Industry Analysts

Michael Boland
Program Director, Mobile Local Media

Michael Boland is the program director for BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile Local Media practice. Since joining the company in 2005, Boland has been instrumental in covering the local online space for our Interactive Local Media practice. His expertise and curiosity about new mobile, social, and video technologies and business models make him a valuable resource for MLM clients.

Boland is a frequent speaker and organizer at top industry conferences including BIA/Kelsey events, Search Engine Strategies and others. He has authored in-depth reports on the changing local media landscape including online video, social networking and mobile. He contributes regularly to highly read online news sources such as Search Engine Watch and Huffington Post. A trusted source for reporters covering the interactive media space, his comments have appeared in major news and trade media, including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Forbes.

Before joining BIA/Kelsey, Boland was editor of Innovation World’s TechAlert, a monthly journal of emerging technology companies. Previously he was a San Francisco-based freelance writer for business and technology magazines, such as Red Herring, Business 2.0, Mobile and Digitalife. He began his career in business analysis and journalism as a staff reporter for Forbes magazine, where he covered technology, online media and telecommunications.

Boland graduated from Santa Clara University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, with a B.S. in commerce.

Matt Booth
Chief Strategy Officer and Program Director, Interactive Local Media

Matt provides a leadership role for our consulting practices and conferences. Well-respected in the local media community for his expertise, Matt creates strategic initiatives that advise clients on how to be successful in the ever changing media landscape. Matt also runs our highly successful Interactive Local Media (ILM) advisory service program.

Matt Booth came to BIA/Kelsey from Perform Local, a local lead generation start-up funded by two prominent venture capital groups. He was a cofounder and chief operating officer. Before that, starting in 1996, he held several senior positions at Citysearch, a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp, including vice president, strategy and planning; vice president, product; and vice president, media partnerships.

Booth participated in numerous activities at Citysearch, including the creation of media partnerships with television and radio stations, the launch of city guides with leading newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, the design and implementation of a national local search product, the creation of the prototype of Citysearch’s performance-based sales model, and acquisitions such as that of Entertainment Publications.

Booth graduated summa cum laude from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a Bachelor of Science in finance.

Rick Ducey
Managing Director and Program Director, Video Local Media

Rick Ducey is managing director, leading our corporate strategy, consulting practices and our Continuous Advisory Service programs. He brings a tremendous amount of management experience and expertise to this role, and is an expert in digital media innovations, competitive strategies, new product development and new business models, including digital ecosystem collaboration strategies.

A frequent speaker on the transforming media ecosystem, Ducey also serves as the program director for BIA/Kelsey’s Video Local Media advisory service, which focuses on the business and technology strategies in local video networks, devices and content market segments. He assists clients with their business planning and revenue models, strategic research, market assessment, and designing and implementing strategies for leveraging video media assets and inventory in local markets.

With more than 30 years of experience, including management positions, inside private industry and associations, Ducey is a sought-out expert for his coverage and analysis of how disruptive technologies; emerging competition; shifting consumer demographics and media usage trends are driving changes in the media ecosystem and what C-level executives must do to be successful. As a media strategist and technologist, Ducey has consulted with major media and Fortune 500 companies including Google, Microsoft, Dell, Time Warner, NBCU/Comcast, Gannett and Yahoo.

Prior to joining BIA/Kelsey in 2000, Ducey was senior vice president of NAB’s Research and Information Group. In this position, he was in charge of the association’s new technology assessment, audience and policy research, strategic planning and information systems, including all Internet operations. He also developed publications and seminars.

Ducey was recognized in academia as the 2011 Shapiro Fellow at George Washington University, where he teaches entrepreneurship in new media. He has also designed and taught innovative courses while on the faculties of Michigan State University, George Mason University, George Washington University and the University of Maryland. He has published over sixty referred scholarly and industry articles and papers and serves on editorial boards of leading academic journals in the telecommunications and media fields.

Ducey received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, M.S. from Syracuse University and B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Mark Fratrik
Vice President, BIA/Kelsey

Mark Fratrik is a vice president of BIA/Kelsey. He serves as the company’s chief economist and is responsible for forecasting across all local media segments. He also manages BIA/Kelsey’s numerous proprietary databases and conducts primary research on various trends as they affect the broadcasting and related communications industries. Additionally, Fratrik is heavily involved in the company’s strategic and financial consulting projects, conducting research and analysis for clients on matters related to the broadcasting, digital media and related communications industries.

