Preston Bealle

SVP, Director, New York

Preston Bealle spent 15 years in large ad agencies in NY and San Francisco, including JWT/NY, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample NY-LA-SF and back to NY, and Saatchi/NY. He was Sr. VP/Mgmt Supervisor on Hanes/L'eggs hosiery and Account Manager at various levels on Skippy peanut butter, Hellman's mayonnaise, Nabisco Life Savers, General Mills cereals and flour, Clorox, and Hewlett-Packard.
 
He left the agency business to found and operate a wholesale food business, distributing 500+ items to restaurants, grocery stores and country clubs. Business grew almost every month for 9 years and was sold to Eastern Foods. He was asked to return to ad agency business as the first director of online advertising at any agency, at Poppe Tyson/NY. Within one year, he engaged business with Time Inc, GM, Merrill Lynch, IBM and Colgate and assisted in organizing the merger with Modem Media to create the largest online agency at that time.
 
Preston became the CEO of Jumbo.com, then the #25 site in web traffic. The site had over 1 million file downloads and games. He also started subsidiary Homeworkcentral.com, the first homework research site, later selling Jumbo to Internet.com and HomeworkCentral to ProQuest.
 
Preston was the Founder and CEO of Babygear.com, started in a small Brooklyn warehouse and became the #1 baby products store online. He raised $33 million from Bertlesmann, Gruner & Jahr and Vantage Point Venture Partners, and built sales from zero to $125,000 a day to become top online account for Graco, Combi, Peg Perego, Maclaren and other major lines.
 
He was the CEO of Gorp.com, the leading adventure travel business online. He improved sales and financials in one year from loss to profit, and the business was sold to a joint venture comprised of Gannett, and the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt Hotels. Gorp is currently part of Orbitz.com
 
Preston then started and operated a group of legal document stores, offering bankruptcy, wills, divorce and trusts for under $400 with no lawyers. Open for 2 years, stores were acquired by Dollar Financial Group (NASDAQ:DLLR) to complement their chain of 2,500 check cashing stores for underbanked population.
 
Preston served on the board of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which provides assistance to R&B recording artists of the 50's and 60's.