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Alain Chuard
Swiss entrepreneur and snowboarder From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Alain Chuard is a Swiss entrepreneur and former professional snowboarder living in Palo Alto, California.[1][2][3] He is best known as the founder and Chief product officer of Wildfire Interactive, the social media marketing technology company acquired by Google in July 2012.[1]
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Early life and education
Chuard was born in Bern and raised in the Swiss town of Bolligen.[2][4] His father and uncle were both entrepreneurs.[5][6]
Chuard competed on the snowboard World-Cup Pro Tour while in high school.[7] From 1994-96, he was ranked in the top 4 snowboarders in Switzerland.[2] Chuard was sponsored by Burton Snowboards and has appeared in various snowboarding publications including the cover of Transworld Snowboarding.[3][5][8]
Chuard left Switzerland at the age of 20 after completing his high school matura.[6] Chuard studied mathematics and economics at Macalester College.[5][9] He has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.[2]
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Career
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After graduating from Macalester College, he spent two years working as a financial analyst for Salomon Smith Barney in New York City.[2] He then left Wall Street to start the adventure travel company, Access Trips, in 2001.[6] While getting his MBA, he also built an online booking and CRM software called IncFuel Corp.[7] In the summer of 2007, he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Highland Capital Partners in Boston.[10]
In 2008, Chuard developed the software Promotion Builder as an online marketing tool used for promoting Access Trips through social media.[5][9] Promotion Builder became Wildfire Interactive and within four years, Wildfire grew to a company with 400 employees.[11] In 2010, Chuard sold Access Trips in order to focus on Wildfire.[4][5][9] In July 2012, Google purchased Wildfire for a reported $450 million.[1][12] Following Wildfire's incorporation, Chuard became Head of Product of Google My Business until his and Ransom's departure in 2015.[13][7] He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.[14]
In 2016, Chuard, together with Christian Hirsig as host, set up the non-profit organization Swisspreneur, Switzerland’s biggest business podcast publisher, which encourages entrepreneurship in Switzerland through interviews with Swiss start-up founders.[15][16]
In August 2020, it was reported that the self−funded edtech startup Prisma, created by Chuard and his wife Victoria Ransom, would launch on 8 September 2020, for 40 U.S. students.[17] In July 2021, Chuard was named as the Founder and CEO of Prisma.[18]
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Personal life
Chuard married Victoria Ransom in March 2013 and is the father of three children.[5][17] They met in December 1999 while studying at Macalester College.[6] He speaks four languages and is one of the 300 wealthiest people in Switzerland.[9][11]
Publications
- Podcast: The Founder’s Playbook – Swisspreneur EP #200 – November 11, 2021[19]
References
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