Team
Our experiences and relationships in Silicon Valley run deep.Todd Parker
Managing Partner
Todd Parker is the founder and Managing Partner at Hidden River, LLC. He brings over 25 years of experience in Corporate Development, Marketing, Advertising and Media predominantly in the Mobile Sector. He has successfully completed over 150 transactions, both M&A and Business Development with a total value over $10 Billion. In his career Todd has worked for Google, Vodafone, Verizon, AirTouch Communications, worked with consulting clients Apple Computer, KKR and New Zealand Telecom and was a founding Team member and investor in 5 start-ups.
Most recently, Todd worked at Google, where he was Global Head of Business Development for Google’s Messaging-as-a-Platform (MaaP). At Google he was also charged with carrier messaging partnerships for the America’s. Prior to Google, Todd was the Founding Investor and Chief Revenue Officer of Jibe Mobile, which he sold to Google in 2015. Todd was also the Founder and CEO of HR One, Inc., a SaaS delivered software provider which grew to 50 employees before being sold to Sage Software.
Prior to Founding HR One, Todd was VP of Sales and Marketing for AirTouch (now Verizon) Messaging, a billion dollar market cap company where he oversaw their new product development, national retail efforts, nationwide advertising spend and marketing programs.
Todd spent most of his career working in Corporate Development at AirTouch, where he was Managing Director of M&A reporting directly to the CEO where he was responsible for Acquisitions, Joint Ventures, Divestitures and Investments and worked in Mobile Communications, Cable TV, TV Programming, and Wireless Data Technologies.
Todd has a B.S. with a double major in Communications and Entrepreneurship from Babson College. He earned a Wireless Engineering Certificate from the University of California Berkeley and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Chris Betts
Managing Director
Chris Betts’ experience spans business and corporate development, finance and general management with a focus on the telecommunications, media and technology sector.
Prior to joining Hidden River LLC, Chris co-founded mashAPI, a SaaS platform to provide on-demand database functionality for dynamic websites. Before that Chris was Vice President of Corporate Development at Reactrix Systems, an advertising-supported venue based digital media network. He raised over $50 million of financing, and managed the company’s sale process.
Chris also led business development at Digital Path Networks, a wireless broadband access provider, and headed business development for the Americas for Inktomi Corporation’s mobile data optimization start-up. Previously, he was a member of the corporate development team at AirTouch Communications, later acquired by Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile carrier. At AirTouch, Chris led over $1 billion of M&A and venture investment transactions.
Chris received his A.B. from Stanford University and his MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth.
John Vangel
Managing Director
John Vangel brings extensive transactional and entrepreneurial experience with telecommunications and start-up companies to Hidden River.
John was a co-founder and Vice President-Business Development for HR One, Inc. At HR One, Mr. Vangel executed an aggressive acquisition and business development strategy that helped build HR One’s revenue.
Prior to HR One, Mr. Vangel, as a lawyer with Pillsbury Madison & Sutro and Davis Polk & Wardwell, advised private and public companies in a broad range of corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions and strategic partnering transactions. John negotiated and closed numerous telecommunications transactions (deal sizes ranging from $10 million to $40 billion) over a four-year period as outside counsel to AirTouch Communications, PCS PrimeCo and Vodafone PLC.
John received an A.B. from Harvard College, a M.B.A. from the University of Texas-Austin and a J.D.
Maria Carson Breber
Senior Consultant
Maria brings a breadth of management consulting and market research experience from her time at Monitor Company (now part of Deloitte Consulting). She has more than 25 years experience working in the field of decision-making and has worked with hundreds of individuals, corporations and municipalities to improve the quality and outcomes of team and executive decision making.
In addition, she has held positions at Compaq Computer, Apple Computer, Lucasfilm and Arthur D. Little Inc.
Maria holds a BA in Economics from UC Davis and an EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with an additional year of research on decision making at Harvard Medical School.
Stacey Schramm
Senior Consultant
Stacey Schramm brings over 25 years of sales leadership experience to Hidden River. As a Senior Consultant, she identifies and leads new business opportunities creatively participating with the client in the development of sales and related solutions.
Stacey spent over a decade working in the Wireless Industry in various Sales & Marketing roles for AirTouch Communications, Verizon Wireless, and traq-wireless (now Tangoe).
She most recently served as Director of Strategic Solutions at KIOSK Information Systems for almost 16 years where she led Major Accounts Sales for top tier clients in Hardware, Software, Program Management, and Managed Services. She managed multiple accounts up to $20M in revenue with customers such as Cox, Dell, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Moneygram deployed at CVS, & Waste Management for PepsiCo.