Mark Thompson - Chairman of the Board

Sir Mark Thompson became Chairman and CEO of CNN on October 9, 2023. Mark is also the Chairman of Ancestry; Deputy Chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Co-Chair of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, a new global fund to support journalists around the world. Mark stepped down as President and CEO of The New York Times Company in the summer of 2020 after an eight-year tenure (2012-20) during which he led the transformation of the 170-year-old news brand into a digital powerhouse. Digital subscribers jumped to nearly 6 million, up from half a million when he joined. NYTCo stock quintupled in value during his period as CEO. Sir Mark’s appointment at The New York Times Company followed an eight-year term (2004-12) as Director General (Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive) of the BBC. As well as guiding the BBC’s coverage of the global financial crisis and the 2012 London Olympic Games, he is credited with major advances in the BBC’s digital offering and digital audience reach, including the successful launch of the BBC’s iPlayer, one of the world’s first streaming services from a major broadcaster (2007). He joined the BBC from Channel 4 where he was Chief Executive from 2002 to 2004. Before Channel 4 he held a series of senior posts at the BBC including Editor of The Nine O’clock News and Panorama, Controller of BBC Two and Director of Television. His book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?” was published in the UK and US in September 2016. He was born in London in 1957 and was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College Oxford. He is an honorary fellow of Merton College Oxford and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is married and has three children. His main home is in New York City. He was knighted for services to Media in the King’s Birthday Honours June 2023.

Gene Alston

Gene is a seasoned business leader with over 25 years of operating experience in high-growth, disruptive internet companies. Previously, Gene Alston was the Vice President of Commerce Business and Operations at Meta (Facebook). In this role, Gene was responsible for all strategy and teams for commerce products across Meta’s family of apps, revenue, and client satisfaction globally.

Before leading commerce at Meta, he led global marketing partnerships, enabling over half of Meta’s advertising revenue through strategic programs, client engineering, and technology partnerships. Prior to Meta, Gene was at Pinterest, Groupon, and PayPal, where he led teams responsible for product management, go-to-market, acquisitions, operations, and international expansion. Gene holds several patents in the payments and offers space from his work at Groupon.

Gene is a member of the California State Bar and National Association of Corporate Directors and serves on the Anderson School of Management’s Easton Center Board at UCLA. Gene holds a BS from the University of Washington, a Master of Information & Data Science from UC Berkeley, and a JD/MBA from UCLA. Before attending UCLA, Gene was a Naval Officer stationed on the USS Worden. He’s also a very proud dad of three children and lives in the Bay Area with his wife.

Joseph Baratta

Joseph Baratta is the Global Head of Private Equity and a member of Blackstone’s Board of Directors. He is also a member of the firm’s Management Committee and serves on many of the firm’s investment committees.

Mr. Baratta joined Blackstone in 1998 and in 2001 he moved to London to help establish Blackstone’s corporate private equity business in Europe. Since 2012, Mr. Baratta has served as the firm’s Global Head of Private Equity and is located in New York.

Mr. Baratta has served on the boards of many past Blackstone portfolio companies and currently serves as a member or observer on the boards of Ancestry, Candle Media, First Eagle Investment Management, Medline, Merlin Entertainments Group and Copeland.

He is also a former member of the Board of Trustees of Georgetown University; is a trustee of the Tate Foundation; and serves on the board of Year Up, an organization focused on youth employment. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Baratta was with Tinicum Incorporated and McCown De Leeuw & Company. Mr. Baratta also worked at Morgan Stanley in its mergers and acquisitions department. Mr. Baratta graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University.

Sachin Bavishi

Sachin Bavishi is a Senior Managing Director and Head of the San Francisco team within Blackstone’s Private Equity Group. Mr. Bavishi currently focuses on new investment opportunities in Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT). Since joining Blackstone in 2013, he has been involved in the execution of the firm’s investments in Ancestry, Bumble, Catalent, Ipreo, Kronos, Liftoff, Performance Food Group, Pinnacle Foods, Refinitiv, Rover, SESAC, Simpli.fi, Tradeweb, Trilliant Food & Nutrition, Ultimate Software, and Vungle. He currently serves as a Director of Ancestry, Liftoff/Vungle, Rover, and Simpli.fi.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Bavishi was an Associate at Olympus Partners where he evaluated and executed private equity investments across industries. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking at Piper Jaffray in the Healthcare Group.

Mr. Bavishi earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he graduated with Highest Distinction (Top 5%), and an MBA from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar.

