The Executive Team

Daniel Ben-Horin, CompuMentor's founder and President, feels very fortunate that his job has evolved over the years (since 1987!) to allow him to spend the bulk of his time trying to think about cool and transformative things that this organization can do in the world. The rest of his time is spent trying to sell these ideas to the people here who will have to implement them and the people outside who we need to convince to partner with us and/or to fund us.

After graduating from college in 1969, Daniel spent 7 years as a journalist (Arizona Republic, New York Times, New Times) in Arizona. It was an important time for him, during which he realized that much as he liked to write and edit, he is more interested in what those skills can be deployed for, specifically in social change. Gradually, his work moved in the direction of becoming an organizer, administrator, fundraiser and what would today be called a social entrepreneur. He worked for Pacific News Service, directed Media Alliance in the early 80's, took a wild swing at writing fiction, took a couple of basic programming classes (Cobol! Yeah!) and, in 1987, founded CompuMentor, with the notion that people who understood technology were an undervalued but potentially tremendous resource for social change organizations.

Daniel was the subject of a "Boss" Interview in the Technology section of the New York Times on November 26, 2007. The interview was done by longtime Times contributor, Perry Garfinkel, who wrote the first national media story, also in the Times, about CompuMentor in November of 1988, and who more recently wrote "Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness and the Man Who Found Them All"

Daniel married late, at 41, and now, at 57, has two teenage sons, 16 and 13. He is a total jock, both participatory (tennis, skiing) and as a fan (Maysfield). Daniel's wife, Jamie Stobie, is a wonderful documentary filmmaker (Freedom Machines). Daniel has lived on the same corner of SF's Potrero Hill since 1976, but became a homeowner only in 2004. So now, he and Jamie are discovering their inner Martha Stewarts in the garden and tearing up the house. Daniel is also passionate about music (Dylan, Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gautier), though he can't carry a tune in a bucket (the kids, on the other hand, are ace musicians; clearly Jamie's genes at work). Daniel loves San Francisco and the Sierra, where he and Jamie have a cabin in MiWuk Village, and hopes his generation can remember its idealistic coming of age and become idealistic elders in the years to come.

Ms. Masisak joined CompuMentor six years ago as General Manager to launch and chart the growth of TechSoup Stock, CompuMentor’s technology product donation distribution service. Most recently, Ms. Masisak has been responsible for setting and driving CompuMentor’s international expansion strategy. Under Ms. Masisak’s leadership as Vice President and General Manager, TechSoup Stock has channeled just under three million donated and discounted technology products to a national and increasingly international nonprofit audience. To date, more than 184,000 requests have been processed and close to 70,000 organizations in 10 countries have received technology products through the program, freeing up more than $770 million for direct services. Ms. Masisak has an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is a frequent speaker, domestically and internationally, on social enterprise and volunteers for the nonprofit organization S.A.G.E. (Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship).

Ms. Webb has been with CompuMentor for more than seven years, most recently holding the position of VP of Knowledge Services. Ms. Webb worked towards optimizing TechSoup, CompuMentor’s popular Web resource (www.techsoup.org) and its TechCommons program to help address the nonprofit sector’s systemic technology challenges. She is also one of the driving forces behind the NetSquared Initiative, which brings the social Web to nonprofits across the globe. A sought-after speaker and writer on nonprofit technology, she understands both challenges and technological possibilities facing the sector. Ms. Webb is one of the founding members of the Nonprofit Emerging Technology Exchange (http://groups.google.com/group/nptech) and an organizer of the NPTech tagging experiment.

Jeff oversees all aspects of the accounting, finance, legal, human resources, facilities, and administration departments for Compumentor. With over 20 years of financial management experience in the technology sector, Jeff offers a broad background in finance and business processes for high-growth organization. He has held a number of senior management positions for both early-stage ventures and Fortune 1000 companies, including Sybase, OnDisplay, and KMERA, where he was a founding member and CFO. Most recently, Jeff has been a Consulting CFO for early and late stage private technology ventures. Prior to that, he had a similar role with GetActive Software, an ASP provider of membership management software, servicing over 500 non-profit customers, including American Lung Association, Planned Parenthood, and the University of California. Jeff has a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of California and an MBA from the University of Phoenix. Jeff has two children, one in elementary school and one pre-teen, who keep him very busy with homework and social activities. In addition, he helps coach little league, is an avid baseball fan, enjoys jazz, and swims a few times a week.

Phil has a degree in Computer Engineering, and prior to joining CompuMentor in 1995, was employed as a software engineer at companies in SF and Silicon Valley. But that was a long time ago... if he says 'GUI' now, he's probably referring to something sticky on his daughters hands. His interests include: Coffee. No, really, coffee! Roasting his own coffee has become quite a hobby (and he implores you to pay no attention to his wife, who describes it as an obsession.) Ask him nicely and he'll give you a sample. When he's not roasting or drinking coffee, a lot of his time goes into parenting his daughter Talia (born in 2001) and hanging around with his wife, Lydia. (He's not going to tell you when she was born!). Phil also stays very busy in the intentional community where he lives, Swan's Market Cohousing. They're a tight-knit community in the middle of downtown Oakland: sharing meals, working and playing together, and (ugh!) making community decisions by consensus. If he has any time left after all that, Phil indulges his passion for music, which grew out of too many years following the Grateful Dead. These days he's primarily into Bluegrass and Old-Time. Phil never misses the Strawberry Music Festival, gets by the Freight and Salvage as often as he can manage and plays around on the mandolin for some home-made fun.