Russ Pillar is a business builder who, as the former President and/or Chief Executive Officer of Viacom Digital Media Group (part of NYSE: VIA), CBS Internet Group (part of NYSE: CBS), Virgin Entertainment Group, Prodigy Internet (NADSAQ: PRGY), and Precision Systems (NASDAQ: PSYS), has successfully led five dramatic consumer-branded media, technology, and retail-based turnarounds.

Prior to co-founding Catalytic Capital, Russ was a founding member of The State of New York's Governor's Task Force on New Media and the Internet; was a founding Board member of Barry Diller's Silver King Communications (now NASDAQ: IACI); and served on the Boards of Directors of more than a dozen publicly-traded media and digital media companies including Hollywood Media Corp. (NASDAQ: HOLL), MarketWatch.com (NASDAQ: MKTW), Precision Systems (NASDAQ: PSYS), Prodigy (NASDAQ: PRGY), SportsLine.com (NASDAQ: SPLN), Summa Four (NASDAQ: SUMA), Switchboard.com (NASDAQ: SWBD), Telescan (NASDAQ: TSCN), uBid (NASDAQ: UBID), and US Search Corp.com (NASDAQ: SRCH).

A Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Russ currently serves on the Board of Directors of Playboy Enterprises (NYSE: PLA). He formerly served as a Trustee of The Nature Conservancy of Idaho and was a member of both Young Presidents' Organization and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Proficient in Japanese, Russ graduated Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Brown University; he also served as an International Scholar at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan. He currently serves Brown as a member of its President's Leadership Council and its Creative Arts Advisory Board and was named one of the 100 alumni who had the greatest impact on the 20th century by the Brown Alumni Monthly.