It’s an exciting day at Lytro – we have appointed a new fearless leader! Jason Rosenthal joins us as CEO, bringing with him a treasure trove of strong operations, product strategy and engineering expertise. Jason developed a passion for visual storytelling at an early age when he started making stop motion animation films with his Dad’s super 8 camera and spent hours trying to recreate the attack on the Death Star scene from Star Wars in his back yard. Later in life, he worked on some of the earliest immersive 3D attractions at industry pioneer Iwerks Entertainment. As a photography enthusiast himself and as an early customer of the Lytro camera, Jason will help Lytro continue marching down the path of revolutionizing photography.

Jason comes to Lytro with more than 20 years of experience at important companies that helped shape tech history. He’s held leadership positions at HP, Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), AOL and Netscape. He also served as CEO of social media pioneer Ning, which was acquired by Glam Media. Jason joins Lytro from Silver Lake, a global technology investment firm, where he was an Operating Executive.

We are excited about where Jason’s talents will take us…and the future of light field technology. And we extend our deepest thanks to Charles Chi, who served as our interim CEO during our search for Jason and who will stay deeply involved and remain on our board of directors, representing Greylock Partners. Our founder and former CEO Ren Ng, who has transitioned to Lytro’s executive chairman, continues to focus his energies on the product roadmap and helping us advance light field science.

Jason Rosenthal Bio

Jason R. Rosenthal is the CEO of Lytro, Inc., where he brings a breadth of marketing and business experience to Lytro’s executive team.

Prior to joining Lytro, Jason was an Operating Executive at Silver Lake, a global technology investment firm.

Previously, Jason served on the executive teams at Ning, HP, and Opsware (formerly Loudcloud). He has also worked on the product teams at Netscape and AOL. Rosenthal began his career working for Rebuild LA, the inner city economic development organization founded in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots by Peter Ueberroth.

Rosenthal holds a B.A. in history from Pomona College where he also serves on the board of trustees and he received his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.