Management Team
MARCUS BRAUCHLI - CHAIRMAN
Blue Ocean’s Chairman, has been co-founder and managing partner of North Base Media since January 2014. He previously was vice president of Graham Holdings Company (NYSE: GHCO) and its predecessor, The Washington Post Co., from July 2008 until December 2013, where he developed digital opportunities for a group that included The Washington Post, the Post-Newsweek television stations, the Cable One group and Slate, a digital site.
From September 2008 to December 2012, he was the executive editor of The Washington Post (the “Post”) and oversaw the Post’s budget and a newsroom of more than 700 journalists. He drove significant changes in the Post’s digital operation, which quadrupled its audience.
Mr. Brauchli came to the Post from a 24-year career at Dow Jones & Co., where he was a vice president and the top editor of The Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) at the time the company was acquired by News Corp. in a $5.6 billion transaction. He ran WSJ’s budget and oversaw a global staff, with operations in Asia, Europe and the U.S., as well as the editorial staff of Marketwatch, a digital site. He also was responsible for approving changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Early in his career, Mr. Brauchli lived 15 years in Asia and Europe as a Journal correspondent and editor. Since January 2018 he has served as a member of the supervisory board of Gremi Media, the publicly listed media group that publishes Poland’s leading business newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, and other publications and digital platforms. Since 2014 he has served as a director of The News Lens, a leading independent digital-media group in Taiwan, and is an advisor to Datami Inc., a U.S. telecommunications technology company, and 5G Edge Acquisition Corp., a blank-check company that will be listed on Nasdaq.
He has been a consultant to Univision Communications Inc., the HT Media Group in India, and the Economic Journal of Hong Kong, and is an Innovation Fellow at the Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School. He has lived in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Stockholm and now resides in Bethesda, Maryland.
RICHARD LEGGETT - CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Blue Ocean’s CEO is an accomplished global chief executive in the information services, financial services and professional services industries with over 32 years of experience and an entrepreneurial track record in all aspects of growing and operating a global business. Over the last 16 years, Mr. Leggett has served as CEO of three PE-backed technology-enabled information services businesses guiding two of them through successful exits to strategic buyers.
From January 2012 through September 2022, Mr. Leggett served as the CEO of FrontierView, a global market intelligence company which he built and in November 2021 sold to FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE) prior to FiscalNotes’s IPO in August 2022. From October 2008 through August 2011, he served as CEO of Business Intelligence Advisors (“BIA”), an independent equity research firm that launched an AI-based proprietary data platform. Prior to BIA, Mr. Leggett served from February 2005 through October 2008 as CEO at CFRA, a leading independent equity research company, that under Mr. Leggett’s leadership grew substantially and was sold to RiskMetrics (now MSCI) in 2007, where Mr. Leggett subsequently also ran Institutional Shareholder Services.
Prior to his CEO roles, Mr. Leggett spent over 16 years in the Financial Services industry, where he was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in New York and London, in both the Technology equity research and investment banking divisions from June 2000 through January 2005. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Mr. Leggett led the Technology Research practice at Friedman, Billings & Ramsey from October 1996 to June 2000. He started his career in the Financial Services practice at Accenture in Washington, D.C. from January 1991 to October 1996.
Mr. Leggett is a co-founder and Board Member of K Street Capital, a Washington, D.C. angel investment group. Since 2011, he has served on the Board of Directors of AlphaSense, a privately held AI-powered market intelligence and search platform backed by a number of leading investors, including Goldman Sachs and Viking Global Advisors.
Mr. Leggett graduated from Georgetown University in 1990 with a B.A. in Business Administration.
MATT LASOV - CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Blue Ocean’s CFO is an accomplished finance and strategy executive with 16 years of experience in technology and professional services where he has led growth strategies, debt and equity financings, and post-merger integrations.
From October 2021 through July 2022, Mr. Lasov served as the Chief Strategy Officer at ConsumerDirect, a financial technology company in the money, credit, and privacy spaces. Prior to ConsumerDirect, from February 2019 to October 2021, Mr. Lasov was a Director at Slalom, a global consulting firm, founding and leading the Strategy Practice in Southern California.
From June 2016, through January 2019, Mr. Lasov was Vice President of Finance and Operations at ExecOnline, a privately held education technology company focused on leadership development. Prior to ExecOnline, From January 2010 through May 2016, Mr. Lasov served in leadership positions including Head of Advisory, and Head of EMEA at FrontierView, now FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE), a global market intelligence company.
Mr. Lasov graduated from McGill University in 2006 with a B.A. in Political Science.
SEAN GLODEK - VICE PRESIDENT & DIRECTOR
Blue Ocean’s Vice President focused on business development, will serve as a director of the company upon the effectiveness of this registration statement, as well as a member of Blue Ocean’s leadership team in identifying possible business combinations for Blue Ocean.
Since July 2019, he has served as a Vice Chairman of CT Bright Holdings, a wholly owned investment subsidiary of C.P. Group, where he coordinates investment activities and strategic partnerships for the Chairman’s office across C.P. Group companies. He has also served as a Senior Advisor to C.P. Group Chairman Soopakij Chearavanont since July 2018.
From June 2017 to June 2018, he was managing partner of R3 Capital Partners. From September 2011 to May 2017, Mr. Glodek was a Deputy CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a Director of the Russia China Investment Fund (RCIF), where he coordinated investment activity and a number of key strategic partnerships with Sovereign Wealth Funds and Pension Funds across the world to invest in Russia and selectively in China. The parent of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Vnesheconombank, and RDIF (as its subsidiary) were subject to sanctions imposed in 2014 and 2015 by the United States Treasury prohibiting U.S. persons from transacting in, providing financing for, or otherwise dealing in new debt of longer than certain maturities or new equity. RDIF is a sovereign wealth fund.
Prior to RDIF, Mr. Glodek was based in Warsaw, Poland where he led a regional office of Darby Private Equity. Earlier in his career, Mr. Glodek worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays Capital.
Mr. Glodek started his career as a mergers & acquisitions analyst at Goldman Sachs. He received a B.A. in Economics with Honors from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.