Executive Team

Dirk Brown, CEO, Co-Founder

Dr. Brown is a seasoned executive with a strong track record of developing, marketing, and licensing disruptive, proprietary technologies. Prior to co-founding Pandoodle, he was CEO of Neoconix, a venture capital-funded electronics technology company serving Fortune 100 customers with worldwide sales and manufacturing. He was previously Executive Vice President of Operations and Marketing at High Connection Density (HCD), with P&L responsibility for all of the company's product lines, and a Member of Technical Staff at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Dr. Brown holds over 25 patents, has written over 30 technical papers and journal articles, and is an active member in a number of professional societies. He holds an M.B.A. from San Jose State, a Ph.D. (Materials Science) and M.Eng. (Applied Physics) from Cornell University, and an Applied Physics/Electrical Engineering degree from Queen's University in Canada.

Dave Ludwigsen, President, Co-Founder

Mr. Ludwigsen has a very broad range of strong technical and business experience in multiple industries including 3d animation, robotics, healthcare, finance, advertising, retail, and entertainment. Prior to co-founding Pandoodle, he was VP of IT at Grey Healthcare Group, a multinational healthcare advertising company. Among other responsibilities, he was the chief architect at barnesandnoble.com implementing btob and product integration; he worked on integrating shipping, distribution, and data solutions for QVC, Inc., and has consulted for multiple entertainment entities.

Bob Bacon, Executive Producer

Mr. Bacon brings two decades of uniquely-qualified leadership to the animation business where his expertise in production, finance, and deal-making blend with his strong industry relationships to position him as a highly-regarded and collaborative studio executive, producer, and consultant. Recently, Mr. Bacon was the Production Executive on the animated feature, Gnomeo & Juliet, for Disney's Touchstone Pictures overseeing critical creative, production, and budget aspects for the studio and helping to negotiate key deal points in the multi-million dollar international production contract. Formerly EVP of Walt Disney Feature Animation, Mr. Bacon headed production, finance, and technology for the world-renowned studio developing both their long-range production planning as well as running the day-to-day operations. As head of finance, he led the finance, strategic planning, and accounting functions for the studio and its film and video premiere projects. During the tenure he helped the studio produce 17 award-winning films with worldwide box office grosses totaling over $5 billion including the classics Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan, and Lilo and Stitch.

Phil Roman, Executive Producer

Mr. Roman has received 6 Emmy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award for animation production. He is highly regarded in the animation industry for both his creative talents and strong business skills. Mr. Roman was the founding CEO of Phil Roman Entertainment, which has produced several well known animations including "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". Prior to that, Mr. Roman founded Film Roman, Inc. which went public in 1996 and, under his leadership, produced a large number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed animations. These included the Emmy Award-winning "Garfield in the Rough", several other Garfield specials, "The Simpsons", "King of the Hill", and many others. Earlier in his career, Mr. Roman animated and co-produced several of the Charlie Brown specials as well as many other well known productions. He began his career in animation working for Walt Disney on the full-length feature animation "Sleeping Beauty".

John Blas, VP Communications

Mr. Blas has been working in motion picture marketing and advertising for over 17 years, beginning his career at the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group focusing on both domestic live action and animated films. In 2003, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Worldwide Creative Advertising for Disney Feature Animation and Pixar. In this role, he spearheaded all worldwide advertising campaigns for the studio as well as provided strategic creative direction to other divisions of the company including consumer products, theme parks, broadcast networks and publishing. Mr. Blas was instrumental in creating some of Disney's most memorable marketing campaigns for such films as Toy Story, Tarzan, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. He has won numerous distinguished advertising awards and has been recognized by such revered publications as Graphis and Communication Arts for his work. Mr. Blas currently provides marketing & creative advertising consulting for a diverse range of entertainment clients, including Lucasfilm, Disney, Fox, Columbia Pictures, Lionsgate, Focus Features and several major film advertising agencies.

Bob Glassett, Chief Architect

Mr. Glassett is a professional technologist having worked in the retail, financial and advertising industries and has ridden the cusp of a few technical innovations over the course of his career including the migration from mainframes to PCs, client-server computing and e-commerce. Working for Grey Healthcare Group he implemented innovative technical solutions for both large and small pharmaceutical companies including Solvay, Eisai and Johnson & Johnson; as the Director of Ordering with barnesandnoble.com he oversaw the software development that allowed for a tenfold increase in ordering volume. His prior responsibilities included the implemeting global research tracking and release for Merrill Lynch and merchandise reservation systems for Macy's allowing stores to replenish inventories based on store sales.

Chris Watkis, VP Information Technology

Since 1994, Mr. Watkis has been an integral part of the IT engineering field with experience across a wide variety of business technologies. Beginning his career as a support technician, Mr. Watkis used his technical training and interpersonal skills to rise to his current position of VP, Information Technology for Pandoodle Inc. and his previous position as IT Director of Grey Healthcare Group (GHG), a worldwide corporation with 45 offices in 22 countries. Mr. Watkis is currently working to improve and streamline Pandoodle's technology systems across the more demanding digital and 3D asset diverse offerings. He has excelled in training for Mac, UNIX and Networking Services for the past 8 years. Mr. Watkis has led presentations for technical seminars for several leading trade publications including Storage Decisions, Computer World and Biz Tech. Mr. Watkis' deep appreciation of the value of technology in our day-to-day lives allows him to bring a creative and human touch to IT business solutions. In addition to his work with Pandoodle , Mr. Watkis also donates his time to social organizations as a technology advisor.

Raghav Badiger, Director of Marketing

Raghav Badiger is a sesoned technology products professional with over 10 years of experience developing and launching successful products. His professional stint includes enterprise software at HP and Symatec, and strategy & marketing consulting for Fortune 500 companies. Subsequently RAghav has focused on cloud and social media startups across verticals. Prior to joining Pandoodle Raghav led thelaunch of one of NBCUniversal's premiere online video content delivery portal which has won accolades and maintained consistent user growth. Raghav mentors technology based startup founders affiliated to Babson Graduate School of Business from where he earned his MBA in Technooogy Entrepreneurship. Raghav holds a BS degree in Computer Science from Bangalore University in India.

Tim Roberts, VP Creative and Strategic Development

Mr. Roberts has long been involved in building new ventures in the aviation and technology sectors. In an award winning media career Mr. Roberts has worked in every facet of the business from feature films to advertising, including shaping and delivering the message for successful tech startups Transmeta and Network Alchemy. Mr. Roberts began his business career as an air transport analyst at Unisys R2A, performing economic analysis of transportation schemes and business plans for major airlines, city, state and national governments, and leading investment banks. Mr. Roberts attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he received his MFA, and holds a BS in Business Management from USF and an MBA from EDHEC. He was also a member of the team that got the first climber with an artificial leg to the summit of Mt. Everest.

Jan Nagel, Entertainment Marketing Diva

As a consultant, Ms. Nagel currently offers her experience and expertise to overseas animation production studios, visual effects production companies and those who have wonderful creative ideas for animated entertainment. It is her job to get them work, find them partners and get the shows pitched. She has been involved in the business of animation since 1991, working with award winning feature and television production studios, including Dream Quest Images, Calico Entertainment and VirtualMagic Animation. Ms. Nagel is a founding member and current co-president of the board of directors of Women In Animation, an international professional association, as well as an active member of other entertainment organizations. She is a frequent guest lecturer on animation and entertainment business at colleges and universities. She is currently teaching Business of Animation and Careers at Santa Monica College, Otis College of Art and Design and University of Southern California.