Sipila is responsible for product management, long-term strategic planning and leads all professional services engagements. He has led consulting engagements for Harman International, Bose Corporation and Creative Channel Services, an Omnicom company. Jaime’s background is in software development and engineering in the aerospace industry, including projects at Boeing, JPL, Hughes and NASA.

Jaime is a founding board member of LA’s BEST Friends, a young professionals group tasked with supporting LA’s BEST – Better Educated Students for Tomorrow – a highly successful after school program in Los Angeles for children in grades K-5. He completed both a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and an Engineer Degree in Mechanical Engineering at UCLA.  He is currently on leave from the PhD program. Previously, he earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Bob Khanpour

Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer, Bob Khanpour is responsible for advancing the technology, architecture, and development of all Interneer products and technologies. Bob brings over 18 years of successful technology leadership experience as VP of Engineering and CTO for many successful companies. Throughout his career Bob has been responsible for the architecture, creation and delivery of many solutions for enterprises of all sizes.

Bob was the founder and Chief Technology Officer of LendingDynamics, Inc., an independent consulting firm for clients such as Countrywide Financial, Kaiser Permanente, and Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Prior to that, Bob was VP of Technology at Ellie Mae Inc., a provider of B2B exchange services and technology solutions for the financial industry, where he was responsible for the integration of EllieMae technologies with numerous other businesses.

As the VP of Engineering for Genesis 2000 Inc., a provider of technology solutions for the Lending and Financial industry, Bob created the entire product line from ground up. Bob also worked as a manager and developer for various Microsoft products targeted for international markets.

Jack Karabees

Vice President of Sales

Jack Karabees, Vice President of Sales at Interneer, has spent the past 20 years successfully developing, organizing and executing high-growth sales and marketing plans, primarily in start-up and turn-around operations in the high technology sector. Prior to joining Interneer, Mr. Karabees, as Executive Vice President of Sales for Hudson Capital, a $1B+ real estate development firm, was responsible for all domestic and international sales for the company. Jack came to Hudson Capital from Katalyst Securities, where he held the position of Senior Vice President  / Investment Banking.

Preceding his time at Katalyst, Jack was Senior Vice-President of Sales at eLabor, a provider of Enterprise Workforce Management software sold to the Fortune 1000. He joined eLabor in 1999 as Corporate Vice President and took on positions of increasing responsibility over the following 4 years, through eLabor’s successful bi-divisional acquisitions by Microsoft and ADP.  

Prior to that time, from 1987 through 1999, Mr. Karabees held the position of Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Data Net Corporation, a Florida-based high technology company. Jack served honorably in the United States Air Force. He is a member and serves on the Board of Directors of New World Angels, a South Florida angel investment fund and remains active within the high-tech investment community.

Patricia Spencer

Vice-President of Marketing

Patricia Spencer is our interim Vice-President of Marketing, she is on loan from GroundWork Equity, a business acceleration firm.  Patricia develops the corporate branding and identity, strategic marketing plans and marketing activities at Interneer along with other GroundWork Equity portfolio companies.  Patricia joined GroundWork Equity in early 2006 after launching marketing teams within a number of early stage privately held companies such as GoAskMorty.com, a Loan Search Engine for Mortgage Brokers; Warehouse Auction Centers, an online e-commerce site for collectible items and Biometics International, a leader of advanced liquid nutriceuticals. 

She started and launched her career when she joined Body by Jake Enterprises, LLC a health and fitness company. Not yet recognized as a leader in home fitness products and production, she was part of a small team who launched the company into what it is today.  As the Production Manager, she served as a producer and was responsible for over two hundred product and fitness shows for Fit TV, the world’s first health and fitness network. 

Also an entrepreneur, Patricia has founded a number of companies, MaddieBrit, Inc. a consumer goods company developing specialized detergent & fabric care and World Class Enterprises, a partnership creating Super Soccer Skills branded youth soccer instructional DVDs & products.