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Paul Melcher brings more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles and technology breakthroughs for world-renowned photography companies and was named by American Photo as one of the “100 most influential individuals in American photography.”

Mr. Melcher is currently a strategic consultant for visual tech start-ups. His global portfolio includes emerging enterprises, ad tech, SaaS platforms, visual A.I. and image recognition API, mobile apps, V.C., private equity firms, and content licensing firms from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He is so passionate about his field that in 2013, he launched Kaptur Magazine, the first publication solely devoted to the visual tech industry.

He was previously Vice President of Business Development at Stipple, an interactive advertising platform for visual content, facilitating its acquisition in 2014.

Most recently, he helped launched and grow PictureGroup, as its Senior VP of Sales and distribution, building it to over a million within a year and a half. He also was Co-Owner and C.K.O. of Zymmetrical.com, the first mid stock visual art marketplace, and strategist for Adbuynet, an online, self-service, ad tech company.

Earlier in his career, he was the V.P of sales of DigitalRailroad, Inc, a photo technology company building the first and most powerful professional photo community. Previously, he was Director of North American Operations and Sales for Hachette Filipacchi Photo Group. In this role, he doubled revenues for the U.S. market in less than a year and led integration initiatives for numerous prestigious agencies, such as Gamma, Rapho, and TOP.

As president of Abaca USA, he led the company’s sales and production teams, build a new distribution platform (www.abacausa.com), and cemented key corporate relationships with Knight-Ridder Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, and PA Photos, among others.

As Executive Vice President and Partner at ImageDirect, Melcher led the development of the company’s online real-time distribution platform, streamlined workflow to enable better distribution of more images to key buyers, and managed relationships with corporate clients such as ABC, MTV, FOX, NBC, Atlantic Records, USA Today and the NFL. He helped secure a multi-million dollar acquisition of his company by Getty Images, Inc.(GYI).

Melcher served as Director of sales at LGI Photo Agency, where he built the first high resolution, real-time digital photo delivery platform. LGI was later bought by CORBIS, a Bill Gates-owned company, where he held various high-level executive positions.

Melcher holds a B.A. in Economics from Université de Paris IX, France, a French Baccalaureat with honors from Lycee International, France, as well as an International Baccalaureate.