Our Team
The Merchant Centric team has been working with businesses in the realm of the internet and online marketing for over a decade. The co-founders started the company with their own money and built it by helping local businesses increase revenue. As the company evolved, they were able to attract talented people to join their mission and share their passion for helping businesses, building strong trusting relationships, and holding themselves to high standards.
David Bay
Chief Executive Officer
& Co-Founder
David Bay
In addition to his franchise experience, David was also part of the executive team at Realtor.com where he served as Chief Operating Officer for almost eight years. At the time, Realtor.com was the #1 consumer visited real estate web site, while also providing online marketing expertise to over one million Realtors.
Adam Leff
Chief Strategy Officer
& Co-Founder
Adam Leff
As Co-founder of Merchant Centric, Adam is dedicated to helping companies of all sizes take advantage of online and social media technologies to market and build their business. Growing up working in a family-owned small business showed him the value of marketing.
Adam went on to get two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and build a career in the internet, print media and financial sectors; working as part of the senior management team at Realtor.com, AdOne Classified Network and The LA Times. In these roles, Adam worked with local businesses providing services dedicated to meeting their needs.
David and Adam started Merchant Centric with their own money and are building it up by helping local business. They believe that local businesses are a big part of what makes our country strong by offering a diverse and competitive array of products and services for consumers, along with providing tens of millions of jobs.
Brent Wennekamp
Chief Financial Officer
Brent Wennekamp
Brent joined Merchant Centric in 2019 as Chief Financial Officer bringing over 20 years of experience in senior level finance and accounting positions.
Brent has held roles in leading SaaS providers, publicly traded investment firms, commercial real estate and eight years at mortgage lender Indymac bank where he was divisional CFO of the multi-billion dollar consumer construction business.
In addition to Finance, Brent is also responsible for HR and general administration. He earned his MBA from USC and holds active CPA and CMA licenses.
When not at work, Brent is occupied by his four F’s: Family, Friends, Football, and Formula 1.
Connie Shelton
Chief Client Success Officer
Connie Shelton
Prior to Merchant Centric, Connie maintained President’s Club Status as Regional Manager for Valassis, formerly ADVO, a $2 Billion marketing and advertising company that used targeted data to drive revenue. She was also Senior Program Director at Move, Inc., (Welcome Wagon Division) where, for five consecutive years, she ranked in the top 2% of the sales organization for New Business Development. She has worked with a broad-range of business-sects from restaurants, automotive, health and beauty, financial institutions to a wide variety of retail stores, and service industry providers. This has allowed Connie the ability to connect with c-level executives and understand their specific needs in order to deliver the solutions that yield favorable returns.
Connie is frequently asked to speak at national conventions. Her passion is coming alongside brands to help form strategy plans with solid execution campaigns to effectively support the growth and profitability of their businesses. In addition to her passion for helping business owners elevate their business to the next level, Connie is known for building award winning teams and takes great pride being able to work with so many smart, talented people.
Peter Wells
Executive Vice President
Peter Wells
Peter has had a strong belief in the vision, strategy and solutions created by these companies and the big problems they solve for clients and their customers. This is coupled with a passion for designing / executing sales strategies, working with smart people, empowering and motivating people /teams to take action and win.
Anthony Pitassi
Senior Vice President,
Technology & Design
Anthony Pitassi
Anthony has worked with leading brands like Honda, MTV and Red Bull, as well as SMBs and start-ups to create retail products, SaaS products, mobile apps and marketing campaigns.
Prior to joining Merchant Centric, Anthony was the head of web design and development for Guitar Center, creating cutting edge websites and digital marketing campaigns that generated millions of dollars in daily online sales.
In addition to Anthony’s experience helping businesses, large and small, he is also an award winning designer and developer, earning recognition from The Telly Awards, The Webby Awards, and the New Media Awards.
Cindy
Edgar
Aron
Ashley
Dimitri
Satya
Sean
Justin
Areli
Briseis
Kai
Vondalee
Deanna
Andrew
Chris
Mark
Inna
Maria
Samantha
Jasmine
Nicole
Jeff
Stephen
Brendon
Kim
Kyle
Kristen
Dee
Gayathri
Chelsea
Jay
Erin
Bella
Murphy
Parker
Indi
Stanley
Dasher
Khaleesi
Mack
Buster
Miss Lilly
Richard Janssen
Founder of Realtor.com, Strategic Data Corp, InfoTouch, Ebix
Richard Janssen
Richard Janssen is the founder of Janssen & Associates which invests in and mentors early stage technology companies. Portfolio companies include: MerchantCentric.com, Naehas Inc., OptCTS, Inc., Adgreetz Inc. and World Panel Inc.
Previously, he successfully led three technology startups.
As lead investor and CEO at Strategic Data Corp he led a talented team which developed a unique ad serving technology that maximized revenues and scaled to serve over 7 billion ads daily. SDC was sold to News Corp for over $140 million.
