The Clickable Search Engine Marketing Blog

I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to introduce myself to you.  My name is Bart Hacking, and I am the Senior Director of Finance and Corporate Development at Clickable.

In collecting my thoughts for this post, it dawned on me that I joined Clickable almost six months ago to the day, which is shocking since it feels like yesterday!  A lot has happened in that time – the fall of Lehman Brothers, Madoff, precipitous declines across global markets.  A lot has happened at Clickable as well (for the better thankfully) including a major product release and new partnerships.  As a result, we continue to grow in spite of economic headwinds.  The past six months have been exhilarating, and we can’t wait for what the next six months hold for Clickable, our customers and partners, and the search marketplace as a whole.

To tell you a bit more about me, my background is in corporate finance.  I spent a number of years in investment banking here in New York and then went back to school to get my MBA at Columbia Business School.  At Columbia, I was always working for peanuts building models or doing analyses - whether it was in private equity or in venture capital - all in the pursuit of getting involved in something entrepreneurial.  That led me to my first startup, where I worked for almost three years before joining Clickable.  I didn’t realize it until after business school, but startups are where I have the most fun.  I’m driven by the challenge of solving complex problems (individually, and together as a team), of trying to do something as bold as changing the face of a marketplace, and being an integral contributor to that effort.  David, Munish, and the rest of the early Clickable team set out to alter the search advertising landscape for small and medium size businesses, and that was what immediately drew me to Clickable.

That’s all well and good, but you’re probably saying “great, but what do you actually do?” As you guessed, much of my time is spent in excel (budgets, analyses, multi-year projection models, etc.).  For better or worse, people are swinging by my desk with “In excel, how can I . . .? “  But I also spend a lot of time interacting with prospective business development partners, from pitching the benefits of working together, to negotiating economic terms, to tee’ing up implementation.  That’s a lot of fun.  I enjoy the corporate finance piece, but I love interacting with customers.  In the end, that’s how you build a business.

What else can I tell you about myself?  On a personal note, I love to fly fish and play guitar (which doesn’t make me very good at either), and I know how to drive a Zamboni (a story for another time).  My beautiful wife is a public school teacher, one of the most important jobs in the world in my humble opinion, and we are anxiously awaiting the birth of our first child.  Very exciting stuff going on, on multiple fronts.

Let me end on this.  We strive for perfection in everything we do here at Clickable – whether it be in servicing and supporting customers and business development partners or in designing and building simple yet powerful tools to help businesses get the most out of internet advertising.  We strive for perfection in these endeavors with the knowledge that we’ll inevitably fall short (hey, we’re human).  And so we are always seeking feedback.  If you have something to say, please call, email, skype, twitter, IM, or just stop by - we want to hear from you.  And if you think there might be an interesting opportunity for us to work together, please email me at bhacking at Clickable dot com.  I hope to hear from you.