TV personality and new businesswoman Brooke Burke may have more than 1 million people “following” her on Twitter, the popular blogging service, but Burke, co-chief executive of online startup ModernMom.com, admitted that she didn’t even want to join Twitter.
“I resisted,” confessed Burke, who hosted a popular TV series on E! and won season seven of “Dancing With the Stars” before she helped found Santa Monica-based ModernMom. Burke made her confession recently when she appeared on a panel at a local tech conference with Lisa Rosenblatt, the other co-founder of ModernMom and the wife of Richard Rosenblatt, former chief executive of social networking site MySpace.com.
“I didn’t want to join and then Lisa’s husband forced me to set up an account in January,” said Burke.
Since then, she has catapulted to the top rank of Twitter celebrities. How’d that happen? While declining to divulge any secrets, Burke said she tries to mix her Twitter topics between “business and personal.” And the dancing skills probably don’t hurt.
Diplomatic Ties
When former British Consul-General Bob Peirce invited Patrick Soon-Shiong to a reception for then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair three years ago this month, little did he know he would one day work for the biotech billionaire.
Peirce, whose term as Los Angeles consul general for the United Kingdom ended in June, will join Soon-Shiong’s Abraxis Bioscience LLC next month. He will help Soon-Shiong on his next big venture: rolling out a public-private initiative to create a national medical information system.
A South African native who immigrated with his family to England at an early age, Peirce, 54, spent 32 years in Britain’s diplomatic corps. He aided in the negotiations between Britain and China that led to the hand-over of Hong Kong and he co-authored a report on policing practices in Northern Ireland. In 2005, he was appointed to the L.A. consul general post, where he played host for the Blair visit and helped launch BritWeek, an annual celebration of British contributions to Los Angeles.
Peirce said in an interview that he was ready for a change after a career as a diplomat. But he wasn’t keen about moving again.
“I was really hoping I could find something so that I could remain in Los Angeles. It’s a really great place to live,” Peirce said.
Something to Chew On
When 25-year-old Matt Davidson decided to make chewing gum, he also made a decision to get into business with his parents.
While an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley a few years back, Davidson came up with the idea for a chewing gum that includes memory- and concentration-enhancing ingredients such as a rosemary and ginkgo biloba.
Luckily for Davidson, his parents were prepared to back him, and gave him a $60,000 loan to start L.A.-based Think Gum LLC, which began selling the gum last year. But their generosity didn’t end there.
Because Davidson is now a graduate student at Stanford University, his parents, Idelle and Peter Davidson, have an active role in running the business out of their West L.A. home.
Davidson said he stores about 6,000 pounds of the gum in their basement, a haul that translates to about 2 million pieces of gum.
And on top of that, Idelle Davidson handles shipping and scheduling deliveries to retailers across the country.
But there is something in the arrangement for Matt Davidson’s hard-working and munificent parents.
“They are 5 percent equity owners in the company because of their generosity and all their help,” Davidson said.
Staff reporters Charles Proctor, Howard Fine and Daniel Miller contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
