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• The Team
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The Team

Philip James

Founder / Sensei

Philip James founded Snooth in 2006. Formerly, he was Executive Vice President at the Wine Messenger, a leading national online wine retailer, where he focused on general management and operational issues.

Philip's background includes three years in Technology Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch, as well as time in the Venture Capital industry. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Masters degree in Computational Chemistry from Oxford University. In 2003 Philip played an instrumental role in the world's highest altitude rescue, on the North Face of Mount Everest.

Philip is a self-confessed data fiend who is obsessed over factual correctness. He has put his obsession to work at Snooth, the world's most comprehensive wine database, which brings together all the disparate sources of information on each and every wine and offers users the tools to make more informed choices.

The idea for Snooth first came to Philip when he began working in the wine industry and realized just how complex wine was. Even customers who were seasoned wine collectors frequently became confused over whether a particular Bordeaux chateau was right bank or left bank. He realized that the wine industry was hopelessly fragmented — with neither a standardized naming system nor a centralized repository of information. Philip decided to change all that. He founded Snooth with a simple goal: to make wine information freely available.

Mark Angelillo

CTO / Application Samurai

Mark was previously a senior developer at Reflexions Data where he worked on sites such as Vivastreet.com - the largest classifieds ads site in France and a major presence in 11 other countries. Mark also played an instrumental role in the development of Smylesandfish.com, the online home of Smyles & Fish Magazine. Mark's areas of expertise include application development, Linux systems administration and web/database architecture. Prior to joining Reflexions Data, Mark founded Gradient Solutions, a software consultancy firm. At Snooth, Mark's focus will be on building the site, maintaining the database and creating algorithms used to generate the recommendations. Mark received his BA in Computer Science from Swarthmore College where it is rumored that he took part in the development of a soccer playing robot.

Adam Levin

Marketing Director / Sotodeshi

Adam joins Snooth on the marketing side, bringing his expertise in the wine industry to the team. Previously, Adam worked at Chambers and Chambers Wine Merchants, a distributor and importer in the beautiful city of San Francisco, California. There he was responsible for operations of the sales and marketing team. He has also traveled and tasted extensively in wine producing regions of the world, including a stint doing market research for Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse-de-Lalande in Bordeaux, France. He loves all things wine and food related and is excited to apply this passion to helping Snooth grow. Adam graduated from Cornell University's School of Hospitality Administration, choosing to focus his studies on food and wine management.

Gregory Dal Piaz

Community Manager / Yoda

After pursuing his passion in wine for over two decades, Gregory Dal Piaz has found a home with Snooth. Most recently the Wine Director with New York City's Astor Wines & Spirits, Gregory's life long journey with fine wines began in his formative years while spending summer months in Italy. So while he is most at home discussing the minutiae of the terroirs of Barolo, he is equally intrigued by the vintage variations of classic California Cabernets or the rankings of Bordeaux classed growths. Not one to fall easily into the traps of wine criticism, Gregory is a proponent and admirer of a broad range of wines and styles. During his decades of collecting and tasting he has discovered that a wine need not cost a fortune to drink well.

Gregory has now joined Snooth as Community Manager and we hope you all will get to know him well as he prowls the forums, answers your questions and organizes events to unite our Snooth community.

Mike Solomon

Creative Director / Graphics Geinojin

Mike brings to Snooth an uncompromising design sense with a passion for usability, backed with a solid foundation in traditional advertising and marketing. Before joining Snooth, Mike was the group creative director at DCF Advertising where he was involved in creating some of New York City's most memorable public health campaigns, namely the NYC Condom and the "Give the homeless the kind of change they can really use" campaign. Mike holds a BS in Advertising from Boston University's College of Communication and has spent time in London studying British advertising and judging finalists for the One Show Interactive Awards.

Mike is also an accomplished drummer and percussionist, having played in various blues and funk bands throughout the New York City music circuit, including a performance playing tympani at Carnegie Hall. It was terrifying.

Chris Carpita

Senior Engineer / Code Ronin

Chris is a senior engineer at Snooth. Having long-term experience with Perl, PHP, database management, and systems administration, Chris applies his comprehensive skills to a wide variety of technical challenges. He designs the inner-workings of most of the features on Snooth and effortlessly jumps tracks into the back-end data management. Before coming to Snooth, Chris was a bioinformatics programmer and analyst at Cornell University, where he conducted evolutionary research and designed web applications for colleagues.

An avid reader of books, blogs, and anything else with the printed word, Chris also enjoys cooking in his spare time, and has become an even greater lover of wine since joining Snooth.