Chris Boden

Current

• Director of Global Business Development: Wireless, Innovation & Strategic Business Development at Lonely Planet

Past

• Vice President / CEO (PanAsia) at In-Fusio Asia
• CEO at MIG China (now Glu Mobile)
• Chief Operating Officer at MIG Asia

• VP Content at MIG Asia
• Chief Marketing Officer at Mindinsite.com
• Business Analyst (CRM) at Commonwealth Bank
• Business Analyst at Deutsche Bank

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Education

• University of KwaZulu-Natal

Recommended

3 people have recommended Chris

Connections

301 connections

Industry

Wireless

Chris Boden’s Summary

Chris is on the executive team at Lonely Planet, leading the company's digital transformation. He has drawn on his entrepreneurial experience to quickly establish profitable lines of business on relevant new platforms and through his understanding of new media architectures, is creating an open ecosystem for innovation at Lonely Planet.

Chris can articulate a big, hairy, audacious vision; develop a strategy to achieve it and execute on it by leveraging his strategic, commercial & technical expertise. He operates at a hands-on level with his teams and is as comfortable presenting strategy to a board as he is wire-framing new product ideas.

He has a deep understanding of technology and a passion for creating intellectual property to solve problems or create new value. He has a track record of coming up with great ideas and building profitable services from them.

Product Innovation on New Platforms

Chris has been involved in the mobile publishing industry since its early days and has leveraged this experience to build a world class mobile publishing capability for LP. He has quickly built internal product development expertise, vendor partnerships and a global distribution network. Lonely Planet’s mobile products have featured prominently in the launch of next gen application stores, including Apple's App Store, Nokia's Ovi Store and Blackberry's App World.

Creating an Open Innovation Culture

Chris has played the lead role in opening LP up to collaboration with external innovators. He was responsible for designing and launching the company's first content API's for external developers and created the strategy and IP behind the company's open platforms for bloggers and developers.

Partnerships through Strategic Business Development

Chris and his team have established a network of global partnerships with brands that are shaping the digital future. These include Google, Nokia, Apple, Navteq, RIM, SonyEricsson, Samsung and others.

Chris Boden’s Specialties:

Verticals: Mobile Publishing, Location-based services, geo, OpenSocial, M-Commerce, Semantic web, Mobile Social Networks

Skills: Innovation, Entrepreneur in Residence, Advanced Product Development, Agile / Scrum, SDLC, Strategic Business Development, Licensing, Technology Evangelism, Open Ecosystems, M&A

Concepts: Connected Communities, Travel, New media, MVAS, Gaming

Technical: Innovation, R&D Management, SaaS, Cloud Computing, iPhone, Android, Symbian, J2ME, ebooks

Chris Boden’s Experience

• Director of Global Business Development: Wireless, Innovation & Strategic Business Development

  Lonely Planet

  (Privately Held; Publishing industry)

  November 2006 — Present (3 years 4 months)

  Chris is helping shape Lonely Planet's digital future. His focus is to empower Lonely Planet's community of connected travellers with next generation travel services. He works with a network of partners around the globe to create and develop these services with a keen eye on mobile and other emerging platforms.

• Vice President / CEO (PanAsia)

  In-Fusio Asia

  (Privately Held; Wireless industry)

  December 2004 — November 2006 (2 years )

  Providing mobile operators, portals and manufacturers with infrastructure, service and content to manage mobile games channels.
  
  Chris was brought on board to a regional Pan-Asian business for the company. Based out of Singapore, Chris oversees In-Fusio's business in Asia, including: India, Japan, Korea, Australia, NZ, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and others.
  
  Using his entrepreneurial and industry experience, Chris set in place a regional team and infrastructure rapidly establishing the In-Fusio brand across Asia-Pacific and securing significant revenue-generating licensing and distribution partnerships.
  
  Within a short period, Chris has established a profitable business with a strong team and relationships with all of the key mobile operators, major portals and handset manufacturers throughout the region.
  
  Chris is a regular speaker and panelist at mobile and related conferences.

• CEO

  MIG China (now Glu Mobile)

  (Wireless industry)

  September 2003 — June 2004 (10 months)

  Chris played a lead role in founding and building MIG, China's leading mobile games publisher, based in Beijing.
  