Throughout his career, Fratrik has researched and spoken at numerous conferences on the impact of the economy on the broadcasting industries, proposed and enacted regulatory changes, and new media technologies, including DTV datacasting. He is often quoted in the media and is a leading spokesperson concerning trends and forecasts for the media industry including analyzing competitiveness of media and related industries. He is the author BIA/Kelsey’s series of studies on the state of the radio and television industry.

Fratrik received his B.A. in mathematics and economics from State University of New York at Binghamton and his master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. He served as an adjunct professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University for more than seven years.

Peter Krasilovsky
Vice President and Program Director, Marketplaces

Peter Krasilovsky has been a longtime thought leader in the transition to interactive media and services. During the late 1980s, he served as director of research at The Cable Television Information Center, a public interest group launched by The Urban Institute. After the court-ordered breakup of AT&T, he served as the editor of several newsletters about the burgeoning world of telephone company enhanced services.

From 1990 to 1998, Krasilovsky served as vice president with Arlen Communications, a research and consulting firm focused on the merging worlds of interactive media and commerce, working with everyone from the National Football League to the United States Postal Service. During this time, he also served as editor of Interactive Consumers, a data-driven report published by Find/SVP based on results on The American Information User Survey.

In 1998 Krasilovsky joined The Kelsey Group to launch the Local Online Commerce program. He currently serves as vice president of BIA/Kelsey. He runs the company’s conference division and is program director of its Marketplaces program.

Krasilovsky has an M.A. in communications management from The Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. His B.A. is in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

Charles Laughlin
Senior Vice President and Program Director, The Kelsey Report®, and Managing Editor, BIA/Kelsey

Charles Laughlin applies the skills he developed as a reporter and editor to the daily tasks of helping BIA/Kelsey clients understand what is happening in the world of Yellow Pages and offering insights into where the business is moving. His approach is built on doing the legwork necessary to understand what the industry’s key players are doing, what they are thinking about, and how they plan to adapt to the changing nature of the directional media business.

Since becoming program director of The Kelsey Report®, BIA/Kelsey’s flagship Continuous Advisory Service, Laughlin has expanded the scope of the program from an exclusive focus on new technologies for directory publishers to a broader look at how Yellow Pages is competing in the media marketplace — both analog and digital. He has been instrumental in expanding BIA/Kelsey’s product portfolio. In 2002 he led the development of Global Yellow Pages™, a comprehensive, 400-plus-page worldwide industry fact book that grew to 566 pages with the publication of GYP2007.

Laughlin earned a B.A. in English from the University of Illinois.

Bobbi Loy-Luster
Vice President of Client Services

Bobbie oversees the operations of our Continuous Advisory Service programs, managing the deliverables such as customized client inquiries, reports, forecasts, client webinars, and the Client Resource Center. Bobbi brings years of analytical and local media experience to build productive relationships with our clients. She manages the fulfillment of all BIA/Kelsey CAS-related client inquiries while working closely with the Research and Consulting group. She identifies project requirements, plans methods to collect information, develops project estimates and provides written reports and presentations. Bobbi is also responsible for and will oversee the company’s new competitive benchmarking and information technology.

Loy-Luster’s experience spans research, report preparation and consulting. She has been news editor for BIA/Kelsey’s Web site and assistant editor of Context (a newsletter covering online directories and city guides), and she manages the day-to-day operations of BIA/Kelsey’s Web site. Before joining BIA/Kelsey, she was a reporter for the Trenton (New Jersey) Times.

Loy-Luster earned a B.A. in English from Rider University and a master’s in library science from Simmons College.

Steve Marshall
Director of Research and Consulting

Steve Marshall manages BIA/Kelsey’s research initiatives. He began working with the firm as an associate researcher and analyst in 1996. Marshall has more than 25 years of experience in management consulting, focusing on the development of corporate and marketing strategies that maximize shareholder value. In the past five years, he has concentrated on serving emerging businesses and markets related to the Internet.

