Mark French '97

Mark French has created, operated and sold multiple businesses in the consumer goods, sports, media and technology industries. As profiled by Forbes, French is recognized as one of the most successful business disruptors.

Previous ventures include MISSION®, The Players’ Tribune®, Healthy Together®, as well as entrepreneurial leadership roles with NBC Universal® (Founder of NBC Everywhere). French is the Founder of NLP Ventures, an investor and hands-on operational partner for portfolio companies in the Consumer Goods, Sports, Entertainment, and Technology sectors.

Leading consumer PE Firm L Catterton tapped French to join them on the Board of Directors for their portfolio company X2 Performance (a clean, healthy sports energy brand) and take over the CEO role in effort to scale the business. Under French’s leadership X2 partnered with Kawhi Leonard, Saquon Barkley and other elite athletes to grow the brands offering and distribution with large retailers including CVS, Subway, AMPM, GNC, etc. Mark recently led the strategic merger of X2 with Keurig Dr Pepper’s sports protein brand DON’T QUIT. Under French’s leadership DON’T QUIT now features clean / healthy sports beverages for all use occasions and is backed by Keurig Dr Pepper, LA Libations, Madison Square Garden, L Catterton, Sweetwater Private Equity, etc.

Over the course of his entrepreneurial career, French has partnered with legendary co-founding athletes and entertainers including Dwyane Wade, Serena Williams, Derek Jeter, Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Bush, Saquon Barkley, Damar Hamlin, DJ Khaled, Kendall Toole and others. Premiere institutional investors including L Catterton, Madison Square Garden, Live Nation, Endeavor, Roc Nation, Nelson Peltz, etc have backed French and his disruptive ventures.

As a philanthropist, Mark received the Lowell B. Mason Award for exemplary volunteer service for his constant commitment and mentorship to at-risk inner-city youth. Mark was one of 150 delegates selected by Pope Francis for the Global “Sport at the Service of Humanity” Council.

French is an alum of Ithaca College, where he is an active member of the Athletic Departments Advisory Council. He is a graduate from Harvard’s Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports Executive Program.

Mark’s inspiring entrepreneurial story has been featured on CNBC, Forbes, ESPN, Fox Business News, and more. Mark is often asked to share his entrepreneurial story and teach best practices with corporate giants such as GE, The NFL and more.

Josh Golden '93

As Chief Marketing Officer, Josh applies his more than two decades of experience in marketing, branding, media, and content to evolve Quad’s go-to-market strategy to deliver on the key benefits of a true through-the-line solution for Quad’s current and future clients.

Josh works closely with the entire Quad executive leadership to create a fertile ground for new ideas, products, and key messaging to drive the awareness and visibility of the brand and its offerings. Josh joined Quad in July 2021 having had leadership roles in production, media, marketing, agencies, and publishing companies. Most visibly, Josh was the President and Publisher of Ad Age where he demonstrated his innovative spirit and ability to spur transformative growth for the 90-year trade publication and media brand.

This same evolution was similarly demonstrated in his previous leadership roles at major companies like Xerox as the Vice President, Global Digital Marketing and at NBC Universal as the Group Director of Digital Marketing. Josh has also had extensive experience working at large creative agencies with a global footprint, serving as Chief Digital Officer at Grey Group, Managing Director, Digital at Havas and at Young & Rubicam, as the head of their digital division.

Josh received his MBA from New York University and his B.S. in Communications from Ithaca College. He lives in Westchester with his wife and two children.

Ty Lifeset '98

Ty is a Partner and Executive Creative Director at Envoy where he was employee #10 and built the agency to over 100 people across 3 locations. He is now a non-operating partner with his own Consultancy (TN&Partners), which is a decentralized agency that works on brand, digital, commerce, production and campaigns. Ty is a Co-Founder and CMO of Hoopla - a next generation shopping and savings platform with over 6K brands and 50K deals. He is also a screenwriter represented by CAA and is a podcast host (Pyramid the Podcast). 

Michael Luscher is the Founder & CEO of POINT3, a performance apparel and accessories brand designed for basketball players, fans and anyone who loves the game. Luscher has over 25 years of experience in the sports industry having worked for the Commissioner’s Office of Major League Baseball, the National Football League and prior to founding POINT3 in 2011, leading sports software startup Blue Sombrero to its eventual acquisition by DICK’S Sporting Goods. A 1997 graduate of Ithaca College, Luscher now resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and 2 daughters.

