John Fees is an entrepreneur, strategic marketing executive and
business leader who serves as Managing Partner of Access Venture Group,
LLC. The company has been incorporated to purchase, invest in, and
operate high growth companies that provide innovative technology and
marketing solutions to consumers. Currently, he is the Co-Founder and
CEO of NGI Group LLC (www.nextgenins.com) a national sales and
marketing firm focused on speciality insurance markets. He is also a
partner in SlipStream - www.slipstreamlabs.com.
From
1999-2006, Fees also served as the co-founder and Chief Executive
Officer of Y2M: Youth Media and Marketing Networks. Y2M owned and
operated College Publisher, the nation’s largest online network of
college newspapers serving more than 500 colleges and universities,
over 2 million subscribers and 120 national advertisers. Fees led the
successful media business thru August of 2006, when he completed the
sale of Y2M to Viacom’s MTV Networks. Y2M was the first company in
North America to create a national university media network with
commercial rights to print, online and email editions. Y2M worked with
a wide variety of clients including Ford Motor Company, Sony, Samsung,
AT&T, GEICO, Education Lending Group, Chase, Monster, Goldman
Sachs, AOL among others.
During the same period, Fees also
co-founded Members Connect which became a consumer finance marketing
company that focused on marketing education credit products (student
loans, graduate and post-graduate consolidation loans and student loans
for parents of university students). The company emerged as the largest
affinity / partnership marketing company in the North American
education finance market and today has over 180 exclusive marketing
agreements with trade, professional and alumni associations throughout
the USA. The company also owned and operated Ed-Loans.com, eGrad.com
and BrokeScholar.com three highly regarded web sites that help college
students and their families pay for and manage the cost of a college
education. The company was sold in 2004 to Collegiate Funding Services.
From
2004-2006, Fees served as an executive officer of Collegiate Funding
Services prior to and thru its public listing as on NASDAQ (CFSI) based
in Virginia, USA. Collegiate Funding Services markets, originates,
finances and services education loans. Since 1998, Collegiate Funding
Services facilitated the origination of more than $18 billion in
education loans with $4.6 billion in loans being generated in 2005. The
company was acquired in March of 2006 by JPMorgan Chase (JPM).
During
2006, Fees served as Executive Vice President of Chase Educational
Finance where he served as an executive in one of the nations’ largest
student loan companies. Fees led the partnership and internet marketing
business units responsible for producing approximately one billion in
student loan volume in 2006. Fees is credited for pioneering the
successful use of innovative business strategies including affinity and
online marketing of student loans.
Prior to building two
successful start-ups through until their acquisition, Fees served as
the Senior Vice President, First USA Partners (Affinity Partners
International) where he was responsible for creating affinity credit
card partnerships in the collegiate and affinity market. In addition to
his experience in consumer finance organizations, he also served as
Membership Marketing Vice President at Student Advantage, the nations’
largest student membership organization and also served three years as
the Vice President / Chief Operating Officer of the Arizona State
University Alumni Association.
Fees is a graduate of Arizona
State University, where he received a bachelors of science degree in
History and also a graduate of Harvard Business School where he
completed a Masters in Business Administration.
John Fees lives
in Phoenix, Arizona and is married to Melissa Soza Fees, Ph.D.. and is
the father of five children. Fees has a keen interest in media/current
affairs, Arizona history, private equity investing, anything
entrepreneurial. In addition, he enjoys cooking, photography and is an
out-of-form tennis and golf player. He is also a board member of The
Foundation for Blind Children and The Spitzer Center for Ethics.