Cable Show 2009: Zodiac Hires Brown As CEO

Complete Cable Show 2009 coverage from Multichannel News

Zodiac Interactive has hired information-technology executive Brandon Brown as CEO, and the interactive TV firm is eyeing growth opportunities including potential acquisitions.

Brown will take over the CEO spot from Zodiac co-founder Michael Rivkin, who will become the company's chief technology officer.

"The next stage of growth needs professional management," Zodiac COO Alex Libkind said.

Brown, who is officially starting April 1 with Zodiac, has held senior sales management positions at several startups, including Sigaba, a provider of secure messaging solutions, and Persistence Software, a database middleware company acquired by Progress Software.

Brown also has worked in sales at GE Financial, Lockheed Martin and other multinational firms.

Zodiac, based in Valley Stream, N.Y., has 15 employees in the U.S. and about 75 developers based in Russia. The company is owned by Libkind and Rivkin, and has received no outside funding.

At Cable Show '09 this week, Zodiac is demonstrating an interactive movie guide running on an ADB set-top box, designed to show off the capabilities of CableLabs's tru2way technology.

Libkind said that, using Zodiac's PowerUp framework for tru2way, the company's engineers created the Movie Guide in about three weeks.