Tony Winders is a veteran communications executive and strategic marketing consultant whose expertise has helped hundreds of entertainment, media and technology companies and whose personality and passion for making professional connections has impacted the lives of countless individuals throughout his career.

An early pioneer of online public relations, direct marketing and advertising, Mr. Winders first became interested in the Internet after reading a Wall Street Journal article about the advent of the World Wide Web in 1993. He left a career in public relations for a sales and marketing role in the video game industry in 1994, and shortly thereafter saw the need for an agency specialized in online promotion and created one of the first interactive agencies in 1995. His expertise now spans all aspects of online advertising media and technology, video advertising, social media, mobile marketing, search engine marketing, affiliate marketing and lead generation.

Prior to forming Winders Consulting Group in 2010, Mr. Winders served as vice president, marketing of ValueClick Media, one of the world’s largest and most diversified audience targeting networks and a trusted performance advertising partner to the world’s leading brands and their agencies. As a member of the ValueClick Media management team, Mr. Winders’ leadership of marketing strategy, product marketing and communications has helped grow the flagship division of ValueClick Inc. (NASDAQ: VCLK) into one of the most successful full-service performance solutions providers in the online advertising industry.

Mr. Winders joined ValueClick through its acquisition of Search123 in June 2003, where he was vice president of sales and marketing for the growing pay-per-click search engine. At Search123, Mr. Winders was responsible for managing an inside the sales team and all aspects of corporate communications, advertising, event marketing and public relations.

Prior to joining Search123, Mr. Winders was president and CEO of InterActive Agency, Inc. (iAgency), one of the world’s first interactive marketing services agencies, which he co-founded in 1995. While at iAgency, Mr. Winders was responsible for developing innovative campaigns for eToys, DIRECTV, NBC, latimes.com, Warner Bros., E! Online, SegaSoft, Interplay, CompuServe, F/X Networks, Imagine Television, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Symantec, Qualcomm, Coca-Cola and several other dot-com startups and technology, media and entertainment companies.

Mr. Winders began his career in interactive media in 1994 as the director of marketing at Viridis, a developer of children’s CD-ROM games. He received extensive public relations agency experience in the early 1990s, as director of client programs for Murphy/O’Brien Communications in Beverly Hills and as an account executive at Paladino & Associates Public Relations in Hollywood.

Mr. Winders is an active member of the interactive media community in Los Angeles and nationally. In the late nineties he served as an instructor of Internet marketing at UCLA Extension, co-founded the Digital Coast Roundtable’s Industry Relations Committee and was a founding board member of VIC (Venice Interactive Community). In recent years he co-founded the Digital Family Reunion, an annual holiday gathering for the Los Angeles digital media community. He has also been an active participant on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Lead Generation, Networks and Exchanges and Research Committees.

Mr. Winders has co-authored several research papers on automotive marketing, political marketing and behavioral targeting online and his “Winders on the Web” blog is home to a wide range of media and advertising related topics.

He currently serves as communications director for the Los Angeles chapter of Room to Read, which has built over 10,000 libraries and put books into the hands of more than four million children in the developing world.

Mr. Winders holds a bachelor of science degree in public relations from the University of Central Missouri, where he continues to serve as an alumni advisor to its department of communication. He currently resides in Oak Park, California.