Previously, he founded Marshall Associates in 1995, a strategy consulting firm specializing in the telecommunications and new media industries. Clients included RBOCs, major CLCs, IXCs and other Internet-related companies. Project work included developing business strategies and business cases, conducting competitive and market assessments, and assisting with business development.

Before founding Marshall Associates, he was assistant vice president of corporate strategy for Pacific Telesis (since incorporated into SBC, now AT&T). Previously, he was a senior manager of Marakon Associates, an international consulting firm that specializes in strategies and management to maximize shareholder value. Marshall was based in Stamford, Connecticut, and London, U.K. He served multinational clients in the telecommunications, financial services and pharmaceutical industries. He also served as a consultant for First Manhattan Consulting Group and Boston Consulting Group.

Marshall has a B.A. in American history from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Celine Matthiessen
Senior Analyst, Competitive Intelligence

Celine Matthiessen performs competitive intelligence research for BIA/Kelsey clients, offering more than 15 years of experience in competitive intelligence with a deep background in marketing and advertising. Her areas of focus include consumer goods, consumer services, health care, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, biotechnology, media, advertising, publishing, entertainment, retail, wholesale, telecommunications, research, Internet and sales.

Previously, Matthiessen served as group manager of Competitive Intelligence at SuperMedia, where she established and managed a formal competitive intelligence department that supported the needs of a 4,000-member sales force and more than 500 employees in marketing, strategy, sales training, IT, business development and investor relations.

As principal of Red Leaf Consulting, Matthiessen managed a successful consulting business, performing on-demand, customized business and competitive intelligence for clients in the biotechnology, medical, Internet, telecommunications, advertising, consumer packaged goods and design industries.

Prior to Red Leaf, Matthiessen served as a research analyst at Baxter International, where she was part of a team of researchers that ran an internal sourcing department for the company’s U.S. and international locations.

Matthiessen is a member the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, the American Marketing Association and Association for Independent Information Professionals. She holds a master’s degree in information science from Dominican University and a B.A. from Knox College.

Kathleen Harkness Passarelli
Associate Editor, BIA/Kelsey, and Analyst, The Kelsey Report®

As associate editor for BIA/Kelsey, Kathleen Harkness Passarelli’s primary task is copyediting all the company's written materials, including advisory service reports and blogs. She also coordinates production and is responsible for posting documents on BIA/Kelsey’s Web site. In addition, she is an analyst for The Kelsey Report® and participates in various writing and research projects, including the Global Yellow Pages™ report.

Passarelli joined BIA/Kelsey after working as a magazine editor for more than 15 years. Most recently, she was a freelance writer and editor for various Chicago-based publications, including Internet Retailer magazine. She previously worked as senior editor for Modern Physician magazine, a monthly business publication targeting physician executives, and copy editor for Modern Healthcare, a weekly magazine covering healthcare business news. She began her career on the consumer side of the magazine industry, working as copy chief for Detroit Monthly magazine and before that as assistant editor of Michigan Woman, a lifestyle publication for businesswomen.

Passarelli graduated from the University of Michigan-Dearborn with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in communications.

Geoff Price
Vice President, Valuations and Financial Consulting

Vice President Geoff Price manages and operates BIA/Kelsey’s valuation consulting group. He has been with the company since 1988 and has appraised hundreds of media and telecommunications properties worth in aggregate in the tens of billions of dollars.

Price is responsible for the preparation of asset appraisals, valuation studies, strategic consulting assignments, and litigation support for clients in the communications and broadcast industries. He has also been responsible for assisting many publicly traded and privately held broadcast companies with their valuation needs associated with FASB 141/142. In addition, Price is part of the business development team and is responsible for client relationships with many of the largest broadcast companies nationwide. His appraisal and valuation experience is diverse, including reports for firms in the cellular, paging, SMR, cable, print, tower and broadcast industries.

