Our Team

Kandice Cota has been working with some of the biggest brands in entertainment (CBS, MGM, NBC, Oxygen) and technology (Samsung, Hyundai, Nokia) to bring innovation strategy, design thinking and research to the product development world. Cota spent the late nineties at Intel, first as an IT contracts negotiator and later at Intel Capital, as an early investment manager of Intel Capital’s fund($500M under management) with a focus on new media and entertainment.  She worked out of SF and LA(with a deal at Creative Artists Agency), investing in some of the biggest hits in gaming(MPath, the first MMOG) and communities (Geocities- sold to Yahoo for $3.5B).  Later, Cota spent time as a pioneer in the interactive TV space, peer to peer messaging software for web and mobile(sold to Joingo) and finally in film production with a distribution deal at Universal and as a Production Exec at Paramount Pictures.  She is uniquely a cross-section between business and design with a research and venture capital twist.  Kandice consults with gotomedia and speaks in the areas of mobile innovation, brand strategy, user experience, emotion-based research and next gen entertainment platforms(cloud and itv).  Cota has an MBA in international marketing from the University of South Carolina and a BFA from the University of Michigan.

Simon brings us a wealth of financial knowledge and skills from both large and start-up companies.  Most recently, Simon served as CFO/COO at ProSource Development, an outsourcing company funded by Private Equity with operations in China.  Simon was instrumental in ProSource’s turnaround and played a key role in improving the company’s operations and bottom line.  Prior to ProSource, Simon was the CFO at Digital Chocolate – a publisher of social and mobile game backed by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins.

Prior to joining Digital Chocolate, Simon served as Senior Director at Openwave Systems where he provided financial leadership in Openwave’s mobile division.A seasoned finance executive with extensive global experience, Simon also served as Vice President of Finance at McAfee and was a key player in driving McAfee’s emerging-market expansion in Asia through acquisitions and organic growth.  In addition, Simon had worked as an international financial consultant for clients in China, including an IPO readiness project for LDK Solar that led to an US listing.  Earlier in his professional career, Simon held various management positions at Intel, Sun Microsystems and Oracle.  Simon holds a degree in Computer Science from The University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

ROBERT COTA
Chief IP Officer

Robert carries unique executive qualifications in the movie and game industries, a culmination of over 25 years of working with studios, independents and intellectual property. Some of these include Parrot Communications, Full Moon Interactive, Downtown Filmworks, Liberman Broadcasting, Gotomedia, Dell, Yahoo!, LineTV, Karate Komics Pictures, Kushner Locke, Paloma Films, UPN, NBC, MGM/UA, National Geographic, Vivendi Universal, THQ, Cosmi, Treyarch and Activision. Robert has worked on “James Bond Quantum of Solace”, “Company of Heroes”, “Supreme Commander”, “S.T.A.L.K.E.R”, “Juiced 2”, “Archies”, “Netherworld”, “Ghajini” and “BollywoodBadass”. Robert creates and acquires intellectual properties through IPFranchise, with an objective of creating $100 million-plus franchises.

Daryl has 14 years of video game development and publishing experience. He has been the Creative Director on multiple games and most recently Sr. Producer at CapcomEntertainment. There he oversaw all aspects of his projects: budget and contracts; establishing strategy and creating assets with Marketing; spokesperson for his project on company blogs, press events, and interviews; as well as directly overseeing his product development teams. He has been lead designer or producer for 11 projects from conception, preproduction, and through development and post-release support, covering retail (Xbox 360, PlayStation3, Wii, and PC) and digital distribution (Xbox Live Arcade, PlaystationNetwork, and sites such as Steam), and with budgets upwards of $25M and teams that included over 100 members across multiple companies and countries simultaneously. In addition to his video game experience, Daryl has conducted highly regarded research and design work on the future of consumer interactivity with mobile devices.

For over 20 years, Sandy has focused her career on partnering with clients to design and generate new opportunities through communications and business development programs, which ignite revenue and buzz about companies, their leaders, and products.  She most recently worked with companies like Recruiting.com (formerly, Jobster), PayScale, Digital Innovations, G2B Ventures, NextSpace, TriNet and others.  Sandy has experience in both start-up and mature business environments, which includes 4+ years during the dot-com boom working with clients like Ask.com, Medem, Netcentives (ClickRewards), and WR Hambrecht + Co. During that time, she led the strategic partner program as an executive director and regional sales manager for business process outsourcer, TriNet.  Sandy established her career in her hometown of Chicago within the business intelligence arena; first as a Director at Information Resources, Inc. working on high profile accounts such as Kraft, General Mills, Nabisco, and P&G, and then as a VP of Research Operations and executive team member at Strategic Media Research working with MTV/VH1, Paramount, Clear Channel, and many other media companies. She’s also a published author with a #1 Inc.com Business Book Wish List entry titled, “I’m at a Networking Event—Now What???” Sandy received executive level training and continuing education at a number of institutions and locations, including the University of Chicago, SAS Institute and Harvard Business School.

Darius’s career bridges the nexus of social advocacy and digital media and includes areas ranging from open-source intelligence analysis, institutional development, and filmmaking. After founding a unique Internet based legal research firm in the 1990s, he joined the groundbreaking International Monitor Institute (a State Department supported NGO) as Visual Analyst. Following a promotion to Director of Development, he established a film archive for global hot spots and advocated for the emergence of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mr. Kamali’s career in socially conscious/media also includes joint projects with Human Rights Watch, and the UNHCR as well as a stint with the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Following a sojourn into Creative Business Development with Penn-Chris Worldwide Media, he transitioned fully into the world of documentary film, serving in a variety of positions including segment & series producer and writer on a number of shows. Many of these programs aired on network and major-cable distributors including History Channel/A&E, PBS, CBS, Trio Network, and Channel 4 in the UK. In 2005 Darius joined Exodus Film Group where he served as VP of Development and financed the feature animated film IGOR (MGM, 2008) as well as co-executive producing and financing two more animated features, currently in production. Separately, he is producing a genre bending animated documentary through his ‘Waiting for Connect’ shingle.