Richard was co-founder and President of HomeStore which went public in 1999 (later renamed as Move). Move.com is best known for its Realtor.com site which is the largest residential real estate site on the internet. Homestore was created out of another startup, InfoTouch Corporation, which Richard co-founded. InfoTouch originally developed real estate kiosks and then developed Realtor.com in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
His first start up was Delphi Information Systems (currently named Ebix) which was the largest company automating property and casualty insurance agencies in the US when, as CEO, he took Delphi public in 1987.
Skip Brittenham
Director of DreamWorks Animation & Senior Partner at Law Firm of Ziffren, Brittenham
Skip Brittenham
Skip Brittenham is a founding partner of Ziffren Brittenham LLP.
He continues to represent top-tier actors, directors, producers, writers and personalities. Currently the bulk of his practice involves transactional law, in which the aggregate dollar amount of his deals, including the acquisition and sale of media companies, financing film slates and other media projects, have averaged over $1 billion annually for the past decade. He represents independent studios, major studios top brass, animation companies, motion picture production companies, and entertainment conglomerates. His also has supervised numerous successful public offerings of media companies.
His innovative deal-making has continually challenged and altered common assumptions about distribution deals, talent deals, cross-platform deals, emerging digital media contracts, celebrity/product endorsements, and more.
Mike Singer
CEO of Strategic
Partners, Inc.
Mike Singer
Mike Singer is Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Partners, Inc., which designs and produces apparel and footwear for healthcare professionals under some of the nation’s most admired and trusted brands.
Mike is an active investor and also serves on multiple boards, including the Board of Governors of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and he is the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, California, an independent, non-sectarian, co-educational K-12 school.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Singer has been honored as a commencement speaker at the University and has received the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from the Greif Center for Entrepreneurship at USC’s Marshall School of Business.
Sandy Sigal
President and CEO of NewMark Merrill Companies
Sandy Sigal
Sandy Sigal is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and has been an entrepreneur in the real estate industry for almost 30 years. In 1997, Mr. Sigal founded and serves as Chief Executive Officer and President of NewMark Merrill Companies, which has grown to be one of the fast growing privately held developer and owner of shopping centers in Southern California, Colorado, and Illinois. He is also Chairman of BrightStreet Ventures, a company he co-founded to provide more opportunities to his tenants and other owners of centers by integrating on-line platforms with the traditional brick and mortar business.
Donnie Gross
Managing Member of Varsity Investment Group
Donnie Gross
Mr. Gross created the Varsity Investment Group, formerly known as Potomac Holdings, in 2002. At the conclusion of 2015 Mr. Gross and Mr. Connolly sold TLK Group, one of the nation’s largest call centers with clients such as Comcast and Time Warner, to market leader The Results Companies. In 1998 he founded Millioneyes, a venture backed internet service provider that was successfully exited via an acquisition from NetZero. Mr. Gross also formed Edge Communications, a telecommunications services firm that he sold in 1997 to publicly traded DCI Communications.
Adam Leff
Chief Strategy Officer
& Co-Founder
Adam Leff
As Co-founder of Merchant Centric, Adam is dedicated to helping companies of all sizes take advantage of online and social media technologies to market and build their business. Growing up working in a family-owned small business showed him the value of marketing.
Adam went on to get two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and build a career in the internet, print media and financial sectors; working as part of the senior management team at Realtor.com, AdOne Classified Network and The LA Times. In these roles, Adam worked with local businesses providing services dedicated to meeting their needs.
David and Adam started Merchant Centric with their own money and are building it up by helping local business. They believe that local businesses are a big part of what makes our country strong by offering a diverse and competitive array of products and services for consumers, along with providing tens of millions of jobs.
David Bay
Chief Executive Officer
& Co-Founder
David Bay
Prior to becoming CEO and Co-founder of Merchant Centric, David spent over 20 years in executive positions at some of the most successful franchise corporations in the world including Mail Boxes Etc. (now UPS Store), Coldwell Banker and Cendant Corporation (owned the franchises for Century 21, Ramada, Days Inn, Avis, Budget, to name a few).
In addition to his franchise experience, David was also part of the executive team at Realtor.com where he served as Chief Operating Officer for almost eight years. At the time, Realtor.com was the #1 consumer visited real estate web site, while also providing online marketing expertise to over one million Realtors.
Ivan Nikkhoo
Advisor
Ivan Nikkhoo
With over 30 years of experience in various senior capacities internationally, Ivan is an experienced mid-market executive with a strong background in consulting, M&A, and growth strategies. He has a very strong network in Southern California with deep CEO level relationships, as well as significant consulting, M&A, operations, and management experience.
He serves on a number of boards, and has the proven ability and expertise in guiding mid-market companies on their growth strategies, organic and inorganic growth, as well as capital and services needs.
Ivan is also an Adjunct Professor at USC Marshall School of Business where he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on growth financing, M&A, and eCommerce.
