Vince Thompson

At the start of his career Vince Thompson wrote screenplays in Hollywood where he optioned work and wrote for studios including Warner Brothers. Frustrated with the pace of feature film development, he left for a career in television where we quickly rose to lead local sales for the ABC TV station in Santa Barbara. In his sales management role he also helped launch a Fox affiliate in that market. Fascinated with the Internet, he began coursework on Internet technology in 1995 at UCSB, worked on some startup teams and then joined ThirdAge Media in San Francisco in 1998. Later that year he year he joined AOL, pre-Netscape and Time Warner, to lead ad sales in the West. Vince spent 7 years at AOL where he helped launch AOL’s first sales training and leadership organization as AOL’s Vice President of Capability. He finished his AOL career as Regional Vice President of AOL Media Networks where he built AOL’s Los Angeles office into a marketing powerhouse creating advertising and branded entertainment solutions for Automakers, Entertainment Companies and other National Marketers. In the fall of 2005, Vince joined Facebook when the company had less that 25 employees to launch their national sales organization. It was there that Middleshift’s mission began to gain clarity. In the spring of 2006 Middleshift was born with Napster and Break.com as the company’s first clients. The firm has since grown and become a recognized force in the startup market, expanding into consulting and training for major media companies and representing world-class original content. Vince holds an undergraduate degree in Communications from The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications and a Masters in Business Administration from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business.