EMI Music June 2008–present
Executive Vice President, Global Digital Marketing April 2009–present
• Worked directly with CEO, Marketing President, and executive committee to demonstrate
digital marketing capabilities across EMI
• Driving development of technology and expertise around customer insight and analytics
• Responsible for testing and experimentation with new products and business models
• Collaborated with marketing team craft EMI digital marketing best practices
Senior Vice President, Global Digital Strategy June 2008–March 2009
• Worked directly with CEO, Digital President, and executive committee to craft and drive
implementation of digital strategy underlying EMI Music's transformation
• Drove cultural transformation around transparency, experimentation, analytics, and testing
• Hired senior engineering leaders to build new core technology team to support and implement
digital strategy
• Collaborated with business development team to identify and analyze potential partners and
music distribution deals
• Coordinated current EMI efforts around digital content ingestion, processing, and distribution
• Internal and external evangelism and education
Annenberg School for Communication January 2008–present
University of Southern California
Visiting Professor January 2008–May 2008
• Co‐taught “CMGT 534: Introduction to Online Communities” in Charles Annenberg Weingarten
Program on Online Communities
• Helped to define curriculum, arrange guest lecturers, and lectured
• Delivered series of 7 lectures to Annenberg faculty on virtual worlds, innovation, and
collaboration
Fellow June 2008–present
• Supporting MacArthur Foundation grant‐driven research for Network Culture Project
• Consulting resource for Network Culture Project staff and students
Catamount Ventures January 2008–May 2008
Entrepreneur in Residence
• Reviewed potential investments and conducted technical due diligence
• Brought potential investments to Catamount partners
• Assisted Catamount partners on portfolio projects as needed
Independent Consultant January 2008–May 2008
• Consulted on various cutting edge technology and education projects, including analysis,
strategic planning, and due diligence work on game, virtual world, and other technology
endeavors with industry, academic, investor, and government clients
• Frequent keynote speaker on virtual worlds, education, and innovation
Linden Lab December 2000–December 2007
Chief Technology Officer March 2006–December 2007
Cory Ondrejka 2 of 6
• Worked alongside CEO in all aspects of Second Life (SL) and Linden Lab development
• Drove the strategic direction of SL, including critical Open Source and standards decisions
• Expanded development team to 120+, in addition to coding, design, and corporate
responsibilities
• Championed and led projects to Open Source the SL client and to acquire Windwardmark
Interactive
• Designed and implemented innovative distributed structure to allow Linden Lab’s culture to
survive continuous growth
• Drove entrepreneurial culture with nearly zero development turnover
• Primary technical evangelist for Linden Lab, with particular focus on education, research, and
government thought leaders
• Responsible for hiring majority of technical staff
• Primary manager of strategic relationships with IBM, Intel, and other corporate partners
• Built relationships with Singaporean government and educators, including Singapore
government sponsored training program that allowed Linden to open a Singaporean office
Vice President of Product Development January 2003–February 2006
• Responsible for continued design, development, and releases of SL
• Initiated and led changes to allow residents to retain intellectual property rights on their
creations, including design, coding, and legal projects
• Created awareness of SL through technical and design white papers, conferences, and
interviews
• Built relationships with research, education and technology partners, including MacArthur
Foundation, PARC, IBM, Havok, Intel, NVIDIA, ATI, Apple, O’Reilly, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley,
Harvard, Yale, USC, UW Madison, and New York Law School
• Prepared and delivered investor presentations with CEO during four rounds of financing,
including rounds led by Benchmark Capital and Globespan Capital
Director of Engineering December 2000–December 2002
• Co‐creator of SL
• Built development team that created the foundation of SL
• Responsible for all aspects of SL software architecture and design
• Wrote initial code base, core libraries, scripting language, messaging and network subsystems,
compound object code, interest list management, terrain compression and streaming
technology, map generation, Havok integration, and dwell detection
• Co‐designer of object and avatar editing systems
Institute for Defense Analyses February 2005–February 2006
Advisor
• Invited to advise the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office on the Department of Defense
Master Plan for modeling, simulation, and gaming
• Worked with industry leaders from DARPA, Rand Corporation, Georgia Tech, DoD, and others to
determine strategies and methods for incorporating modeling, simulation, and gaming into DoD
• Provided expertise about the capabilities of collaborative spaces and their potential impact on
the military
Pacific Coast Power and Light March 1998–November 2000
Principal Software Engineer
Cory Ondrejka 3 of 6
• Managed 2 programmers and 12 artists as Banishers project lead, built tech demo, and
presented to THQ senior management. Leveraged technology to build proof of concept for WWE
Crush Hour
• Managed 5 developers as Playstation 2 R&D lead, wrote initial PS2 libraries/VU code, evaluated
and integrated RenderWare middleware into existing codebase
• As Road Rash 64 project lead, managed 2 developers and 5 artists, oversaw all aspects of
