James Heckman

James Heckman is a Technology Architect and C-Suite Media Executive with decades of experience as an entrepreneur, advisor and industry visionary. Currently, James is the Founder & CEO of TheMaven, a group media platform for independent publishers delivering premium content across multiple verticals and industries.

His career started in Seattle, Washington during the genesis of digital publishing. While attending the University of Washington, James developed the technology behind a network of over 100 magazines. Soon after, he became the President & Publisher of NFL Exclusive, one of the first media networks that combined national reach and local targeting.

In 1997, James made his first foray into the world of entrepreneurship, founding Rivals.com. With Rivals, James and his team of engineers architected the pioneering technology that we know today as blogging. Rivals was the first large-scale publishing network on a single database. He left the company in 2001 and Rivals.com was sold to Yahoo for $100M shortly thereafter. James’s next endeavor was Scout Media. Like Rivals, Scout enabled independent publishers to create premium content on a single database model. Scout was purchased by Fox in 2005.

Following Fox’s acquisition of Scout Media, James was named the Chief Strategy Officer of Fox Interactive Media where he served until 2007. In 2007, James was approached by John Doerr and asked to help lead a company called Zazzle, a single-database for people to build professional businesses on. James acted as CSO at Zazzle until 2008, when he left and founded 5to1.com, a premium ad network for major media. 5to1.com was purchased by Yahoo in 2011, and Jim was brought on as Global Media Chief Strategist at Yahoo where he served until 2012.

In 2016, James ended his relationship with NAMG and, with his team of engineers, started TheMaven. In October 2016, TheMaven went public and is now serving millions of delighted fans.