Chris Crone

Chief Information Officer

Chris Crone is Chief Information Officer and co-founder of Round Table Group with Bob Hull & Russ Rosenzweig. Mr. Crone has led projects streamlining almost every phase of Round Table Group's business operations, including the advertising & marketing, knowledge management, recruitment, search engine optimization, distance learning, technology deployment, and e-commerce activities as well as the daily work of nearly every employee.

Mr. Crone was co-founder and former chief executive officer of Centerstage Media, a Chicago-based firm specializing in arts and entertainment publishing and community-building, until it was sold to the Chicago Sun-Times Media Group, formerly Hollinger International, Inc. Centerstage's best-known creation, Centerstage Chicago, was the Windy City's original online arts and entertainment guide.

Started in 1995, Centerstage, an online community where venue patrons and arts aficionados could share their experiences with each other, was one of the first truly interactive Web sites and was an early listee on Netscape's "What's Cool" page.

Over the years, Centerstage has inspired many now-popular sites, including the Tribune Company's Metromix. Centerstage remains Chicagos largest such city guide and is one of the Sun-Times' premiere online properties – a Web site visited by nearly a half million people each month. In addition to the Web site, Centerstage content appeared in a weekly entertainment supplement of the Sun Times's tabloid Red Streak, in e-mail newsletters, and in many other forms.

Previously, Mr. Crone was at Northwestern University's renowned artificial intelligence graduate school, The Institute for the Learning Sciences, where he developed state-of-the-art educational software and corporate trainingware. While at Northwestern, he also taught classes in the College of Arts and Sciences. And as past music editor of Chicago entertainment magazine art+performance, he interviewed or profiled many entertainment luminaries, from Douglas Adams to Henry Rollins.

An Internet pioneer, he has served as a strategic advisor to both start-up and established ventures ranging from information-intensive service organizations to good old-fashioned industry. Among the best-known clients with whom he has worked are AT&T, the Tribune Company, the Chicago Sun-Times, and US West.

Mr. Crone graduated from Northwestern University's Integrated Science Program, a rigorous interdisciplinary course of study that approximately encompasses the standard degrees in mathematics, physics/astrophysics, chemistry, biology, and geology.

On a lighter note, Mr. Crone is an active sportsman (ice hockey, baseball, and tennis are among his favorites) and an avid musician, who has played just about anything that makes noise – from jazz piano, pipe organ, acoustic and electric guitars, French horn, and trumpet to kalimba and didgeridoo (albeit, not very well). He has two young children.