Howard Hochhauser

Howard Hochhauser joined Ancestry® in 2009 as Chief Financial Officer and in February 2012 added the position of Chief Operating Officer. Howard also served as interim CEO of Ancestry from October 2017 to May 2018 while the Board conducted a comprehensive search for a permanent CEO. During his tenure, Howard has helped lead the Company’s initial 2009 public offering, its go-private transaction in 2012, seven acquisitions and all of its public equity and debt financings. He was part of the team that helped grow the company from approximately $200 million in revenue in 2008, to more than $1 billion in revenue in 2017, a compound annual growth rate of over 21%. Prior to joining Ancestry, Howard served as Chief Financial Officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and earlier in his career was a Vice President of Equity Research at Bear Stearns & Co. and a Staff Accountant at KPMG Peat Marwick. Howard has received numerous awards, including #1 Internet industry CFO of 2012 by Institutional Investor magazine and CFO of the year in 2012 by Utah Business Magazine. Howard was also recently named Best CEO of 2018 by the Utah Technology Council. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.S. from Boston University.

David Kestnbaum

David Kestnbaum is a Senior Managing Director in the Private Equity Group. He currently leads investments in the Media & Entertainment, Consumer, and Business Services sectors.

Mr. Kestnbaum has led or been involved in Blackstone’s current investments in Ancestry, Candle Media, Encore, Merlin Entertainments, PSSI, SERVPRO, and SESAC, as well as prior investments in Alight Solutions, AlliedBarton, AVINTIV, Cloverleaf Cold Storage, and DJO Global.

Before joining Blackstone in 2013, Mr. Kestnbaum was with Vestar Capital Partners and previously JPMorgan’s Financial Sponsor Group.Mr. Kestnbaum holds a BA in Political Science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently a Director of Ancestry, Candle Media, Encore, SERVPRO, and SESAC. He is also a member of the Choate Rosemary Hall Alumni Association Executive Committee and previously represented Blackstone as a Partnership for New York City Rockefeller Fellow.

Deborah Liu

Deb Liu joined Ancestry in March 2021 as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Prior to joining Ancestry, Deb was a senior executive at Facebook where she created and led Facebook's Marketplace, where millions of people buy and sell from one another. She also led the development of Facebook’s first mobile ad product for apps and its mobile ad network, in addition to building the company’s games business and its payments platform, including Facebook Pay. 

Named by PaymentsSource as one of the most influential women in payments and one of Business Insider's most powerful female engineers, Deb has worked in the tech industry for over 18 years. Prior to Facebook, she spent several years in product roles at PayPal and eBay, including leading the integration between the two products. 

Actively involved with promoting diversity and women in tech, she is the founder of Women in Product, a nonprofit to connect and support women in the product management field. Deb serves on the board of Intuit, and she’s a seed investor and advisor to several startups. She also holds several payments and commerce-related patents. 

Deb received a BS in Civil Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. She lives in California with her husband and three children, and she enjoys chronicling their family adventures in her Mommy School comic. 

Alex Moskowitz

Alex Moskowitz is a Managing Director in the Direct Investments Group for GIC’s Private Equity arm. Before joining GIC in 2008, Mr. Moskowitz was an associate at CIVC Partners and an analyst at William Blair & Company. He has board responsibilities for several GIC portfolio companies, including HUB International Limited, Medline, and UKG. Mr. Moskowitz earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Lorrie Norrington

Lorrie Norrington has over 40 years of operating experience in technology, software, and internet businesses. Norrington currently serves as an Advisor and in an Operating Partner capacity for Lead Edge Capital. Lead Edge is a growth equity firm that partners with world-class entrepreneurs and exceptional technology businesses.

Prior to Lead Edge Capital, Norrington was the President of eBay Marketplaces and led all eBay businesses in 39 countries. Previously she served as President and COO of eBay Marketplaces and President of eBay International, in Europe and Asia. Prior to joining eBay, Norrington was the CEO of Shopping.com Inc., an online shopping comparison site acquired by eBay in 2005.

Prior to eBay, Norrington was an officer at Intuit, Inc., where she led the Quicken and QuickBooks brands and later became an Executive Vice President in the Office of the CEO. She also led a variety of businesses at General Electric Company over a twenty-year period in a broad range of industries, including her last position as an officer of GE and CEO of GE FANUC.

Norrington has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS degree from the University of Maryland. She also serves on the board of Colgate-Palmolive, HubSpot, Autodesk and Asana.

Tim Sullivan

Tim Sullivan joined Ancestry in 2005 as CEO of the company. In his 12 years leading the company, Ancestry became the leader in online family history and AncestryDNA was introduced, becoming the world’s largest consumer DNA testing service. After his time as CEO, Tim served as Chairman of the Board for Ancestry and has served as a board member since 2022. Prior to joining Ancestry, Tim served as President and CEO of Match.com, and held multiple other leadership roles at companies including Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch and the Walt Disney Company. Tim has an MBA from Harvard Business School and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently sits on the board of AllTrails, chairs the Board of Trustees for the Morehead Cain Foundation, and serves as a vice president of the Board of Trustees for the Hotchkiss School. He is a former board member of Live Nation Entertainment.