Executive Team
Kim Celentano - CEO, President
Prior to forming Strivven Media and heading up VirtualJobShadow.com, Kim spent 10 years as the Creative Director of Career Corner Digital.
Kim is an Emmy-award winning television producer with 20 years of production experience. Over her career, she produced a variety of content for many distribution outlets, including ESPN, Fox Sports, and A&E Television. Kim transitioned into business in 1999, when she headed production for a start up developing streaming media models over the Internet.
When she was growing up, she wished a product like VirtualJobShadow.com existed to help her figure out what do with her life. Kim created VirtualJobShadow.com to provide career guidance for young people. Kim is a graduate of Yale University.
Her advice to students: Graduate from high school and focus on a STEM career.
Her dream job would be to create new businesses and have others run them.
Ilya Gorelik - Chief Technology Officer
Ilya has vast experience in IT, spending over 2 decades in a multitude of positions integrating and writing software programs. Before co- founding Striven Media, he was CTO of Career Corner Digital and the primary developer of VirtualJobShadow.com.
Ilya specializes in mobile apps, scalable back end solutions, cloud- based services and GIS. Though he can program for anybody, he prefers to use his skills to impact the lives of young people.
Ilya moved to the US in 1991 from Riga, Latvia.
His career advice: Technology powers the world. Harness the power of software to affect a positive change!
His dream job would be a windsurfing instructor.
Candace Zlotnick - Sales & Channel Manager
Candace Zlotnick brings extensive sales and account management experience from some of the world's largest companies, such as The Thomson Corporation, Snelling & Snelling, Kinko's and Emery/UPS. Candace offers sales management at any level and knows the importance of tailoring products to meet the customers' needs.
Having self- funded her college education at University of South Florida, she knows what hard work and determination are and how perseverance can lead to the sweet taste of success. She's excited to work hard for our customers and make a positive impact in the lives of young people along the way.
Her advice to students: If you can dream it, you can do it.
Her dream job: This one, where she travels, shares ideas, works and plays hard. If you can't reach her, she may be running half marathons in NY, walking 60 miles for a cause in Florida, or skiing in Colorado.
Ed Burgess - Business Development Manager
Ed brings 30 years of Sales, Marketing and Management experience to Strivven from a variety of industries including Healthcare / Medical, Incentive Compensation Software, B2B Services and Promotional Products. This diverse background enables Ed to understand the needs of a wide variety of industries relative to filling the "workforce gap" that many of them face today. His current goals are to build strong relationships with Employers, Industry Associations, and STEM organizations to spread the word regarding the benefits of VirtualJobShadow.com.
An important part of Ed's life has been his family (4 children, 1 wife and 1 very lazy dog) and working with student athletes. He has coached since 1997 and is currently a high school boys' tennis coach in his "spare" time. He feels that working for Strivven Media is really just an extension of his personal life, and that makes it easy to show up for work every day!
His advice to students: Don't wait until you graduate from high school to get a job - get one NOW and start to learn how the real world works! His dream job: Professional tennis player on the senior circuit. Bring on McEnroe!
Steve Taylor - VP Customer Service
Steve only works in areas that he is passionate about- which almost always involves students. He spent over 30 years in Executive Management with the Boy Scouts of America. One specialty was Career Awareness Exploring. He also served several years as Interact Chairman with his Rotary Club, coordinating job shadows in the community. These experiences led him to VirtualJobShadow.com, where his day to day role allows him to wear many hats and utilize his many talents. Our customers are familiar with his excellent service and Southern Charm.
Steve is proud to have worked with Rotary's Honor-Air Program where he participated in 19 flights to Washington's National WWII Memorial, serving over 2,000 WWII veterans.
Steve's career advice: Research all the information possible to make an informed decision regarding your career path upon high school graduation.
Steve's dream job would be a nature and landscape photographer with National Geographic.
Steve Zlotnick - Senior Advisor
Stephen Zlotnick has more than 30 years of experience leading high growth companies in the digital learning markets. For much of his career, Mr. Zlotnick worked at Thomson Learning where he served as Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing and was responsible for over $750 million in annual sales. In 2007, Thomson Learning was acquired for approximately $7.8 billion by Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners.
Since that time, Mr. Zlotnick's firm, The Henry Dorr Alliance, has advised some of the fastest growing software and learning companies in the education markets. Earlier in his career, Mr. Zlotnick helped fuel growth in management positions at Harcourt Brace and McGraw-Hill.
Steve has spent much of his career in the workforce development markets, most especially driving innovative and effective solutions with ed tech, multimedia, streaming video, and industry-school partnerships. Steve is excited to contribute to the bright future for VirtualJobShadow.com - a product that is helping change the world and prepare the very best workforce for tomorrow.