development, designed game, and shipped on time and under budget. Wrote graphics engine,
optimized Nintendo graphics pipeline to double polygon performance, terrain and texture
streaming, animation compression and streaming, animation, character and terrain tool chains,
and UI code
Acclaim CoinOperated Entertainment March 1998–November 2000
Lead Programmer
• Co‐designer of Magic: the Gathering: Armageddon
• Worked on all aspects of Magic: the Gathering: Armageddon development as senior staff
member
• Managed 5 programmers, wrote graphics engine, animation engine and tools, particle and FX
system, creature behavior and flocking code, collision, and Glide texture management and
caching in 3Dfx
Lockheed Sanders April 1994–February 1995
Software Engineer
• Held Top Secret/SCI as programmer on Combat DF/ADAS, VAX/Pascal and UNIX/C
• Wrote specifications and conducted operational testing with US Navy
United States Navy July 1988–March 1994
Naval Officer
• Held Top Secret/SCI clearance at National Security Agency
• Nuclear Power School graduate, submarine warfare and back seat qualified for Naval aviation
Technical Skills
• Ruby, Perl, C/C++ in game, real‐time, and web applications
• SQL queries when needed for data analysis
• Haskell and Python in an emergency —“it’s on fire!” — break‐out‐the‐manual sort of way
• Developing web, communication, and media processing applications on Amazon Web Services
• Previously developed cross platform, networked, OpenGL applications on Windows, Mac OS X,
and Debian Linux
• Created and maintained code with MS Dev Studio, XCode, vi, emacs, g++/gcc, make, git, CVS, and
Subversion
• Built web applications, massively multiplayer, fighting, and racing titles on PC, arcade, and
console hardware with over 18 million total users
Boston University
Homeopathic quantity of graduate work towards MS Computer Science, 3 credits, 4.0 GPA
Naval Nuclear Power School
Hand picked for program by Naval Sea Systems Command
Graduate level work in nuclear physics, fluid dynamics, and materials science
Cory Ondrejka 4 of 6
United States Naval Academy
BS Weapons and Systems Engineering
Completed all requirements for BS Computer Science
First graduate to complete 2 technical majors
Presidential “Thousand Points of Light” award recipient
References available upon request.
Publications
• Ondrejka, C. “Collapsing Geography,” Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization, MIT
Press, 2007
• Ondrejka, C. “Education Unleashed,” MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media, MIT Press,
2007
• Ondrejka, C, et al. Second Life: the Official Guide, Wiley Publishing, 2007
• Ondrejka, C. “Finding Common Ground in New Worlds”, Games and Culture, January 2006
• Ondrejka, C. “Power by the People: User‐Creation in Online Games,” Massively Multiplayer Game
Development 2, Charles River Media, 2005
• Ondrejka, C. “Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse.” New
York Law Review, 2005
• Ondrejka, C. “Changing Realities.” Themis Group (www.themis‐group.com), January 2005
• Ondrejka, C. “Aviators, Moguls, Fashionistas and Barons: Economics and Ownership in Second
Life.” Gamasutra (www.gamasutra.com) 2004
• Ondrejka, C. “Living on the Edge: Digital Worlds Which Embrace the Real World.” Linden Lab
whitepaper, June 2004
• Ondrejka, C. and P. Rosedale. “Enabling Player‐Created Online Worlds with Grid Computing and
Streaming.” Gamasutra (www.gamasutra.com), 2003
Speaking
2009
• Keynote, Canadian Music Week, Toronto, March 2009
• Panel speaker, “Arts and Culture,” US Islamic Forum, Doha, Qatar, February 2009
• Panel speaker, “Digital Music ‐ Forging Ahead with New Business Models,” MusicEcon
Conference, Los Angeles, CA, February 2009
• Panel speaker, “Listen up — Why knowing your fans matter,” MIDEM, Cannes, January 2009
2008
• Keynote speaker, “Recursive Innovation — Building Linden Lab and Second Life,” Computer
Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, CA, November 2008
• Keynote speaker, “Riding the Wave — Innovation and the Future of Music,” Digital Music Forum
West, October 2008
• Keynote speaker, “Virtual Worlds,” International Market Assessment India, July 2008
• Panel speaker, “Collapsing Geography,” Games, Learning and Society Conference, Madison, WI,
July 2008
• Keynote speaker, “Future of Virtual Worlds,” Freescale Technology Conference, Orlando, FL,
June 2008
• Gerson Lehrman Group seminar, “Virtual Worlds — The Next 18 Months,” Palo Alto, CA, May
2008
• Panel speaker, “Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus,” Case Western Reserve
University, May 2008
Cory Ondrejka 5 of 6
• Panelist on the future of virtual worlds, MetaverseU, February 2008
• Faculty seminar on virtual worlds, Annenberg School for Communication, January–May 2008
2007
• Keynote speaker to European Commission Publisher’s Forum, December 2007
• Presenter to US‐Arab Economic Summit, Bahrain, December 2007
• Presenter to National Science Foundation Summit, Boulder, CO, October 2007
• Presented Second Life and “Collapsing Geography” to House Commerce Committee chair,
ranking member, and staffers, Washington, DC, October 2007
• Panelist on “Get a (virtual) life” on NPR Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, August 2007
• Culture and communication working group participant at the Aspen Institute FOCAS
conference, August 2007
• Participant in Rendon Group working session on “Discrediting Suicide Extremism,” August 2007
• Keynote speaker on virtual worlds and user‐generated content at the iMBx SEASIAN Ministerial
Conference in Singapore, June 2007
• Panel speaker on virtual worlds and education, iCommons Conference, June 2007
• Participant and provocateur at the 2007 Rueschlikon Conference on “Information Governance”
in Zurich, Switzerland, June 2007. This invitation‐only forum is hosted by Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government.
