David Alexander Segel (born April 10, 1964) is an American businessman, investor and philanthropist. Segel is a founding partner at Mako Global, Mpower Pictures and Structured Data Intelligence, creator of the Video Genome Project.

Early life and education

Segel grew up in Connecticut, Chicago and New York, graduating from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1986 with a B.A. in Physics and Philosophy. In 1992, Segel moved to London, England, where he lived for 16 years before returning to the US in 2008.

Career

Segel began his career in New York as an options market maker and

open outcry Open outcry is a method of communication between professionals on a stock exchange or futures exchange, typically on a trading floor. It involves shouting and the use of Hand signaling (stock market), hand signals to transfer information pri ...

trader. Segel has traded as a member of the Coffee Sugar Cocoa Exchange, the Pacific Stock Exchange, the

Chicago Board Options Exchange Cboe Global Markets, Inc. is an American company that owns the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the stock exchange operator BATS Global Markets. History Founded by the Chicago Board of Trade in 1973 and member-owned for several decades, the ...

London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE, pronounced 'life') was a futures exchange based in London. In 2014, following a series of takeovers, LIFFE became part of Intercontinental Exchange, and was renamed IC ...

, and the

Eurex Exchange Eurex Exchange is a German derivatives exchange which primarily offers trading in European based derivatives. The products traded on this exchange vary from German and Swiss debt instruments to European stocks and various stock indexes. All tran ...

. In 1999, Segel founded a London-based derivatives trading firm Mako Global, a leader in market making of pricing and risk in stocks, bonds, commodities and financial exchange derivatives across major markets. Segel began investing in media interests in 2007, founding Mpower Pictures with

Steve McEveety Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen. Notable people A–D * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Abel (born 1970), New Zealand politician * Steve Adams (disambiguation), se ...

, John Shepherd and Todd Matthew Burns. Segel has served as Producer and Executive Producer on several motion pictures. Segel's most recent credits include acting as Executive Producer for '' Man Down'' and '' The Drop Box'' (2015), as well as Executive Producer of '' The Stoning of Soraya M.'' (2008), which won several awards including the

Los Angeles Film Festival The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodi ...

"Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature" and producer of the film Snowmen (2011). Segel co-founded Structured Data Intelligence with Xavier Kochhar and created The Video Genome Project which "...discovers, ingests, refines and understands the component data and metadata elements of film, television, and online video records." In 2016, The Video Genome Project was acquired by

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

. In 2014 Segel launched '' Telescope Mag'', a digital-only magazine and website, nominated by the International Digital Magazine Awards for "Specialty Magazine of the Year".

Philanthropy

Segel founded The Promise Fund, managed through National Christian Foundation,National Christian Foundatio
NCF website
to promote positive social values. Segel is an advisory board member for

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

, a Patron of We See Hope, a board member of Alpha International and board member of the Eastern Congo Initiative, an American nonprofit founded by

Ben Affleck Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globes. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educatio ...

and Whitney Williams in 2010 as "the first U.S. based advocacy and grant-making initiative wholly focused on working with and for the people of eastern Congo”.

Personal life

Segel is an avid sailor and leads a racing campaign in the Nautor Swan class of sailing yachts out of

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

, England. A licensed pilot, Segel operates an ex-RAF Short Tucano as well as an off-field Carbon Cub SS. Along with adventurer Alan Chambers and team, Segel trekked on skis 100 miles across the polar ice cap to reach the geographic North Pole. In 2010, he completed an expedition through the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, near the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The eastern route along the Arctic ...

, navigating from East to West in an open Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) with adventurer

Bear Grylls Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls (; born 7 June 1974) is a British adventurer, writer, television presenter and former Special Air Service, SAS trooper who is also a survival expert. He first drew attention after embarking on a number of notable ...

and traveling 2500 km from

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smal ...

to the

Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea ( ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Alaska, and west of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a Hydrography, hydrographer. T ...

. Footage from the expedition aired on CNN September 2010.

Early life and education

Career

Philanthropy

Personal life

References

External links