Bill Cleary

Bill Cleary leads Cleary & Partners, a small marketing firm based in Saratoga, California. In addition he sits on numerous boards; including Santa Clara University (business school), SUNY at Stony Brook (Human Origins, Dr. Richard Leakey), Wildlife Direct (Nairobi, Kenya), PGP and the Hillbrook School. Bill continues to work with web-based companies—and he is currently seeking companies to work with in the various “green sectors.”

He began his marketing career in New York City in 1979, working on such formidable brands as Pepsi®, Pizza Hut® and Welch® Foods. In 1981 he joined Apple Computer and moved to Cupertino, California. In his four years at Apple, Bill played an instrumental role in the development of marketing programs, including sales promotional efforts, advertising and merchandising. In 1986, he joined Activision as the VP of Marketing. In 1987, he founded Cleary Communications, which later became CKS Group. While at CKS, he worked with partners Tom Suiter and Mark Kvamme to build an extraordinary company that helped launch major web-based brands including eBay, Amazon, Excite and Yahoo.

Bill attended school in New York (SUNY Buffalo), receiving degrees in Social Science with an emphasis in anthropology. In addition, he participated in the Fullbright-Hays program in Cairo, Egypt at Ain Shams University.