James Ambras
Los Altos Hills, CA
Jim Ambras brings over twenty years of business and technical experience to his current position as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NotchUp, an executive recruiting service that caters to high performing corporate and individual clients. A proven and effective leader, Jim’s ability to motivate highly skilled technical workers as well as non-technical personnel has allowed him to excel in the highly competitive tech sector. Prior to his role at NotchUp, Jim Ambras served as Vice President of Engineering at Peerflix, a vibrant, online community focused on motion pictures and DVD trading. Mr. Ambras was instrumental in building the ground breaking social media and next generation trading platform for the firm. Jim Ambras has also held executive level positions at OnStation, where he was Vice President of Products and Services and the Zip2 Corporation, where he operated as Vice President of Engineering. Zip2 Corporation is a leading provider of enterprise level web based software for media solutions. In 1999, Zip2 Corporation was acquired for $307M in cash by AltaVista, which was the largest cash acquisition of any Internet startup at that point in time. Based in Mountain View, California, Zip2 provides additional revenue for print and online media by opening online channels. Mr. Jim Ambras has worked in a variety of fields in the high-tech industry throughout his career. His innovative vision and technical prowess allowed Ambras to pioneer digital media at SGI, and Mr. Ambras led the team that built AltaVista Live, which was AltaVista's Web portal back when it was only a search engine. Jim Ambras led the development and launch of AltaVista's International Operations, successfully deploying over 20 country-specific sites throughout Europe. Jim Ambras attended Syracuse University where he studied Computer Science and earned his Bachelor’s of Science degree. Jim Ambras also currently serves on the ZeeSource board of advisors, where he helps corporate software developers adopt open source-like best practices. In his free time, Mr. James Ambras enjoys skiing, snowshoeing and mountain biking. Jim is also an avid photographer and enjoys capturing the beauty of the great outdoors with his camera. Mr. Ambras displays his affinity for skiing and photography on his blog, where he writes about the Kirkwood Mountain Resort and California’s Alpine County. Mr. Jim Ambras currently resides in Los Altos Hills, California.
