Barnaby Dorfman is an American businessman and since 2024 has been the AI + Scale Up Advisor at Mainsail Partners. He was Chief Technology Officer of Go1.com and Chief Engineering Officer and General Manager of the PayScale Consumer Products Division. He is the founder and former CEO of Foodista. His previous employment includes a role as chief product officer at kyte.tv, and executive positions at Peerflix.com and Amazon's A9.com.

Early years

Born in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

, he is the grandson of American biochemist

Ralph Dorfman Ralph Isadore Dorfman (1911–1985) was a Jewish-American biochemist. His work on metabolism in pharmacology and the use of steroid hormones contributed to the development of the combined oral contraceptive pill.Putney School The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. The school was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton on the principles of the Progressive Education movement and the teachings of its principal exponent, John Dewey. It is a co-edu ...

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

, where he later became a Board of Trustees member. After graduating from the Putney School in 1986, Dorfman attended the

Universidad Complutense de Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, where in 1987 he obtained a Diploma de Estudios Hispanicos. In 1988, he attended

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

, where in 1991 he graduated ''magna cum laude'' with a Bachelor of Science in International Business. Through a portion of his college years, Dorfman spent time in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, attending a semester of Mexican Literature/History/Philosophy and a semester of Mexican Accounting/Finance/Human Resources. Dorfman attended The Amos Tuck School at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. After two years of attendance, in 1997 Dorfman graduated with a Masters of Business Administration.

Career

Barnaby began his career in 1990 working for the

US Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econo ...

’s Commercial Service as an International Trade Assistant. His work there included developing, forecasting, and monitoring a $3.5 million annual operating budget. He also assisted US technology companies in identifying and entering international markets. In 1993, Dorfman managed and co-owned Marsee Baking where he was responsible for profit and loss for all aspects of the Portland bakery. In 1995, Dorfman worked for such companies as

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

/ MSN and Renaissance Worldwide before heading over to

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

in 1999. In his 7 years working for Amazon.com, Dorfman held several positions. He was Vice President for A9.com. He managed business development and marketing for A9.com as well as building and leading a team to develop and launch a local directory search service. As Vice President, he also invented Block View, utilizing digital cameras, GPS, and proprietary software and hardware that capture and display more than 35 million images of local businesses efficiently. Prior to becoming Vice President, he was also a General Manager for Bibliofind.com, an Exchange.com website, Group Product Manager for

Amazon Marketplace Amazon Marketplace is an e-commerce platform owned and operated by Amazon that enables third-party sellers to sell new or used products directly to consumers on a fixed-price online marketplace alongside Amazon's regular offerings. Using Amazon M ...

and for

Internet Movie Database IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

(IMDb) and create
IMDbPro.com
Director for IMDb services and Director of Product Development for Amazon.com. Dorfman remained employed with Amazon.com until 2006. In 2006, Dorfman came to Peerflix where he held the Chief Product Officer position managing ongoing development of the Peerflix DVD trading platform and creating community features to increase sharing and content generation. In August 2007, kyte.tv announced that Barnaby Dorfman would be joining their team as Chief Product Officer. In 2008, Dorfman co-founded Foodista, Inc, as CEO. In April 2009, the company reorganized as Foodista, Inc. and announced closing an early stage investment round led by Amazon.com.

Other pursuits

Dorfman was executive producer of the film '' Police Beat'',Police Beat Cast and Crew
AOL Moviefone which received a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

. In 2024, he partnered with Jon Kiehnau and Ben Frey to purchas
Don and Joe's Meats
a butcher shop that has operated for over 100 years in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market.

Notes

External links

Official websiteFoodista
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorfman, Barnaby Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American Jews American technology chief executives Tuck School of Business alumni Amazon (company) people The Putney School alumni San Francisco State University alumni