Fitness industry veteran, walking the walk and the talk since graduating from Ithaca College in 2000. Joanna has always had the side hustle of teaching group fitness classes for Equinox and Crunch in NYC and then entered into the fitness industry with partnership marketing at Lifetime Fitness and 24 Hour Fitness, as well as consulting with the Health & Fitness Industry Association. Then founding Go2Practice in 2018, an aggregation booking platform similar to Opentable catering to day pass access, going through a seed stage of funding and an accelerator program.

The pandemic caused the pause of Go2Practice, and Joanna dove into building a global member management software company through its acquisition and now is a consultant with Daxko, an umbrella saas company that assists YMCA, JCCs, and large fitness brands around the world with member management, marketing, booking, payments, retention and more. Uniquely able to connect b2b and b2c companies, ranging from startup to established brands, into relationships within the fitness space and evaluating the future of faas (fitness as a service) daily. 

Ben Zebelman is an award winning composer, arranger, producer, pianist and music entrepreneur with over 25 years experience creating music for every platform and screen size imaginable.

Ben’s first decade in the music business was spent composing award winning music for the commercial music production company David Horowitz Music Associates. After winning his first TV commercial for Bissell Vacuum, mere weeks after arriving in NYC, Ben never looked back. An extensive client list had Ben frequently partnering with the biggest ad-agencies of the 2000’s including BBDO, Y&R, Grey Advertising, Kaplan Thaler and many more. Some notable projects included collaborations with G.E., Pepsi, Lays, Dr. Pepper, Accenture, Hyundai, Ebay and Wild Aid. With Wild Aid, Ben partnered with the world famous pianist Lang Lang, to create a music score to accompany a global public service announcement aimed at ending the slaughter of elephants and rhinos for their Ivory tusks in Africa.

Ben is also particularly proud of the many global commercials he composed for the G.E. “Imagination at Work” campaign, including the G.E. mnemonic. Ben’s musical compositions for advertising and marketing brought him many awards including an Emmy, Telly, Addy, a Cannes Gold Lion and an AICP award for the aforementioned G.E. work, which resulted in permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 2003, Ben composed the entrance theme music for world famous, hall of fame professional wrestler Scott Steiner, a.k.a., “Big Papa Pump”. Ben has also composed custom music libraries that have been used in TV shows including “The NFL on CBS halftime show” and “CBS College Basketball”. Ben has also had the privilege of composing hundreds of hours of music for live corporate events including major launch announcements and conventions for Toyota, Lexus, Land Rover, Jaguar and Lenovo.

In 2008, Ben started his own music production company, Octave Music. Octave Music put the focus on long form music production for Television and Film and landed it’s first major television series composing more than 650 music cues for the Discovery Channel hit series “Moonshiners”, now in its 13th season. Other series followed including “Live Free or Die” and the “The Great Human Race”.

Since 2020, Ben has composed the music score for seven documentary feature films produced by Nat Geo, ABC News and Disney including “Lost On Everest”, “Deepest Cave”, “The Last Tepui”, “Lost In The Arctic” and most recently, having premiered back on February 19th, “Operation Arctic Cure” which follows ABC News Reporter Bob Woodruff on an expedition of a lifetime as he attempts to find a cure for PTSD and depression with help from the science of “Awe”. Ben has also been the Composer on several Lionsgate feature films including “Spare Parts” starring George Lopez, Marissa Tomei and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as the Spanish Language hit of 2021, “¿Y Cómo Es Él?”. 2022 saw the release of Ben’s most recent film collaboration with Italian Director Brando Quilichi for his film “The Tiger’s Nest” which has been shown on movie screens in over 80 countries worldwide.

Rounding out Ben’s ventures in the music and entertainment worlds, he is an expert in the complex and ever changing world of music royalty administration. Ben is a 9 time SESAC Cable Television Music Award Winner which is based on the frequency of usage of his music in both broadcast and streamed platforms.

Ben is a 1998 graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music where he was also a four year member and starter on the Men’s lacrosse team. Ben was a co-captain his senior year when the team made it into the NCAA playoffs finishing with an 11-3 record.