  Within a very short period, MIG China established a significant presence in China, establishing close relationships with both major carriers, several important media groups and inking deals with major Chinese brands, including Yao Ming. MIG China has since published over 200 Java and Brew games through China Mobile and China Unicom and is recognised as a top 5 ranked Service Provider.
  
  Chris built strong relationships with some of the industry’s top mobile developers and content providers, including Indiagames, Infospace and Glu Mobile. MIG China's big hits include Yao Ming Basketball, winner of the Brew 2003 prize for best game on China Unicom as well as Spider-Man and Charlie's Angels: Road Cyclone, some of the leading games published through China Mobile's MBox service.

• Chief Operating Officer

  MIG Asia

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Wireless industry)

  March 2002 — September 2003 (1 year 7 months)

  Prior to starting MIG's mobile publishing arm in China, Chris was COO of the MIG Asia group based initially in Sydney and later in Beijing.
  
  MIG Asia, now called Communicator Interactive, is a leading Wireless Application Service Provider, empowering its clients and partners with a white-labeled software infrastructure for the deployment of content, applications and services to mobile users.
  
  Chris was responsible for establishing and running the group's operations, which included building and managing its R&D and Ops teams.
  
  He played a leading role in conceptualising and designing the group's market-leading mobile applications platform and establishing its connectivity network to over 50 mobile operators worldwide.
  
  In early 2003, Chris moved to Beijing to establish the group's China operations. There, he was responsible for setting up additional R&D and ops teams and rolling out MIG's services through China's leading operators.
  
  Website: www.communicator.com.au

• VP Content

  MIG Asia

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Wireless industry)

  January 2001 — March 2002 (1 year 3 months)

  Chris first entered the mobile entertainment industry in 2000, joining MIG Asia (then Softgame International), based in Sydney, as first hire. Here he conceptualized and managed the development of one of the first community platforms for mobile entertainment, incorporating features such as SMS chat, SMS multiplayer gaming, mobile dating and SMS to TV interaction.
  
  He was also responsible for sourcing content and establishing license relationships with branded content partners, signing some of the first mobile game licenses with Disney, Mattel and others to create mobile games around some of their leading brands.
  
  Chris then played a key role in securing Softgame’s B Round venture funding and acquisition of a Chinese Service Provider. Chris was relocated to Beijing to handle the integration of the Chinese company and restructure the business to focus on growth opportunities in China.
  
  Website: http://www.communicator.com.au/

• Chief Marketing Officer

  Mindinsite.com

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  April 1999 — January 2001 (1 year 10 months)

  San Francisco-based Mindinsite is an Application Service Provider delivering e-business intelligence services in the B2B market. Chris co-founded the business, took a lead in writing the business plan, securing angel and venture capital funding to develop the technology and establish the operations.
  
  Chris was also responsible for managing the development and marketing of the Mindinsite product suite, a web service platform for market research and qualitative benchmarking of website performance. He recruited and managed a technical and production team through the full software lifecycle to develop and deliver a world class product - this included interface design, Q/A, UAT, load testing and release management.
  
  Chris was also responsible for brand strategy, alliances and partnerships to secure distribution for the company’s products.
  
  http://www.mindinsite.com

• Business Analyst (CRM)

  Commonwealth Bank

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Banking industry)

  January 1999 — December 1999 (1 year )

  Chris was responsible for the development of a CRM and Industry Information System to better utilize the Bank’s significant store of customer and prospect data in an effort to increase market share and share of wallet amongst its business customers.
  
  By aggregating diverse prospect data sources, Chris and his team were able to develop a highly qualified database of business prospects to be targeted through the Bank’s outgoing business development channels and front end CRM system.

• Business Analyst

  Deutsche Bank

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Banking industry)

  January 1997 — December 1998 (2 years )

  Reporting to the Global HR Director for IT and Operations, Chris was tasked with building an HR Compensation Management system to be used by IT & Operations HR and Senior Management globally across the DB Group for compensation budgeting and reporting.
  
  Leading a team of developers, Chris managed the development and deployment of a secure database-driven intranet system to provide stakeholders with a management “dashboard” allowing them to more easily access the sensitive information they needed in order to make compensation related decisions.
  
  Prior to this role, Chris played a key role as an IT Business Analyst in a number of system projects, within Deutsche Bank managing the design, development and implementation of a number of critical HR systems within the bank’s IT group.

Chris Boden’s Education

• University of KwaZulu-Natal

  Bachelor , Arts , 1991 — 1995

  Post Graduate Diploma