True Tickets

Prior to co-founding True Tickets Matt served as a Director of Innovation in Thales Group’s innovation and ventures practice (“Thales xPlor”). His work entailed applying Design Thinking concepts to identify, assess, and develop disruptive innovations for broader commercial applications (Blockchain & DLT, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles, Augmented Reality, and Big Data).

Prior to xPlor, Matt was a Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting where he led growth, M&A, and innovation projects for several Fortune 500 companies.  Before Deloitte, Matt served as a helicopter pilot in the United States Navy.  He did three deployments during his service tenure with two as a pilot in the Western Pacific and one as an advisor to the Ministry of Oil in Iraq.  His work with the Ministry of Oil’s Bayji Refinery is published in the Journal of Operational Research Society. 

Matt relocated to the Boston area from Minneapolis, MN with his wife Ellyn.  He enjoys travel, an athletic lifestyle, and being intellectually curious.

Steven Dobesh formerly worked at the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the Technology Innovation Chief for the Logistics Directorate. In that role, he was the Joint Staff Subject Matter Expert on Blockchain. Working with industry partners, he architected and led the execution of the first Department of Defense blockchain pilot to secure the digital thread of additive manufacturing (3D printing). Recognizing a lack of understanding around blockchain inside the Department of Defense, Steven established and led the DoD’s only Blockchain Community of Interest focused on education, widespread adoption and implementation. Beyond Blockchain, he worked with DARPA, Defense Innovation Unit eXperimental (DIUx), and the Defense Science Board on other technology projects such as Autonomous Delivery, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Logistics Integration. Prior to being assigned to the Pentagon, Steven was a Navy pilot. He has over 18 years of military and leadership experience. He also works as a tutor for the Oxford University, Saïd School of Business, Blockchain Strategy Programme, a course which
educates business executives on the fundamentals of blockchain and how to implement it inside their organizations. He is also an advisor to Triple-O-Games, a Spanish startup creating a tokenized P2P mobile gaming application. In his free time, Steven, with his family, enjoys living an active lifestyle in San Diego and attending Live Music events– ranging from Alternative to EDM.

Bringing to True Tickets 20 years of enterprise information technology experience. He possesses a successful track record of delivering business value through technology solutions, risk mitigation, and process optimization in various lead roles within global fortune 500 companies. Most recently David served as Director for IT infrastructure and IT security operations for a global medical technology company where he managed the day to day operations of large on and offshore technology engineering teams responsible for architecture, solutions engineering, information security, and core IT services such as messaging and collaboration. David holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in business administration, and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). David resides in San Diego where he enjoys coastal activities and spending time with his family.

Andrew is the author of “Web Development in Python LiveLessons” (Safari Books Online 2019) and “Django Unleashed” (Pearson 2015), the founder of JamBon Software and a regular conference speaker. Andrew specializes in web and mobile products and knows how to make complex ideas accessible. He is experienced in and committed to issues of usability, security and distributed systems. A Dartmouth College alumnus, he currently resides in Boston, MA.

Ken Lesnik is the Head of Sales at True Tickets bringing with him over 30 years in the ticketing and live event industry, Ken has held executive roles with some of the ticketing industry’s most prominent companies. Most recently, Ken was the Head of Sales at UPGRADED and just prior to that he was the Managing Director of Performing Arts with Paciolan.

Ken was previously VP of Business Development for ScoreBig, where he was the founding sales executive. Ken spent a majority of his career at Ticketmaster where he held a number of sales & marketing roles over 14 years with the company, including Sr. Director of Sales and Marketing, East Coast. Prior to Ticketmaster, Ken was a talent agent who represented B.B. King, Albert King and Anita Baker. Ken holds a BA in Political Science from Union College and an MBA from The Stern School of Business at NYU.

