George Lichter is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer of Apollo Lightspeed. Previously, Mr. Lichter served as Senior Vice President, Head of Integrated Academics Strategies and Development at the University of Phoenix and shouldered overall responsibility for the School of Continuing Education and the Academic Programming Group. The latter developed innovative academic programs such as the award-winning Phoenix Lecture Series and soon-to-be-released breakthrough courses featuring high-profile academics and thought leaders.
Prior to his current roles, Mr. Lichter served from 2005 to 2008 as President and CEO of InfoSearch Media, an internet marketing and content production company. In 2002, Mr. Lichter co-founded Yoga Works, the country’s largest yoga and alternative fitness company. From 1998 through 2002, Mr. Lichter served concurrently as President of Ask Jeeves International and CEO of Ask Jeeves UK and Ireland. Before working with Ask.com, Mr. Lichter served as SVP of New Business Development and International at Vivendi Games (formerly Cendant Software) which included in its portfolio such game developers as Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra On-Line, as well as several leading educational software publishers including Knowledge Adventure, developer of the JumpStart software brand.
Prior to its acquisition by Cendant, Mr. Lichter served as VP of Business Development at Knowledge Adventure and, amongst other things, was Co-Executive Producer with Steven Spielberg the Edutainment title Steven Spielberg’s Movie Maker. Before that, Mr. Lichter was an entertainment attorney in the Beverly Hills law firm of Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman. Mr. Lichter graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from UCLA and received a JD from the Stanford Law School.