TiVo Elects Heidi Roizen to its Board of Directors

DVR, broadband video and audience measurement company, TiVo, announced Friday the election of Heidi Roizen to its board of directors. According to the company, Roizen's election means that the TiVo board now has 10 members, of whom nine are independent, outside directors. "The breadth and depth of experience within the technology industry and entrepreneurial community that Heidi brings to our board is invaluable and will have an immediate impact on TiVo's strategic plans to further define the way television is consumed," TiVo CEO, Tom Rogers, said in a prepared statement. "Heidi is well respected and highly regarded for her successful career as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, corporate executive, and public and private company board member, which lends itself extremely well to TiVo's innovative culture and pioneering approach to developing the ultimate in-home TV entertainment experience. We are pleased to welcome someone with Heidi's reputation and experience to our board." Added Roizen: "When it comes to companies that have the foresight to anticipate major shifts in the television consumption landscape, TiVo has the technology and the business model that puts it in a class of its own. I am honored to be working with Tom Rogers and the board as they direct the continuing evolution of this company and lead the media industry into this new age."

Roizen, 51, currently serves as CEO of Skinny Little Things, LLC, a company that operates a weight-loss Web site called SkinnySongs.com. The site--which claims to offer "music to motivate you back into your skinny jeans," and which has been featured on "The Martha Stewart Show," "Oprah and Friends Radio," and multiple other media outlets--was founded by Roizen in January, 2008 "after her weight hit an all-time high and she went searching for motivation to help her change her life," the site's "About" section states (the section also states that Roizen has since lost over 35 pounds). From 1999 to 2007, Roizen was a managing director of Mobius Venture Capital, a technology VC fund with around $2 billion under management; from 1996 to 1997, she served as VP of worldwide developer relations for Apple Computer, where, according to TiVo, she and her 300-person team served as the primary contact point for such partners as Microsoft, Lotus and Adobe, as well as 12,000 other firms that were providing Apple Mac products. She began her career in 1983 when she co-founded T/Maker Company, a developer and publisher of PC software, of which she served as CEO until 1996. She also served an eight-year stint on the board of directors of the Software Publishers Association and served as its president from 1988 to 1990. According to TiVo, she is a frequent speaker at business schools across the US and is the subject of case studies authored by both the Harvard and Stanford Business Schools. She holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In other TiVo news: The blog, Law.com, published an unusual story Friday on TiVo's 2006 purchase--apparently in order to win local goodwill--of a prize bull in Marshall, Texas, the community from which the jury for the company's successful "Time Warp" patent infringement lawsuit against DISH Network (formerly EchoStar) was drawn. TiVo is apparently not the only company involved in patent litigation that has been trying to build a positive reputation with local residents. According to Law.com, Samsung, "a consumer electronics company often sued for patent infringement in the Eastern District, is now the sponsor of just about every major festival in Marshall." The Law.com article can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/np3j5b