Wikia
Gil Penchina recently agreed to become CEO of Wikia, a start-up founded by Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wikia is a community site built on open-source software that allows anyone to contribute to guides on subjects as diverse as star trek, pet diabetes and travel guides. Wikia operates under the GFDL Free content license and is positioned to become the first sustainable business built around the vision of free content.
Prior to Wikia, Mr. Penchina was an 8-year veteran of eBay. Mr. Penchina worked in Europe, directing eBay's presence in Southern Europe, and oversaw the company's expansion efforts in Eastern Europe. Previously he was responsible for launching sites in Hong Kong and Singapore, and for the company's entry into India. Mr. Penchina also played a role in eBay's entry into South Korea and China. Mr. Penchina came to eBay in 1998, first working in business development and then running the mergers and acquisitions department. In 2001 he was named vice president of business development where he built business and marketing relationships for eBay with a number of the top brands in the U.S.A including Microsoft, AOL, Disney and Yahoo.
Mr. Penchina began his career at General Electric in 1991, first in manufacturing and later in marketing on GE's corporate staff. He has worked as a management consultant at Bain & Co and an Internet entrepreneur, creating a content, commerce and community vertical for business travelers. An active angel investor, he has investments or advisory roles with many internet startups including: Linkedin, Flock, Wink, Vamoose, Become, Feedster, Koders, Voicestar, Reify and Betzip.
A native of Amherst, Massachusetts, he holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business.
Courtesy of Wikia
Related Links: http://www.wikia.com
Last Updated: Fri, Oct 31, 2008
| Category | Title | Author/Speaker | Organization | Length | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video | Angel Investing | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 01:46 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Career Advice | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 01:56 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Entering a Global Market | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 04:36 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Finding Entrepreneurs | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 04:57 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Joining eBay | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 01:18 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Learning from Failures | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 04:39 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Luck: Combination of Timing and Preparation | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 02:07 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Skills Learned in School | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 02:46 | 05/2006 |
| Podcast | The Contrasts of a Big Company and a Small Start-Up | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 55:36 | 06/2006 |
| Video | Transformation of a Start-up | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 01:41 | 05/2006 |
| Video | Working in a Start-up | Gil Penchina | Wikia | 02:59 | 05/2006 |
Penchina discusses his interest and involvement in angel investing.
Penchina emphasizes the importance of people skills and reveals some lessons he wish he knew when he was in school.
Wikia CEO Gil Penchina discusses the steps that entrepreneurs should take when entering a new and unfamiliar global market.
Penchina discusses the process of finding entrepreneurs and then investing in them.
Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia, talks about the things that attracted him to eBay and the vision he had of where the company was going when he joined.
Penchina shares some of his failures and discusses lessons learned from them.
Penchina attributes most of his success to luck, which he believes is a combination of good timing and some preparation. He says that he has been able to get to where he wanted as he has consistently stuck to his plan.
Penchina describes the exact facts and skills he learned in engineering school and business school that he finds useful today while running his business.
Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia, and an 8-year veteran of eBay, contrasts his experiences and lessons of working in a big company with heading a small start-up.
Penchina discusses how a start-up like eBay has transformed over time to a big company.
Penchina shares his thoughts on the differences in working in a start-up versus a big company and the skills he leveraged while moving from a big company like eBay to Wikia.