Baglan Rhymes
Chief Digital Officer, AnchorFree Inc.
Baglan Rhymes has been instrumental in building, shaping, and branding some of the hottest technology start-ups in Silicon Valley and she is a thought leader on the topics of entrepreneurship and innovation in technology and digital media with an emphasis on digital advertising and monetization strategy.
As a Managing Partner and Chief Digital Officer & SVP Revenue for Wi-Fi security and privacy provider AnchorFree, Ms. Rhymes created the global revenue, sales, and business development strategies to help propel the company from a start-up to the world’s largest consumer VPN, evaluated at $500M. She built the operational infrastructure from scratch, played a key role in raising $53M in Series C funding, and launched four new products that currently account for 98% of the company’s revenues. Her client roster includes Symantec, McAfee, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and government clients Voice of America and Radio Farda . She is currently leading the charge in Strategic Communications and Information Operations to combat terrorism online.
Ms. Rhymes is named as one of the most Influential Turkish Women in United States of America and she is an active member of Forbes Agency Council.
Previously, as Vice President, Media for global online advertising agency LSF Interactive, Ms. Rhymes created the company’s inaugural online media strategy and built departments focused on digital strategy, online sales, media planning, and buying and she developed advertising campaigns for top luxury, fashion, lifestyle, media, and technology brands including Waterford/Wedgwood, Ghirardelli Chocolates, Yves Saint Laurent Couture, Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Sergio Rossi, Lancôme Canada, Clarins, Thierry Mugler, Korres USA, France 24, Honeywell SM, and Radio France Int. In addition, she masterminded a public service video campaign, Why You Should Vote: Citizen’s Cry that was recognized with YouTube’s Most Viewed News and Politics Video of All Time award.
Prior to LSF, Ms. Rhymes was the Media & Ad Operations Director for Silicon Valley digital content solutions company YouSendIt.com where she built the advertising department from the ground up and successfully grew sales revenues. Her impressive client list included Monster, Ford, Verizon, and Vonage. Earlier e-commerce experience includes operations and engineering roles at New York companies Operative, and Halex Associates.
Ms. Rhymes is passionate about sharing her expertise in e-commerce revenue growth models and she recently delivered a presentation on Internet advertising to BAU Silicon Valley campus students and was a guest speaker on secondary software downloads at the 2013 Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. No stranger to instructional design and facilitation, Ms. Rhymes also co-taught a course in software engineering at Carnegie Mellon and spent two years teaching conversational English at the Turkish Air Force Language School in Izmir. Additionally, she has led the Dale Carnegie program, taught classes on effective communications and human relations/skills for success, and developed/facilitated numerous training initiatives for YouSendIt and Operative.
Originally from Turkey, Ms. Rhymes spent four years at Interbank in Izmir as a Corporate Marketing Manager and Branch Manager overseeing the bank’s third largest portfolio. Ms. Rhymes earned her Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Economics from Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir. She wrote her master’s thesis titled “Effects of the European Union Customs Declaration on the Aegean Region's Industrial Community” after one year of statistical analysis, research, and interviews with authorities from different sectors. She has also written several white papers including “Customs Union & Turkey” sponsored by the newspaper Milliyet, “Customs Union & the Agean Region” published by the Agean Chamber of Commerce, and “The Expectations of Turkish Newspaper Readers” published by Agean University. In addition, she presented “The Role of the Universities in Establishing and Maintaining the Democratic Foundations in a Society: The Turkish Case" at a symposium held in Morocco sponsored by the Conrad Adenauer Foundation.
Ms. Rhymes lives in Half Moon Bay, California but maintains close ties to her Turkish roots and is involved in the Turk of America business community. In addition, she sits on the Advisory Board, Business Board, and Cybercrimes Malcode Board of Lifeboat Organization.
Baglan Rhymes has recently co-authored and published her first book named “Of Love, Autonomy & Wealth”.