The Affinity Circles Management Team

Steve Loughlin

President and CEO
Steve sets Affinity Circle's strategic course and also oversees its engineering, sales and marketing, and operations. Previously the director of business development at a medical company, Steve earned his B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University and completed coursework at the London School of Economics.

Julie Mahowald

Chief Financial Officer
Mahowald is responsible for Finance and Administration and has a successful record of driving management teams toward sound financial goals in high-growth hardware and software businesses.

Mahowald developed the finance team for an electronics manufacturing spinoff and served as Corporate Controller as it grew from $400M to $750M eventually taking it public in the largest Silicon Valley IPO of 1997. She later led the M&A team as the company was purchased by Celestica, Inc. Earlier in her career she served as Oracle's Assistant Treasurer raising debt financing and managing the foreign exchange exposure for the company as it grew revenues from $100 million to over $1 billion. She has held similar roles at other technology companies, both public and private.

Julie earned a Bachelors of Administration in Economics at Tulane University. She also earned an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania where she was a Lauder Institute fellow.

Chuck Taylor

Vice President of Marketing and Business Development
Taylor is responsible for all marketing and business development activities at Affinity Circles, including setting market strategy, overseeing strategic partnerships, and running brand, field and channel marketing efforts. He recently authored a white paper about recruiting through social media, entitled Winning the War for Talent, which is available at the company's website. Taylor has significant experience developing innovative consumer and enterprise web services. Prior to joining Affinity Circles, he was director of product marketing for Yahoo!, where he had product P&L responsibility for HotJobs, a $100+ million Yahoo! property serving the online recruitment advertising market. He also worked as a product manager for Progressive Insurance, where he ran a national marine insurance business with over $7 billion in assets insured. As a consultant for Bain & Company, he advised Fortune 100 business leaders on a host of strategic issues, and as an operations manager for Procter & Gamble, he boosted manufacturing capacity and return on capital assets. Taylor earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University, and his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

J. R. Becko

VP, Sales and Client Services
Becko leads Affinity Circles' sales team, driving revenue and building a first-class client services organization. Previously, he served as vice president of sales at NextWeb, a Covad Communications Company. While a member of the senior team, Becko made significant contributions to the rapid growth and expansion of its fixed wireless network, and helped NextWeb become one of the largest wireless Internet service providers in the U.S. by managing strategic channel partnerships, growing the sales force, and overseeing thousands of new corporate accounts. Becko also worked in the venture capital field for two years, conducting research on early-stage high technology companies. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.