• Presented “Collapsing Geography” to UC Irvine MBA students, May 2007
• Panelist on user‐generated content, Media in Transition conference, April 2007
• Keynote speaker at Cisco, ISBG offsite conference, March 2007
• Presented “Future of Innovation” at Freedom to Connect conference, March 2007
• Presented “Collapsing Geography” at Microsoft Academic Days conference, February 2007
2006
• Keynote speaker at Beyond 2006, November 2006
• Featured speaker at the New Context Conference, September 2006
• Panelist on “The Future of Virtual Worlds” and “Beyond Subscriptions” at the Austin Game
Conference, September 2006
• Presented Second Life at the Aspen Institute FOCAS conference, August 2006
• Presented “Building Reality” at Nature/MacMillian Publishing Group Tech Talk, July 2006
• Presented “Imagining Reality” at the TransISTor 06 Conference, July 2006
• Presented “Education Commons” at the iSummit 06 Conference, June 2006
• Participant and provocateur at the 2006 Rueschlikon Conference on “Innovative
Entrepreneurship” in Zurich, Switzerland, June 2006. This invitation‐only forum is hosted by
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
• Panelist on the "Profiting from Innovative Online Communities" at E3, May 2006
• Presented “Digital Institutions” at the Berkman Workshop on Digital Institutions, May 2006
• Demonstrated Second Life as part of the Games for Health Capital Hill Demos, sponsored by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, April 2006
• Presented “Online Worlds as Online Nations”, Game Developers Conference, March 2006
• Presented Second Life as a High Order Bit, O’Reilly ETech, March 2006
• Panelist and moderator for "Physical Simulations and Virtual Worlds", American Association for
the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, February 2006
• Keynote speaker at "Microsoft Academic Days: Are Universities Dead?" February 2006
2005
• Presented “Changing Realities” at the 22nd Chaos Computer Club Conference, December 2005
• Presented “People Powered” at the Berkman Luncheon Series, November 2005
Cory Ondrejka 6 of 6
• Presented “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore” at the National Academies, November 2005
• Panelist on the “State of Play Dinner Panel” at State of Play 3, October 2005
• Presented “One Thing to Tell the World About Games” at Accelerating Change, September 2005
• Presented “People Powered Places: Some Missing Pieces” at FooCamp, August 2005
• Presented “People Powered Places” at Microsoft Research Tech Talk, August 2005
• Presented “Innovation at the Edge” at the Navy R&D Partnership Conference, July 2005
• Presented “Building Better Places: 5 Missing Pieces” at IBM Tech Talk in Cambridge, MA, July
2005
• Presented “Brace for Impact” with Dr. James Cook and Dr. Megan Conklin at the Games,
Learning, and Society Conference, Madison, WI, June 2005
• Panelist on “Intellectual Property and Virtual Worlds” at the American Bar Association’s
Intellectual Property Law Conference, April 2005
• Presented “Case Study: Building Serious Game MMPs using Second Life” at the Serious Game
Summit, March 2005
• Presented “Building Better Place and 5 Bottlenecks” at IBM Austin, February 2005
• Panelist on “Ownership in Online Worlds” at the Rules and Borders Conference, February 2005
• Presented “Building Better Places” at the Palo Alto Research Center, January 2005
2004
• Keynote speaker at “Accelerating Change 2004: Physical Space, Virtual Space and Interface.”
November 2004
• Panelist on “Intellectual Property/Digital Property” at the State of Play 2 Conference, hosted by
New York Law School and Yale Law School, October 2004
• Moderator for “How to Break into the Game Industry” mini‐conference, hosted by the Austin
Game Initiative, September 2004
• Speaker at the “Virtual Worlds: Design and Future Directions” workshop, part of MIT’s DCC04
conference. July 2004
• Participant and speaker at the 2004 Rueschlikon Conference on “Openness, Trust and
Sovereignty” in Zurich, Switzerland, June 2004. This invitation‐only forum is hosted by
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
• Guest speaker on the relationships between intellectual property and digital worlds at Yale Law
School and New York Law School, April 2004
• Moderator for “How to Break into the Game Industry” mini‐conference, hosted by the Austin
Game Initiative, January 2004
2003
• Panelist on “Designing for the Future” at the State of Play Conference, hosted by New York Law
School and Yale Law School, November 2003