Steve Bachmann started collecting wine in the early '90s, fueled in part by a move to London that gave him the chance to experience a wider variety of European wine. After moving back to the United States in 1996, he collected wine at an even faster clip, resulting in a collection of almost 7,000 bottles. He started Vinfolio as a direct result of the frustration he experienced in trying to keep track of his wine, which were stored at both his home and in an off-site facility.
Before founding Vinfolio, Steve was a venture capitalist and investment banker for 17 years. He was a managing director of Broadview Holdings LLP, where he advised on information technology mergers and acquisitions in the United States and Europe for 13 years. Steve directed the opening of the firm's London office in 1989; by 1995, he had increased its business to approximately a third of the firm's total revenues. In 1998, he led the formation within Broadview of a $250 million private equity fund called Broadview Capital Partners, which focused on late-stage information technology investments.
Prior to Broadview, Steve worked at Bain & Co. and also in several start-up companies. He has served on the boards of directors for numerous private technology companies as well as on Broadview's board.
He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in computer science and obtained his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a board member of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, a member of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin and a Trustee of the Town School for Boys in San Francisco.
Rachel Blatt's enjoyment of wine began with her move to the Bay Area in the early 1990s. Starting with her first visit to the Dry Creek region, Rachel developed her love for big, spicy zinfandels. Since then, she has expanded her palate with travels to France, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and Australia as well as the wine regions in Oregon and Washington. In 2004, she joined with four friends to start Vie Winery, focused on high quality, limited production Rhone varietal and Zinfandel based wines.
In 1998, Rachel joined USWeb/CKS, a groundbreaking online marketing agency, as an Account Manager guiding clients, including Ask Jeeves, Select Comfort and BabyCenter in the new online medium. In 1999, she joined MyPoints.com, the Internet's premier rewards program, with the critical goal of growing its membership base. Over the next two years, she led the growth from under a million users to over 10 million members. She left in 2002, after the company was sold, to lead her own marketing consulting practice. She specialized in working with smaller clients, including Richart Chocolate and BeverageBistro. In 2005, she returned to MyPoints as the Director of Marketing to launch the company's new credit card and rebuild its membership acquisition team. Rachel joined Vinfolio in the summer of 2006, excited to blend her marketing expertise with her passion for wine.
Rachel holds a BA from Emory University in Atlanta where she majored in history.
After graduating with a degree in business from the University of Texas at Austin Andres set his sights on the west coast and accepted a position in the Silicon Valley office of Price Waterhouse LLC in San Jose, California. After 2½ years of auditing and working on high tech IPO filings he decided be a part of the Internet technology revolution. He left his position and began Computer Science studies at San Francisco State University.
In 1997 Andres joined NextCard, a small internet start up, as one of the early employees and immediately gained experience in web technologies. During his four years at NextCard Andres played a key role in growing the company from 40 employees to over 1,000 with a customer base of 1 million. He participated in most engineering projects becoming the senior architect of the flagship product.
Subsequent to NextCard, Andres joined other bay area high tech companies further distinguishing himself as a leader and expert in the Java programming language. During this time he became an advocate for agile development methodologies directly learning from industry experts.
In 2004, Andres joined Vinfolio as the Director of Engineering. Since joining the company he has guided the codebase from its initial form to robust cellar and warehouse management applications. Andres manages an expanding team of in-house engineers working to deliver the next generation of wine applications and maintaining existing functionality.
Tom DeSpain comes to Vinfolio with over 20 years of finance and operations experience including positions at Wal-Mart, Gap Inc., Sega, and most recently Pure Digital Technologies, Inc. Tom was 3rd in the company with Pure Digital and served initially as the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Operations. He most recently held the position of Vice President of Customer Operations. In addition, Tom was the Senior Director of Operations at Sega.com where he managed all aspects of customer support, fulfillment, and distribution. He also held financial management positions for both Gap Inc. corporate and for two Gap divisions as well, Banana Republic and Gap Inc. Direct. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for Machina, Inc. Tom holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Northeastern State University in which he completed his 4 year degree in 2 years and graduated summa cum laude.
Tom's interest and love of wine began years ago with his love for preparing good food. Initially he learned about Italian and French wines, broadening his knowledge of wines to include Australian, Spanish and Chilean. Moving to California over a decade ago, he discovered the wonderful world of Californian wines. He tends to prefer hearty red wines from Bordeaux, reserve Chianti and smooth California merlots. However, his favorite wine still continues to be Champagne, especially 1995-96 reserve vintages.
Mike Murphy was first introduced to wine during a Navy deployment to Europe in 1983. While sitting on the outdoor deck of a hilltop Parador in Malaga, sipping red wine, eating olives and watching the sun set over Torremolinos, he began to realize the grape's potential to enhance life. Since then, he has continued to explore the wonderful world of Cabernets, Merlots, Zinfandels, Pinot Noirs, Syrahs and Malbecs.
Mike's background includes twelve years as a Supply Corps Officer in the US Navy, where he ran supply operations on a nuclear submarine, provisions warehouses in Virginia and a "floating warehouse" in the Mediterranean. After receiving his MBA, he worked as a retail consultant with Senn-Delaney and Andersen Business Consulting for ten years, focusing first on distribution centers and then moving to store operations and headquarters consulting. In 2000, he was recruited by Siebel to head up the retail vertical. During his time at Siebel, he helped build, sell and implement the product and took particular pride in the success of his customers. Later, he led the development of Siebel's Customer Experience Blueprint - a recipe for driving successful CRM projects. Mike joined Vinfolio in 2007, and leads the company's mission to provide Finer Service to our customers
A native New Englander, Mike earned a bachelor's in Marketing from the University of Connecticut, and an MBA with High Honors from Penn State University. When he's not relentlessly pursuing excellence in operations at Vinfolio, he enjoys gardening and driving the family RV up and down California, exploring new wineries with his wife.