America's Largest Weight Loss Site SparkPeople.com Hires Eileen Mulloy as SVP, Sales

CINCINNATI, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SparkPeople.com, America's largest weight loss website and one of the most active healthy lifestyle and food sites, is pleased to announce that Eileen Mulloy has joined the company as its first Senior Vice President of Sales.  Ms. Mulloy will manage the Sales function across the SparkPeople sites and mobile applications.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110427/NE90439)

Ms. Mulloy joins the company at a time of rapid growth and great momentum.  Reflecting strong gains throughout 2011, unique visitors to SparkPeople's sites rose above 7 million in March (Google Analytics) and registered a record 3.6 million on comScore, up 56 percent year-over-year. SparkPeople also continued its high engagement, averaging nearly 16 million visits and over 130 million page views per month online (Google Analytics). In the first quarter, SparkPeople surpassed 10 million members and attracted an average of more than 300,000 new members a month through its websites and mobile applications.  In 2010, SparkPeople was called "The Facebook of Dieting" by Fortune and "The Online Program that Works" by Good Housekeeping.

Ms. Mulloy most recently served as the SVP of Sales and Marketing at Hollywood.com and MovieTickets.com. Prior to that, she was Publisher of Epicurious.com, where she led the team to significant revenue growth and numerous accolades She also drove revenue growth at several of Conde Nast's digital sites, including Concierge and Style.com, as well as magazine websites such as SELF.com, BonAppetit.com, Glamour.com, Allure.com, and Luckymag.com amongst others.  Prior to Conde Nast, Ms. Mulloy was Regional Advertising Director at WebMD.

"Eileen joining the company marks a new era at SparkPeople.  Over the past ten years, our small staff -- now 27 full-time employees -- has worked wonders in making SparkPeople America's largest weight loss site and one of the most engaging healthy lifestyle sites," said CEO Chris Downie.  "We have made weight loss and exercise fun, energizing and easier by combining the science of nutrition and fitness with the science of motivation and the power of social networking.  Now, we're in the position to grow and expand, leveraging our unique blend of tools, content and community that has made SparkPeople the quiet phenomenon of American weight loss and healthy living.  Our ability to expand our New York presence by attracting another world-class executive like Eileen speaks to our stature in the health space and the quality of our people."

"SparkPeople has successfully attracted an engaged and passionate consumer base," said Mulloy.  "I am thrilled to join SparkPeople at this exciting time and look forward to introducing new and expanded integrated marketing solutions to the advertising community."  

Ms. Mulloy will report to SparkPeople's President, Tami Booth Corwin.  Ms. Corwin established and leads a New York presence for SparkPeople.  She joined the company in 2008 after spending 20 years in editorial, marketing and sales roles at publishing and media companies, most recently serving as President and Editor in Chief at Rodale Books.  There, she acquired and launched multi-platform properties that spanned online, print, and other formats, including The South Beach Diet, The Biggest Loser, and An Inconvenient Truth. During her tenure at Rodale as head of the book publishing division, she was named one of the Wall Street Journal's 50 Women to Watch.

"Eileen is a fantastic addition to our growing team.  Her depth of experience in digital, and her great track record on other women's sites, health sites and food sites make her a perfect fit for our properties, which span health, food, diet, fitness and healthy pregnancy.  We're excited to share our best-in-class sites, our highly engaged audience, our deep targeting ability and our creative advertising and marketing approach directly with advertisers," said Ms. Corwin.

For the past several years, SparkPeople was represented exclusively by Everyday Health for all its ad sales.  SparkPeople will now sell directly across all categories except for the Pharmaceutical and OTC drugs categories, where Everyday Health will continue to represent SparkPeople's inventory.

About SparkPeople.com

Headquartered in Cincinnati, SparkPeople.com is a multi-platform media and technology company with a network of leading health, fitness and food websites and mobile applications.  Its mission is to spark millions of people to reach their goals.   SparkPeople is employee-owned, with one outside minority investor, AOL Founder Steve Case. With over ten million members in more than 100 countries, SparkPeople's websites, which are free to join, include SparkPeople.com, BabyFit.com, dailySpark.com, SparkSavings.com and SparkTeens.com.  SparkPeople provides free mobile apps for diet and fitness as well as healthy recipes for the iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry platforms.   SparkPeople's Founder and CEO Chris Downie's book, The Spark, was a New York Times bestseller in 2010 and was released in paperback in December 2010.  SparkPeople will publish its first cookbook in October of 2011.

Press Contact:
Bruce Corwin
bruce@sparkpeople.com

Phone: 610-346-6712
Mobile: 484-553-3951

SOURCE SparkPeople.com