Rachel Payne, MBA
Rachel Payne, MBA is a serial Tech Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Board Director, Technology Executive, and Social Change visionary. She is the CEO of FEM. Inc. holding company, and an advisor for Nielsen. She was a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress in Orange County, 48th Congressional District of California.
Rachel earned her MBA in Global Business and Public Management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2004. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Government, and East Asian Studies from Smith College in 1997. Rachel also earned a certification in Japanese, Economics, and Government from Doshisha University in 1996.
Rachel started her career in Business Development at IDG (PC World Magazine) where she spent two years. She then continued to become Senior Marketing Manager at eBay, Strategist at SapientRazorfish, Senior Manager at Hotwire, and in 2004 she cofounded and became President and Board Director of InDplay. InDplay is the world’s first cloud-based rights management system for major media companies and independent filmmakers and was acquired in 2007 by Ascent Media Group.
In 2005, while Rachel was still at inDplay, she became the first external hire on the Google.org Founding Team, the philanthropic arm of Google. In 2008, she then became a Country Manager of the Africa Management team before she moved to become Head of Industry and Technology at Google. She managed a cross-platform media sales team and support strategic partner management and business development for large technology clients.
In 2012, she became Principal of Global Strategic Alliances at Google where she worked with heads of product and top executives across the company to develop comprehensive strategies for Google’s largest global media partners, including Sony, Disney, NewsCorp, and Time Warner.
Still at Google, Rachel became Board Director at KCETLink in 2010 and at BRAC USA in 2011. BRAC is an international development organization dedicated to spreading solutions to poverty worldwide and has been consistently ranked the number one NGO in the world by NGO Advisor.
When Rachel left Google in August 2012, it was because she founded FEM Inc. whose mission is to serve and empower diverse audiences by understanding what content resonates and by measuring the impact of media/entertainment and technology on society. Read about their research and goals here and on their blog.
FEM’s first exit was Prizma, an AI platform for media, entertainment, and telecom companies. Rachel was the CEO until it was acquired by Nielsen / Gracenote in May 2018. Nielsen is a global leader in metadata creation and distribution, powering next-generation media experiences for some of the world’s largest media companies where Rachel is now also an Advisor.
Read about her in Vator News, and news about her keynote in Tech Entrepreneur, Philanthropist Rachel Payne to Keynote Women in Technology Luncheon Presented by HPA Women in Post and SMPTE.
Read about Prizma’s video recommendation service launch and read about her candidacy for Congress in the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times.
Visit her LinkedIn profile. Follow her on LinkedIn Activities, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
