Bob Cooney leaves eCast; weighing next steps

May 18, 2010 by Dave Haynes

I don’t know eCast all that well, but I’ve liked what I have seen and the guy, Bob Cooney, who was the product’s front-man and pretty much synonomous with the company — kinda like Jeff Porter and Scala.

But Bob Cooney has left his longtime gig with eCast and is now considering his next moves in the sector.

I got a Linked In invite from him late last week, and Linked In invites are sometimes hints that something is up with a guy. So I checked his profile and saw, sure enough, that he was ex-eCast.

So I sent Bob a note and asked what was up?

“When I started as the VP Marketing at Ecast, I moved my family to San Francisco as I needed to be in the office everyday to manage a team,” says Cooney, responding to my email.  “After 2 1/2 years, I moved to VP Business Development and Manufacturing, which allowed my family to move back to Southern California (San Clemente).  We never really gelled in the Bay Area, and welcomed the opportunity to move back to this little beach/surf community.”

Cooney says the company is in the midst of considerable transition, “and that required me to be in the office every day, managing cross-functional teams.  We decided that rather than me commute weekly, that Ecast should bring in someone local.”

“Short term I am working on some interesting consulting projects in the interactive digital signage space.  Longer term, I plan on taking a senior leadership position in an entrepreneurial organization that’s looking to really energize their business through innovative strategies.  I would welcome the opportunity to leverage my experience in manufacturing, marketing and business development to another, more focused player in the out-of-home media space.”

“I also want to get back to public speaking, something I really enjoy but have not been doing much.  As such, I expect we will see each other at some events this summer.  I look forward to connecting over a beverage!”

10-4 on the beverages.

You can track Bob down here: home [at] bobcooney.com and he has a website that gives a clear idea that his heart really  is more in San Clemente than San Francisco.

Meanwhile, eCast has a new guy in place, reports Digital Signage Universe.

Michael Miner as the company’s vice president of business development. Prior to joining Ecast, Miner served as director of business development and client services for the A9 business unit of Amazon where he was charged with building and managing a sponsored link advertising business on Amazon.com and third party publisher sites.

Miner has also spent time with eBay and Yahoo Travel.

Welcome to the space, Mike.