Vijay is the lead developer for True Tickets responsible for all aspects of application development and integration (to include Hyperledger Fabric).  Vijay is very passionate programmer who has been creating solutions with cutting edge technologies for the past 15 years. He has been working on Blockchain technologies since 2012 and trained on Hyperledger with the Fabric team at IBM Hursley-UK. Vijay has vast experience in leading global teams to deliver consumer apps, with his primary trait being to motivate teams to create technology innovations. In his job at Chateaux, Vijay has architected and built solutions for Canon, NFL, MLB, and Johnson & Johnson.

Vijay previously worked at Scientific Games creating and leading teams to build award-winning products. Vijay’s areas of expertise are Blockchain solutions, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Before working at Scientific Games, Vijay was the technology head of a startup in Bangalore, India.

Starting with a web development background, Matt worked as a junior web developer during his time in college for small local businesses in the Chattanooga Area. In time his work geared more toward the building of user interfaces and auditing user interaction. Ultimately this lead to jobs in the Chattanooga Start up scene at first as a UI designer and then a director of User Experience for a digital marketing agency. Matthew has both a background in the design of digital interfaces as well as a strong understanding in the development of those systems allowing him to work between both design and development teams competently with regard to both terminology and architecture.

Beyond the scope of purely tech,  Matthew has been the co-owner of a fashion business alongside his partner for the past 4 years, specializing in the creation of street wear for daily use and performer ready garments inspired by and largely catering too the Japanese music/entertainment industry, and American entertainers. The company, 50dangerous.com, has worked with musicians and actors both domestically and abroad to create one of a kind apparel for band members and stage performers. The brand puts on annual fashion shows(4 years), blending musical performance and special celebrity models across the United States for intimate crowds of 30 or 40 to audiences of 500 – 1000.

David is a member of the True Tickets mobile application development team. He brings a strong technical background, having achieved his B.S. in Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University and his M.S. Computer Science from the University of New Haven. David brings ten years of experience in developing enterprise software solutions across a wide range of industries and clients, including Sikorsky, Catapult Marketing, and Pratt & Whitney.

Laura is the operations advisor for True Tickets bringing with her over twenty-five years of experience in live events. Laura has worked with both profit and non-profit organizations, as well as private and University venues and groups. Whether working with blackboxes and theaters or arenas and stadiums, she has been a leader in the industry during her career. Extensive work with numerous ticketing systems as well as events in sports, concert tours, arts organizations, festivals, and Olympic games. Laura was a member of the INTIX Board of Directors (2011-2017) and was the INTIX Ticketing Professional of the Year in 2013. She is one of the founding members of FLOAT (Florida Association of Ticketing) and active in numerous committees.

Laura calls home St. Petersburg, FL where she spends as much time as possible with her WWII veteran father who will be 97 this year. She also has an engineering degree from the University of Florida and an MBA from USF-SP.

Thomas Hardjono is the CTO of MIT Connection Science and Engineering. He leads technical projects and initiatives around identity, security and privacy in emerging technologies such as IoT, smart contracts and blockchain systems, and engages industry partners and sponsors on these fronts. Prior to this Thomas was the Director of the MIT Kerberos Consortium, developing the famous MIT Kerberos authentication software currently used by millions of users around the world. He has led a number of key industry technical groups within the IETF, OASIS, Trusted Computing Group, Kantara and other organizations.  Aside from MIT Kerberos, he has been instrumental in the development of the OpenID-Connect 1.0 (OIDC) and the User Managed Access (UMA) identity management protocols. He is also spearheading exploratory work on core identities, open algorithms and verifiable transaction identities for blockchain systems. Over the years he has published four books and over sixty technical papers in journals and at conferences.

Miles Spencer has been helping founders create, build and lead companies for three decades. His efforts have created over 1,000 new jobs in the past ten years in new media, tech, consumer, SaaS and platforms with recent exits in digital media and retail consumer data. He also co-founded Kayak for a Cause (the annual fundraiser to/from Long Island) and Innovadores Foundation (the Havana tech incubator). He was co-host of MoneyHunt, which ran on PBS from 1996-2005. He cooks at Henkleman from time to time.