Stephen Messer

Stephen Messer, founder of Collective[i] has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the digital economy since the commercialization of the Internet. Collective[i]’s global network and application applies artificial intelligence and deep learning to the creation of a foundation model that studies both macro and micro events and the impact these have on the economy and on the revenue of companies that leverage its network. Collective[i]’s mission is to enable global prosperity by helping companies and sales professionals worldwide leverage both human connections and machine generated intelligence to forecast, manage, and grow revenue. Mr. Messer and his sister, Heidi Messer, co-founded LinkShare Corporation (now known as Rakuten LinkShare), host to one of the world’s largest online affiliate networks, a distribution channel employed by over 80% of advertisers and publishers accounting for 20% of the revenue driven to e-commerce sites. Mr. Messer served as Chairman and CEO of LinkShare until its sale to Rakuten (4755:JASDAQ) for $425 million in 2005.

Mr. Messer is also an active angel investor in technologies, winner of the E and Y entrepreneur of the year award, the Deloitte and Touch fast 50 award.. He is passionate about building networks, platforms, and communities with the potential to innovate and have positive social impact at scale. He serves on the board of Spire Global (NYSE: SPIR), which operates a constellation of satellites that provide weather, tracking and other data and as an advisor to Tribeca Venture Partners. Mr. Messer received a bachelor of arts degree from Lafayette University and his juris doctorate from Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Messer is an affiliated research Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at the Columbia Business School. Mr. Messer has been quoted in the NYTimes, WSJ, Fortune, Forbes and other top publications and is a prominent speaker and keynote on technology and Artificial Intelligence having spoken at conferences such as the Aspen ideas festival, The future of everything by the WSJ, Brainstorm, and other leading events. As a part of his support for innovation along with his co-founders they host a weekly 90 minute event called Forecast that highlights innovation and leadership that will impact society. This weekly event can be found at www.ciforecast.com.