Profile: Michael Kolowich
President and Executive Producer
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Michael Kolowich is a recognized pioneer and innovator in internet content, high-technology marketing, and application of digital video technology. He is currently president and executive producer of DigiNovations, which he founded in late 2001, and Founder and Executive Chairman of KnowledgeVision Systems Incorporated. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, he was architect and producer of “Mitt TV”, the acclaimed video website for the Mitt Romney Presidential Campaign.
Until late 2001, Kolowich was vice chairman and co-founder of NewsEdge Corporation (Burlington MA) and an early pioneer in online and Internet content. NewsEdge Corporation was formed in early 1998 by the merger of Individual, Inc. (of which Kolowich was CEO) and Desktop Data Corporation, then the global leader in electronic news solutions for business; it was acquired in 2001 by Thomson Business Intelligence Services.
During the 1990’s Kolowich founded and/or led several important online content ventures, and was a visible force in the evolution of the publishing on the internet as we know it today. In 1991, he founded Ziff-Davis Interactive, the first new media company born of a major publishing company. ZDI’s ZDNet is one of the internet’s most active and lucrative sites, and ZDI’s Interchange Online Network, while no longer in service, blazed the trail for many design and business model innovations in use today on the Internet. Kolowich was also founder and president of AT&T New Media Services, and was part of the team which launched the highly successful AT&T WorldNet Service.
From 1988 till 1991, Kolowich was the founding publisher of PC/Computing, the Ziff-Davis magazine which in five years became the largest-circulation monthly computer magazine in America.
Prior to that, from 1985 till 1988, Kolowich was Corporate Vice President of Marketing and Business Development of Lotus Development Corporation. Later at Lotus, as VP of Graphics, Text, and Information Management Products, he was responsible for the early development of the Lotus Notes business. Kolowich came to Lotus from Bain and Company, the global management strategy consulting firm, where he was vice president and partner until 1985.
Early in his career, Kolowich was a television news reporter and producer for several television stations in the Boston and Providence (RI) markets. He was trained in broadcast journalism at both CBS News and Westinghouse Broadcasting. While a reporter at WGBH-TV in Boston, Kolowich was awarded an Emmy Award for Outstanding News Reporting by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Kolowich attended Harvard College, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Applied Physics in 1974. Later, he returned to receive an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School.
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He is a Trustee of Boston’s Museum of Science (and recently chaired its Technology Advisory Committee) and Trustee Emeritus of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. A pilot for 38 years, Kolowich is deeply committed to the development of general aviation, he serves on the Board of Directors of Piper Aircraft Corporation and of AmSafe Global Holdings, a worldwide leader in aviation safety products. He is a member of the President’s Council of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Kolowich recently completed terms as commissioner and president of Youth Baseball in Concord-Carlisle, Massachusetts, as President of the Board of Directors of Revels, a national performing arts organization, Trustee of the Fenn School of Concord, MA, and as a Board Member of Excelligence Learning Corporation (NASDAQ:LRNS), an educational products company. He was recently a creative advisor to the public television program “Boomers: Redefining Life After Fifty”, and is advisor to Hi-Beam Entertainment, an immersive experience company. He is a resident of Sudbury, Massachusetts.
Additional resources:
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Wikipedia article on Michael Kolowich
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LinkedIn profile for Michael Kolowich
