Company Info for airamerica.com | IcebreakerMembers
Armed with 20+ years of experience in the Digital Media, Corporate Strategy, Start-Up, and Tech Industry, I am a results-driven multilingual Business leader and Empowerer. Poised as one of the early digital salespeople in the industry with a track record of working with top brands, agencies and tech partners, fueled my present work ethic of being a creative corporate professional weaved with the ingenuity of a startup veteran. With the unique ability to create something from nothing and inspire bootstrapped teams to grow and evolve, I am enthusiastic about building better ways of doing business, driving hyper-growth and building revenue structure, processes and teams at early-stage startups.
Fuelled with enthusiasm & vision to set my best foot forward, I thrive in rapid growth & turn-around, high-energy environments, and conceptualize and scale revenue models for start-ups. Known to my peers as a forward-thinking industry veteran, I possess the right acumen to recognize business trends and predict accurate revenue growth and early market shifts for the market disrupters working at the crossroads of the media, culture, and technology sectors.
With a path-breaking corporate stint as an integrity-focused Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) across the USA, India, Canada, and Australia, I am well respected for implementing global strategic plans and achieving financial benchmarks while championing diversity and multiculturalism at the workplace. Enabled with skillsets in Strategic Brand Positioning, Operational Excellence, Agency/Brand Partnership Building, Executive Leadership, and Customer Success, I've sensitively navigated cultural nuances to forge winning teams and successfully transitioned from corporate to entrepreneurship.
An entrepreneur at heart, I run Queue.NYC - A media-tech company that operates as a cutting-edge tech incubator/accelerator for diverse content creators; Womynomics - A Consulting Venture firm for diverse women entrepreneurs; and The Connectiv, which provides free and sustainable Internet connectivity in the island of Haiti. An out-of-the-box thought leader devoted to elevating other women to C-suite opportunities and furthering social justice via corporate responsibility, I am both a Dreamer and a Doer. I am driven by the zeal to wake up every morning with a healthy fear that the world is changing and to change, adapt and win! 
Michael Bassik is CEO of Optimal, a leading performance marketing company that combines proprietary data, groundbreaking technology, and innovative media solutions to inspire audiences across a changing media landscape. In addition to leading the company’s strategy, operations, marketing, and growth, he oversees the company’s growing healthcare data and advertising practice. Previously, Michael was co-founder of DSPolitical (now part of Optimal), the nation’s premier voter targeted digital advertising company, and held various leadership positions at WPP and MDC Partners (now Stagwell). A sought-after expert on technology and media trends, Michael has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Entrepreneur, Cheddar, and NPR, and was previously named one of Advertising Age’s “40 Under 40” and PRWeek’s “40 Under 40.” A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and American University’s Washington College of Law, he lives in New York with his wife Alexandra and their three children. CURRENTLY:
Spire's brand, creative, and corporate marketing vision has been my most recent canvas, where I orchestrate the symphony of design, content, and data-driven marketing strategies. The recent IPO success is a testament to our team's ability to convey the intricate narrative of space-powered data and analytics, enhancing decision-making processes around mitigating climate change, and navigating global security. At Spire, I have spearheaded efforts to leverage the best of GenAI tools in marketing as just that, tools; to be better, more creative, efficient and productive.
BIO:
I bring a journalism sense of urgency and metabolism to elevating technology brand narratives, bringing an integrated philosophy to the entire marketing stack: accessible and powerful stories and campaigns that incorporate product and field marketing excellence, drive demand generation, investor, press, prospect and customer awareness, drive up ACV, increase transactional velocity and close deals. My veteran experience in storytelling for many of the top journalism brands (WSJ, PBS, CNN), as well as my background in reporting on and activating futurist technologies in unicorn companies combines my passion for storytelling with a battle-tested GTM rigor.
I bring a data-driven approach to a Brand/Creative and marketing across story, design, culture and reputation, to drive awareness, funnel, conversions and bookings, through strategic brand building, product marketing, and demand generation. I specialize in team building, re-brands, and preparing companies for exit. I am passionate about creating up-leveled narratives and brands for new categories, like Machine Data, and space-based Earth Data. I lead with accountability-based empathy.
PRIOR BACKGROUND:
Previously at Expanse, my leadership in rebranding and narrative crafting led to significant increases in customer engagement and conversion rates. My approach intertwines journalistic rigor with creative acumen, ensuring that every marketing campaign we launch not only tells a story but also propels the business forward.
Prior to Spire, I also led brand and corporate marketing efforts at Splunk, and founded my own purpose-driven creative agency, Needle Space Labs, which went on to produce film-festival shorts for mission-oriented clients. I am a veteran journalist, having held staff reporter positions at CNN and the Wall Street Journal, reporting primarily on space, science, and technology. 
