Heidi Messer


Heidi Messer is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor who has founded several global businesses, most notably LinkShare and Collective. Messer served as a board member, President, and Chief Operating Officer of LinkShare, helping to create the sector of online marketing commonly referred to as affiliate marketing.

Early life

Messer is the firstborn child of two entrepreneurs. Her paternal and maternal grandparents were also entrepreneurs. She grew up in Westchester County, New York and attended Horace Greely High School in Chappaqua, New York.

College and law school

Messer received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Brown University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. She received her Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School graduating cum laude. While at Harvard in the mid-1990s, Messer co-presented a paper to the recently appointed Justice Stephen Breyer on the impact of the Internet on existing legal frameworks.

Career

Early career

Throughout high school and college, Messer worked in her family's real estate and maintenance business. After graduating from Harvard, Messer accepted a position as an attorney at the law firm Baker & Botts, LLP in their New York office.

LinkShare Corporation

In 1996, Messer and her brother Stephen Messer recognized a core problem that existed on the World Wide Web making it difficult to value online traffic. They set out to create an online distribution network that would allow websites to monetize their traffic through performance based links.
Messer served as president and COO of LinkShare until its sale in 2005 to Rakuten Inc. for $425 million. In 2006, Messer exited the company, which was later renamed Rakuten LinkShare.

Collectivei

In 2008, Messer co-founded Cross Commerce Media with her husband, Tad Martin and brother. She currently serves on its board of directors as the company's Chairman. Messer and her co-founders collaborated with leading data scientists and PhD-level technology developers in building Collective.
In 2014, Messer was awarded two patents in conjunction with Collective's data analytics network. She is noted as a co-inventor for patent #8,713,076 and patent #8,825,716, "Providing a Multi-Tenant Knowledge Network".

Angel investing, board affiliations and community involvement

Messer is co-founder and CEO of World Evolved, a platform for global investment and expansion. She is also a founding member of the Zokei Network, an invitation only global network of leading artists, technologists, scientists, and business leaders who convene for inspiration in small private salons around the world. Messer is an active angel investor in numerous startups including Spire, Lifebooker, and DoDo Case. Additionally, she serves on the board of Alliance Bernstein.
Messer serves on the Brown Women's Leadership Counsel and advisory boards for Netplenish, the Brown Entrepreneurship Program, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins, Dell Computers, NBC Universal, and American Express OPEN.
Messer's mentors include Julian Brodsky and Richard Parsons.
Messer is active in the New York City tech community. She serves on the board of the Partnership for New York City and has been a judge and mentor in the NYC Venture Fellows Program.

Speaking engagements and press

Messer is a frequent speaker at universities and conferences around the world on entrepreneurship, digital marketing and advertising, business intelligence, and the future of the Internet including DLD, The Economist Group's Technology Frontiers, Big Data Innovation Summit, Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference in Cologne, Techonomy, NAB Show, Innovation Enterprise, We Own It Summit, Disrupt NY, Founders@Fail, the Paley Center for Media, Entrepreneur Week, Techweek New York, NJ Tech Gals, The Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network, Hot Topics, The Committee of 200, Inc. Women's Summit, OnMedia NYC Summit, and the Wall Street Journal CIO Network.
As a guest speaker, Messer has presented at Baruch College, Columbia Business School, and Fordham University. She has been cited in various publications including, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, The Nikkei, Bloomberg Businessweek, Women's Wear Daily, Chief Executive Magazine, and Wired.
Messer is also known as the host of an exclusive all female Poker game, featured in Vogue as a new model for combining networking, idea sharing, and charitable giving similar to the intellectual salons of the past. Additionally, Messer has appeared on national television and radio programs including the Today Show, Rock Center, Business Talk Radio, Fox News, CBS Morning News, and the Fox Morning Show.
Messer and her brother Stephen were featured in the Startup Playbook by David Kidder along with Elon Musk, Tony Hsieh, Steve Case, Jay S. Walker, Reid Hoffman, and Sara Blakely. She has also been cited in An Incredible Dream: Ralph Roberts and the Story of Comcast by William Novak and Stiletto Network by Pamela Ryckman.
In 2011 Messer organized an art exhibit held at the Charles Bank Gallery in New York City. The show, entitled Celestial Matters, featured works of art that had only previously been displayed in an exhibition hosted during a private mission on the International Space Station. The reception for these works benefited the Challenger Center for Space Science Exploration and featured the astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Messer served on the 2012 Wall Street Journal Executive Task Force on Women and participated in the 2014 Wall Street Journal CIO Network as a subject matter expert.
In 2013, Messer was selected to serve as a member of Comptroller Scott Stringer's Transition Committee.

Awards and honors

In 2012, Messer was selected as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs as part of their Builders and Innovators Summit. Additionally, Messer was named one of the 2012 Power Players in New York City by AlwaysOn.
Under Messer's leadership, LinkShare was recognized by Deloitte & Touche in 2002 and 2003 as the fastest growing technology company in the New York Region. In 2002, LinkShare was also named the Best Affiliate Network Provider by ABestWeb.
In both 2012 and 2013, Messer's current venture, Collective, was selected as one of OnMedia's 100 Top Private Companies.
In 2015, Collective was named an OnCloud Top 100 private company under the 'Software-as-a-Service solution for big data analytics' category.
On November 19, 2015, Messer received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Technology Pioneer Award at the United Nations in New York City.