The Engineering at Illinois Dean’s Distinguished Leadership Lecture brings eminent leaders and foremost experts to the campus to share knowledge and facilitate discussions among students, faculty, alumni, and the community on important challenges impacting the global society. With a long-standing tradition and international reputation of leadership, impact, and collaboration, Engineering at Illinois is committed to the intellectual and societal development of future generations.
Friday, September 14 | 4:00 p.m.
Beckman Institute Auditorium
405 North Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Fall 2012
Entrepreneurial Cheat Codes From Inside Amazon, Groupon, and my Own Startup
Jeff Holden
Senior Vice President, Product Management
Groupon
BS, Computer Science, 1991
MS, Computer Science, 1992
Jeff Holden is the SVP, Product Management at Groupon, joining in 2011 through the sale of his company, Pelago, to Groupon. In 2006, he co-founded Pelago with a vision of leveraging mobile technology to radically improve the way people explore and experience the physical world. Whrrl, the company’s flagship product, was the manifestation of that vision.
Before Pelago, Holden spent almost nine years at Amazon.com in a myriad of roles. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of Consumer Websites, Worldwide, overseeing the end-to-end consumer experience including search, navigation, personalization, social computing, ordering, merchandising, web traffic, and Amazon Prime. Earlier, he had served as the Director of Supply Chain Optimization Systems, leading the design and development of the company’s unique forecasting, inventory planning, order fulfillment optimization, and transactional purchasing systems.
Prior to his tenure at Amazon, Holden spent five years at D.E. Shaw & Co., L.P., a New York-based hedge fund. He joined the firm as a software engineer and his first assignment was working with Jeff Bezos to develop a new trading strategy for the firm.
