John Fendall Pleasants is an American entrepreneur and business executive who has led a number of

digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

and technology companies over the last two decades.

Early life and education

John Pleasants was born on August 19, 1965 in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

. After receiving his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1987, Pleasants obtained an

M.B.A. A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

in 1993.

Career

From 1988-1991, Pleasants occupied a position as sales and marketing executive for Hygiene Industries. Afterward, Pleasants spent three years as the brand manager for

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

/ Frito-Lay from 1995–1998, and then began a career with

CitySearch Citysearch is an online city guide that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city ...

, which became Ticketmaster Online CitySearch and ultimately

Ticketmaster Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation under the name Live Nation Entert ...

. Pleasants took Ticketmaster Online CitySearch public in September 1998, and subsequently served as

's CEO from 1999 to 2005. From 2005-2007 he ran

Revolution Health Revolution Health Group was a United States-based corporation founded in July 2005 by Steve Case. Revolution Health Group was one of three companies in the Revolution LLC group of companies. On October 25, 2007, the company dismissed 60 employe ...

and then entered the gaming industry as COO of

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

in 2008. Pleasants then left to be CEO of Playdom, a social gaming company that sold to

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

for $563 million in 2010. Pleasants also had success in helping to bring Disney Interactive from significant losses to material profits, most notably with the launch of the title ''

Disney Infinity ''Disney Infinity'' is an action-adventure sandbox toys-to-life video game series developed by Avalanche Software. The setting of the series is a giant customizable universe of imagination, known as the Toy Box, populated with toy versions of i ...

''. After leaving Disney in 2013, Pleasants was recruited by

Samsung Telecommunications Samsung Mobile Division is one of five divisions within Samsung Electronics, belonging to the Samsung Group, and consists of the Mobile Communications Division, Telecommunication Systems Division, Computer Division, MP3 Business Team, Mobile So ...

America, LLC as Executive Vice President (EVP) of Media Solutions and he led their mobile content strategy through the summer of 2016. Since August 2016, Pleasants has been the CEO of a smart kitchen startup, Brava Home, a company working on an intelligent oven. In November of 2019, Brava was acquired by The

Middleby Corporation The Middleby Corporation, also known as Middleby Corp., is an American publicly traded commercial and residential cooking and industrial process equipment company based in Elgin, Illinois. The company manufactures commercial cooking equipment, in ...

, a leading foodservice equipment company. Connie Loizos

Pleasants serves on numerous boards, includin
M&M Media, Inc.
the maker of TREBEL Music mobile media distribution platform.

Awards and recognition

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleasants, John Living people 1965 births 21st-century American businesspeople Harvard Business School alumni Yale University alumni