The Advisors
Combined, this team has scaled numerous multi-billion dollar businesses, architected the modern streaming economy across Pluto TV and ViX, advised heads of government and the Pentagon on the technologies that shape the future, operated at the highest levels of Silicon Valley alongside Apple for over 30 years, and built television networks across every platform the industry has ever produced. ION’s Advisory Board does not advise from a distance. It has built what ION is building toward.
Kelli Richards
Kelli Richards is Silicon Valley royalty. A longtime Apple executive mentored directly by Steve Jobs for over 30 years, she spent decades at the epicentre of the technology revolution that remade the world, before building one of the most trusted advisory practices in the industry. Ms Richards is now President and Chief Connections Officer of a Silicon Valley-based advisory practice working at the intersection of media, music and technology innovation, partnering with visionary founders and C-suite leaders to unlock growth, forge transformative partnerships and build the strategies that turn bold ideas into durable businesses. She works with growth-stage ventures and established enterprises alike, her network spans the highest levels of the global technology, media and entertainment industries, making her one of the most connected operators in Silicon Valley.
Dr Kellee Franklin
Dr Kellee Franklin operates at the highest levels of government and enterprise. With Top Secret security clearance, Dr Franklin is trusted by the White House, the Pentagon and national intelligence agencies to advise on the technologies that shape the future.
Dr Franklin advises heads of government and senior corporate executives worldwide on transformative technology adoption. She partners with leading venture capitalists and start-ups to drive AI governance and infrastructure into the highest-impact domains, from national security to enterprise transformation. Dr Franklin holds a doctorate in Human Development from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Daniel Sanders
Daniel Sanders is one of the architects of the modern streaming economy. At Pluto TV, acquired by Paramount in a landmark USD 340 million transaction in 2019, Mr Sanders helped drive the transformation that took Pluto TV from a promising start-up to a billion-dollar revenue business. He subsequently served at Univision, where he architected and delivered ViX, the world’s largest Spanish-language streaming platform, built to serve over 600 million Spanish speakers across the Americas. He launched both AVOD and SVOD tiers within a single year while delivering live events to millions of concurrent viewers simultaneously. Earlier roles at Verizon Digital Media Services and Sony Pictures gave Mr Sanders command of both the infrastructure and content sides of the industry, leading video platform engineering, cloud strategy and mergers and acquisitions integration at organisations operating at global scale.
Howard Bolter
Howard Bolter has spent 20 years building television networks from the ground up, across every platform the industry has produced. His executive and senior leadership roles have taken him across organisations running budgets from USD 1 million to over USD 300 million annually. His career spans across the four major US broadcast networks, cable, syndication, OTT, SVOD and FAST channels across both domestic and international markets.
As an author, his recently published book From Stream to Screen: An Insider’s Guide to Understanding and Building Streaming Networks has become a definitive blueprint for operators in the modern media landscape.
He brings deep expertise in cloud-based systems, virtual reality, modern distribution workflows and the media formats driving the industry forward.