In addition to founding DiamondStream (formerly Casino Marketing Alliance, or CMA), Mr. Donovan is also managing director of Columbia Equity Partners and CEP Productions, LLC. He previously worked as Chief Operating officer of Nimblefish Technologies, a pioneering variable marketing agency, and at Bain & Company as a Director, helping to found the Mexico business and running Bain’s African business for several years. During his time at Bain, he led the airline and automotive practice areas. He has advised senior executives and company boards on merger, acquisition, divestiture, business strategy, and other issues in a variety of industries, primarily to Fortune 1000 companies.
Mr. Donovan graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied Economics and Rhetoric. He received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990.
Before founding DiamondStream (formerly Casino Marketing Alliance, or CMA), Mr. Flynn provided strategic marketing services to Caesar’s (now Harrah’s) and Mandalay Bay (now MGM). He is also a managing director of Columbia Equity Partners and CEP Productions, LLC. He has served as a Managing Director at Bachow & Associates, the then largest private equity fund in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with investors such as CalPERS and the Ford Foundation. At Bachow, he identified, negotiated an investment in or acquisition of, built, grew, and sold companies in a variety of industries.
Mr. Flynn served as CEO of Innova Corporation (now Harris Corporation: HRS), a leading telecom equipment company. Prior to Bachow, he was a consultant at Bain & Company. Mr. Flynn also worked for DLJ in investment banking and GE Capital in finance.
He is a Beta Gamma Sigma graduate of Columbia Business School and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Williams College, and has studied at the London School of Economics. He has served on various public and private company boards of directors.
Michael Gould is currently the CEO of Manifeste Marketing, a marketing services company specializing in brand development and expression; advertising, direct marketing and web creative and strategy development; and video and music production; and which provides creative services to clients of DiamondStream.
Mr. Gould began in 1977 as a copywriter for the Commerce Clearing House. He then moved to J Krueger & Associates, at the time one of the preeminent direct marketing firms in the Bay Area. In 1985, he was named Creative Director at Grey Direct in San Francisco, eventually becoming agency manager. Finally, in 1988, he left the firm, and the following year he began his own practice, MGouldCo.
MGouldCo grew as a full-service direct marketing firm with a variety of primarily high tech and financial clients. In 1999, McCann Erickson acquired MGouldCo to establish a San Francisco outpost for its worldwide network. By the time Mr. Gould turned over the reins in 2004, the agency was 80 people billing just shy of $100MM. Since then, it (MRM West) has become the largest direct marketing firm on the West Coast and in the McCann system.
In 2004, Mr. Gould became EVP/Chief Marketing Officer of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco. In 2005, he retired from McCann to begin his own firm once again. Mr. Gould received a B.A. in Aesthetics from the University of California at Santa Cruz, 1976.
Mr. Rubio primarily works on contractual issues. Formerly a director and officer of Xanthus Capital, LP, a Seattle-based private equity firm, Mr. Rubio was also a director, officer and co-founder of two publicly traded companies; go2net, Inc., a Seattle-based technology company (acquired by Infospace, Inc.), and Active Apparel Group, Inc., a New York-based retailer.
In addition, Mr. Rubio was an attorney at the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and securities law.
He received a B.A. in Economics from Columbia College and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. Mr. Rubio holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
William Dean Donovan
Managing Director and co-Founder
Brian Flynn
Managing Director and co-Founder
Michael Gould
Chief Creative Officer
Manny Rubio
Legal Counsel
