Who We Are
Ivory Madison
Founder and CEO
Founder and CEO Ivory Madison is a writer, editor, and entrepreneur living in her hometown of San Francisco. A former management consultant to startups and the Fortune 500, Madison has finally combined her love of writing with her business acumen. Before launching redroom.com, she founded the Red Room Writers Society in 2002, where she personally helped hundreds of aspiring and professional writers complete their books. As a result, Madison was named Best Writing Coach by San Francisco magazine. Trained as an attorney, Madison was Editor in Chief of her Law Review, interned at the California Supreme Court, and served as a Law Fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Her adventures have also included episodes as a New Orleans restaurateur, radical feminist politico, and torch singer at the Plush Room. Her noir graphic novel, Huntress: Year One, will be published by DC Comics in January 2009, but is now available as a six-issue comic book series. It tells the origin story of a strong female superhero. Madison is twenty-nine.
Abraham Mertens
Vice President and General Counsel
Vice President and General Counsel Abraham Mertens is an attorney who has represented businesses and individuals in all phases of litigation. Mertens graduated from University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and served as an extern at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mertens graduated from Rutgers University with honors, majoring in political science and history. While at Rutgers he received numerous academic awards including the Scholar-Athlete Award. Mertens worked at the Harvard Civil Rights Program. In addition, he is a medal-winning rower and is one of the top twenty single scullers in the country. He is working on a book about the year he spent training to qualify for the Olympics. He speaks four languages and is fluent in Dutch. Mertens is twenty-nine.
Product Development/Technology
Anil Punjabi
Vice President, Product Management and Engineering
Vice President of Management and Engineering Anil Punjabi is a product and business development strategist who is excited to be part of a socially conscious community. With a background in computer science and an M.B.A. from Duke University, Punjabi helped drive major international product strategies at both Amazon.com and Siemens. A big believer in building an inventive organization, Punjabi has written several patents himself. In his spare time, he loves to dance and spend time with his parents, but not at the same time. Punjabi might turn twenty-nine later this year.
John Sullivan
System Architect
Systems Architect John Sullivan worked his way up, over seven years, from a programmer to Chief Information Officer for CFN, an online transaction processing company. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in electronics engineering technology; spent seven years as the Product Manager for The HP User Group, where he was responsible for the software library distribution and support to over 2000 companies each year; and has extensive experience designing and developing web systems in PHP. Sullivan looks forward to bringing his past experience to creating the greatest website in the world for writers. He knows the ineluctability of age and appreciates being twenty-nine.
Community/Editorial
Huntington Sharp
Editor
The common factor in Editor Huntington Sharp’s work in the varied fields of managed health care, commercial real estate, government law, cabaret, and contemporary lighting is a dogged commitment to le mot juste. He studied linguistics and English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and law at New College of California, and he edited for, and published a commentary in, the latter’s Law Review. It's hard to believe that this Eagle Scout and founding member of the Red Room Writers Society is twenty-nine.
Max Sindell
Author Liaison & Community Coordinator
Community Coordinator Max Sindell published his first book, The Bright Side: Surviving Your Parents' Divorce, this past June after graduating from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Writing Seminars. During and after school, Max gained invaluable experience as a waiter, working in some of the top restaurants in Baltimore and New York City. Now back home the Bay Area, Max is refamiliarizing himself with hills, fog, and building Ikea furniture. Sindell looks forward to being twenty-nine someday.
Jane Ganahl
Author Liaison
Author Liaison Jane Ganahl is the author of the 2007 autobiographical novel Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife, which is currently being developed into a sitcom. Ganahl wrote the popular “Single-Minded” column for the San Francisco Chronicle until July 2006. A career journalist, she covered every beat for San Francisco’s two major newspapers for almost two decades, from jazz performances to City Hall politics. Ganahl also edited an anthology of women writers titled Single Woman ... Of a Certain Age, and has written for Parenting and Rolling Stone. She is hard at work on her next book and picking out who will play her in the sitcom. Ganahl is twenty-nine.
Rebecca Goldman
Community Liaison
Community Liaison Rebecca Goldman has worked as a writer, producer, and editor for TV, film, books, and new media start-up companies. Goldman wrote and produced daily comedy news segments for Current TV and co-wrote the award-winning documentary Sputnik Mania. As the Executive Producer of Sagas, she brought the tradition of family oral history into the Web 2.0 paradigm, facilitating a national network of video interviewers. She is currently editing a Voice of Witness oral history book on China for McSweeney’s. She studied Rhetoric and Art at the University of California, Berkeley, and is pursuing a Masters in Media and Communications at EGS. Goldman is twenty-nine.
Operations
Tony Gim
Productivity and Operations Manager
Productivity and Operations Manager Tony Gim brings his experience as a former Chief Compliance Officer and Information Security Officer to Red Room to ensure the company is in good standing with federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Gim received his J.D. from the University of San Diego and double majored at UC Irvine in Criminology and Environmental Analysis. His interests include wishing for a Gary Larsen comeback, raising dust bunnies, and a really great idea for a novel he has yet to start. Gim is twenty-nine.
Heather Goyette
Communications and Project Manager
Communications and Project Manager Heather Goyette returned to her childhood hometown of San Francisco after graduating from UCLA magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in American Literature and Culture and a specialization in communications. She has several years of experience in corporate communications, project management, and software customization; most notably, she managed, wrote and edited Genentech, Inc’s “Best Place to Work” submissions for FORTUNE and Working Mother magazines for two years. Goyette wrote an autobiographical novella at the Red Room Writers Society and has since moved to the Peninsula and shifted her creative energy to creating stained glass windows. Goyette is not yet twenty-nine.
Tanya Madoff
Bookkeeper/Controller
After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Bookkeeper/Controller Tanya Madoff discovered she had a talent for finance as well. Her career has included leading several companies to financial success while also writing for newspapers, magazines, and marketing contracts. Also an entrepreneur in her own right, she owns her own knitwear business where she keeps labor costs low by making her dog model scarves. Madoff is currently working on her first novel, featuring a heroine who is twenty-nine.
Key Consultants
Teola Young
Consulting Advertising Director
Consulting Advertising Director Teola Young is a former vice president and co-founder of Biocompare.com and Medcompare.com, successful internet startups that Young led to become the most widely used shopping and educational portals for scientists in the world.
Jake McKee
Consulting Community Director
Consulting Community Director Jake McKee is the former global community relations specialist for LEGO. As principal of Ant’s Eye View, a social media and consumer engagement consultancy, McKee has worked with online communities since the early days of the internet. His work had made the covers of Wired and Forbes.