Management Team

Brett G. Durrett, Chief Executive Officer

Brett (avatar "Brett") joined IMVU in August 2005 as Vice President of Operations. In 2008 he became responsible for all technical functions in the company and served as Senior Vice President Engineering & Operations. Prior to IMVU, Brett was General Manager for the virtual world at There.com, after serving as its Director of Engineering and later as its VP of Operations. Prior to There.com, Brett co-founded and was CEO of Asylum Entertainment, a game development company. Brett led Asylum to develop 20 game titles over a 5-year period before selling the company to a software publisher.

Brett started his professional life programming video games for PCs and consoles before he was of legal age to sign a contract.

When he gets out of the office, Brett likes spending time with his kids and working on what seems to be an endless renovation of his 100-year-old house.

James Birchler, Vice President of Engineering

James (avatar "James") joined IMVU in January 2006 as a Software Engineer. Previously, James served as Senior Program Manager of Software Engineering at Bargain Network. Prior to that, he was Director at There.com, responsible for technical design, creative design and GUI web applications content for consumer applications.

James earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies and an M.A. in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In his free time, James enjoys playing classical guitar, gardening, cooking, and playing tag and sliding down slides with his daughter.

Kevin Henshaw, Senior Vice President of Business Development and GM, Revenue

Kevin (avatar "Ahojthere") joined IMVU in July 2007 as Director of International Business Development. Prior to IMVU, Kevin spent over a decade with Adobe Systems, where he held a variety of sales, sales operations and product development roles. While based in Asia with Adobe, Kevin opened the company's offices in Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing. Later he moved to Sydney, Australia where he held an Asia-Pacific wide sales management role. While in Hong Kong, Kevin also served as the Asia sales manager for a relational database firm, and he spent several years with an IT consulting firm (acquired by Gartner).

Kevin earned a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology, with Honours, from Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

When not obsessing over his avatar's looks, Kevin loves to explore California with his two young sons. Kevin is also an avid hockey player, and he can frequently be found out of position - and out of breath - on ice rinks around the Bay Area.

Mike Smith, Vice President of People and Talent

Mike (avatar "smithtahoe") joined IMVU in December 2009 as Senior Director of People and Talent. Mike now leads all human resources, staffing and facilities at IMVU. Prior to IMVU, Mike held global staffing and HR roles with WebEx, Cisco Systems, Google, Tesla Motors and Tonic. Prior to running internal corporate staffing and HR functions, Mike held a vice president role in the executive and engineering search space with Modis (now Adecco) growing its largest region ($110 million) from 1998-2004. Previously, Mike launched his own consulting company, and clients included Amazon.com, Facebook, and Netflix. At IMVU, Mike helped create such a positive culture that the company was selected as one of the Best Places to Work in The Bay Area by the San Francisco Business times in both 2010 and 2011.

Mike completed his studies in International Business from San Diego State University. Mike is a member of the Northern California Human Resource Association (NCHRA).

When out of the office, Mike can be found vacationing in Tahoe City, playing soccer on one of three different local teams, or attending San Francisco Giants or 49ers games with his wife and three children.

Matt Danzig, Co-Founder and Vice President of Creative

Matt (avatar "Matt") co-founded IMVU in April 2004 as Senior Art Director. Matt oversees all creative, user experience and design functions, and was initially responsible for creating IMVU's avatars and virtual environments. In fact, Matt is the original creator of IMVU's wonderfully expressive yet highly customizable avatars. Matt is also a key leader of the Content Creator program, IMVU's proprietary, user-generated content system. Prior to IMVU, Matt served as lead concept artist, then Kinetic Art Director, at There.com. Matt's work at There.com, where he was responsible for everything that moved in its virtual world (avatars, pets, vehicles) laid the foundation for There.com to earn an Emmy award in 2007. Matt began his career as a classically trained illustrator and writer in New York City.

Matt earned a B.F.A. in Illustration from New York's School of Visual Arts.

Matt loves to paint and draw landscape from life and to write the occasional children's story. Matt also has a fondness for chickens.

Jon Watte, Vice President of Technology

Jon (avatar "jwatte") joined IMVU in 2009 as a technical director. Previously, Jon was Chief Technology Officer of virtual world platform Forterra System, providing technical direction to the engineering team as well as strategic direction to the entire company. Prior to joining Forterra, Jon was Engineering Director at Be Incorporated with overall responsibility for architecture and delivery of the BeOS media, data translation, and selected kernel subsystems.

Jon has a broad experience in virtual worlds and their application to the real world, and is a frequent contributor to industry fora and publications in the area. He currently lives in Redwood City, California, with his wife and three children.

Stewart Bonn, SVP of Product

Stewart Bonn joined IMVU in October, 2014. An interactive entertainment pioneer, Stewart helped turn computer games into a business as one of Electronic Arts' first employees and the General Manager of EA Studios. Recently, Stewart served as Chief Product Officer of If You Can, a publisher of educational games that improves a child's emotional intelligence. He also has served as CEO of AnyRiver Entertainment, VP of Fun at There.com and VP Talent at Bix.com. A lifelong Bay Area resident, Stewart earned a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.