Price earned a B.S. in finance from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, and received his M.B.A. from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Andrew Shotland, LocalSEOGuide.com
Contributing Analyst

Andrew Shotland is the proprietor of LocalSEOGuide.com and one of the top local search consultants in the industry. Shotland offers full-service search engine optimization, search engine advertising, website strategy and local search consulting with a specialty in Yellow Pages and local directories SEO. He has provided his services to numerous media, e-commerce companies, franchises and start-ups, including Bing.com, DexKnows.com, Yellowbook.com, Yellow Pages Group of Canada, Truvo, Telegate Media, Business.com, the Los Angeles Times, Cox Communications, New York Daily News, Ingenio/AT&T, D&B & Sequoia Capital, Friendster, MOG.com, ChaCha.com and Spoke.com. Local SEO Guide also provides small businesses with search marketing services.

In addition, Shotland is the editor of the popular Local SEO Guide blog, a local search engine optimization and local search marketing blog that provides simple tips, trends, how-tos and strategies for small businesses and marketers in the local search industry.

Shotland has more than 15 years of experience in the Internet. He was a founding member of NBC’s Internet group and a former general manager of NBC.com. While at NBC, he created NBC-IN, the first national network of local TV station websites. Most recently he was vice president of business and product development at Insider Pages, a pioneering local-social search engine that was acquired by Citysearch. At Insider Pages, Shotland developed local SEO strategies and techniques that helped attract more than 3 million monthly unique visitors and over 600,000 reviews of local businesses almost entirely via search engine referrals.

Elise Simmons
Junior Analyst

Elise Simmons brings valuable local media experience — encompassing print, online and broadcast — to her research and analysis activities across all BIA/Kelsey advisory services programs.

Before joining BIA/Kelsey, Simmons was a Washington correspondent for newswire Medill News Service, where she researched, recorded, wrote and edited news stories for KTKA 49 News, 6 News Lawrence and WATD FM. She served as the congressional calendar editor for the Bureau of National Affairs and as a media and research assistant for her alma mater, Medill School of Journalism. Simmons’ freelance writing has been published by the Maryland Daily Record and BNET, part of the CBS Interactive Business Network. In addition, she has contributed to the D.C. Examiner.com as a young professionals examiner and worked as a communications consultant for The Pl@forums, where she conducted research and wrote white papers on e-learning and career development.

Simmons earned a joint master’s degree in journalism and legal studies from Northwestern University. She graduated magna cum laude from Morgan State University with a B.S. in telecommunications.

Michael Taylor
Director, Business Development

Michael Taylor is BIA/Kelsey’s director of business development and also works on the company’s consulting projects. He brings best practice experience in sales and marketing, as well as sales and marketing audit and due diligence experience. Taylor’s view of the marketplace is focused on both current industry trends and the long-range changing nature of print and digital media. A voracious reader and researcher, he seeks to make the connections between ideas and practices to create new insights and business models for clients.

Before joining BIA/Kelsey, Taylor was managing director and marketing director for The Berry Co.’s Sales & Marketing Solutions consulting group. Specializing in sales, marketing and operational management, he led several client efforts in Australia, the Czech Republic, Japan, Norway, the U.K. and the U.S., addressing diverse operational, organizational and marketing challenges. His European, Asian and domestic U.S. experience is vital in addressing client inquires on best sales and marketing practices as well as providing additional insights in the Global Yellow Pages™ report.

Before entering the Yellow Pages industry, Taylor spent 12 years in advertising as a brand strategist. He has also worked as a copy writer and as a TV and radio producer.

Taylor holds a B.A. in marketing and communications from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Jed Williams
Program Director, Social Local Media

Jed Williams works across the company’s five advisory services in research, writing and consulting roles and is program director of the Social Local Media practice. He has more than 10 years of experience on both the business and content sides of media.

Formerly, he served as a sports and news reporter, hosted sports and news talk shows, and called sports play-by-play in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. As sports director of WINA Radio in Charlottesville, Virginia, Williams led his department to “Top Overall Sports Coverage” honors four times and won “Best Editorial.” He also has extensive writing experience as a features writer, columnist and in-depth interviewer for the ACC Sports Journal, ACCSports.com, TheSabre.com, Cavalier Corner, Carolina Communicator and other publications.

In May 2010, Williams received his master’s in media business from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at UNC-Chapel Hill. He was named the Outstanding M.A. Graduate by the school. At UNC, he completed a thesis on business change initiatives at the Associated Press that is currently being published as a case study by the Columbia Journalism School and the Yale School of Management and will be excerpted in an upcoming book.