About Plutoz

Technology guru Ali Ghafouri is a serial entrepreneur who has launched a number of successful businesses over a 20-year career. At age 19, he launched a retail franchise that grew to several locations and generated more than $3 million in sales by the time he was 24. Mr. Ghafouri won a number of marketing and sales awards as a member of one of the largest franchise chains in the world.

In 1999, Mr. Ghafouri turned his business talent to Internet marketing, helping traditional retail businesses develop effective online strategies designed to brand their product and boost sales.

In 2003, he launched NetClearly, combining traditional media (print) and new media (Internet) into a single channel to help companies maximize their reach to the consumer market. Over the next six years, NetClearly expanded its publishing arm nationwide and built, developed and launched Plutoz, its groundbreaking consumer shopping and lifestyle search engine. The Plutoz alpha version was launched in 2006, with the beta version introduced in 2009. Mr. Ghafouri and partners have invested more than $3 million in the Netclearly/Plutoz venture and the company is one of the select few to boast that it is debt-free.

As the company's CEO, Mr. Ghafouri is working to expand Plutoz in the United States and in markets around the world, with a focus on smaller countries where Internet users are highly underserved in their native language. With the Internet still in its infancy the expansion of a customized/local search platform around the globe is a multibillion-dollar business opportunity.

Mr. Ghafouri holds a bachelor degree in Business Management and an MBA in marketing from Golden Gate University.

The brains behind the technology at Plutoz, Tom Stolz put his 18 years of technology experience and superior problem-solving abilities to work and helped create the content-based search platform that is Plutoz, from the ground up. Tom owes much of his recent success to his diverse professional expertise, which includes everything from large-scale enterprise database management systems to professional custom software solutions.

Starting out as an application developer, Tom quickly moved on to work on a large-scale database system development project for Federal Express, which led him to several key positions in enterprise-database applications as a corporate system analyst. He later joined MCI as a system analyst for the corporate revenue system and then helped lead Qwest Communications as database developer and analyst for a customer management system in the wireless division. Mr. Stolz has also been consultant for the State of California in developing database systems for mainframe and client server systems and has recently worked with Ciber to develop database application systems for court management.

Stolz earned his BS degree in Computer Science from the University of Kansas.

Said Haimor, a senior economist and business analyst with more than 26 years of broad-based international experience in industrial economics, business modeling and infrastructure development, is leading the Plutoz expansion abroad.

Dr. Haimor is spearheading the establishment of Plutoz Middle East, the first market for the Plutoz search platform outside the United States and Canada. With strong ties to both the private sector and government throughout the Middle East, Dr. Haimor clearly understands the mechanics of doing business there - the key requirement for the launch of any successful venture.

Prior to joining the Plutoz team, Dr. Haimor worked for United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for more than two decades. He also worked for the government of Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations in formulating and developing infrastructure projects. On the business front, Dr. Haimor's key strengths are in the areas of money and banking, quantitative analysis for management and both macro and micro economics.

He earned his doctorate in economics at Wayne State University, majoring in industrial organization, and holds a masters degree in Economics from the University of Detroit.

A worldwide web veteran, Mr. Grover honed his skills as a writer/editor for Joe Kraus, co-founder of Excite, a search engine launched in 1995. He went on to write, edit and produce for CNET, Berkeley Systems, Snap!, NBCi and more.

As a freelancer, Mr. Grover's packaging and advertising copy for the North American release of Grand Theft Auto in 1997 led to a number of high-profile branding assignments for products from America's top names, including Disney, Marvel Comics, Guitar Hero and many others.

Mr. Grover, who earned an "A" from Entertainment Weekly for his singing and songwriting with alternative rock group The Mutts, combines his broad-based communication experience to make simple what is complex by always putting the audience first.