Jeff Ragovin is the founder and current managing partner at Ragovin Ventures as well as the CGO at Social Native. ^[1] Born and raised in Manhattan, he is a member of the Board of Directors for Just Food, a "non profit which empowers and supports community leaders in their efforts to increase access to locally grown food, especially in underserved New York City neighborhoods." ^[1] In addition to these ventures, Ragovin also speaks and writes articles about social media and marketing. ^[1]

Jeff Ragovin received a BA in Broadcasting and Mass Media from the State University of New York at Oswego. ^[1] He was heavily involved in campus media as a campus TV anchor, a DJ at the campus radio station, and a writer for the campus newspaper. ^[1]

Jeff Ragovin co-founded Buddy Media with Michael Lazerow, Kass Lazerow, and Aryeh Goldsmith. Buddy Media provided web-based access to vital software, enabling businesses to utilize these services by paying a monthly subscription instead of purchasing licenses and hardware. The company grew from a model called Saas, software as a service. He worked as Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Strategy Officer before the company was acquired by Salesforce in 2012 for $900 million. ^[1]

After the acquisition, Ragovin worked as the CSO for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. ^[1] The Marketing Cloud combined the services offered by Buddy Media with those of Radian6 in order to bolster companies' social media presence and influence. ^[1]

While working at Salesforce, he founded Ragovin Ventures, a strategic advisory group, with the goal of funding tech startups, focusing on pre -Series A funding. ^[1] Ragovin Ventures also provides consulting services. ^[1]

In October 2016, Ragovin joined Social Native, first as an early investor and later as CGO.

^[1] Social Native is a service for connecting brands with a global network of content creators.

^[1] Notably, Social Native has partnered with Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, Nestlé, and General Motors. ^[1]

Jeff Ragovin married Kurt Giehl, his "best friend and partner", in 2011.

Giehl works as Executive Director at JPMorgan. Ragovin is very active in the LGBT community. He has worked to further LGBT equality in business.

“We still live in a world of inequality, and it’s important for all of us in the business world to speak out and stand up, so that everyone is treated fairly.

It’s important for me as a business leader to be a role model and to not sit on the sidelines.”

Jeff Ragovin serves on the Board of Directors for Just Food, ^[1] a non-profit that "provides training and education to community members to help them launch projects like farmers' markets and CSAs, provide education in basic culinary and urban agriculture skills for their neighbors, and advocate to make their corner of New York City a healthier place to live and eat."

He has participated in numerous charity events benefiting the organization, including a 2012 event called City Farmer Chef Host.

For this event, farmers in the New York City area provided food for world-class chefs to cook in hosts' private kitchens.

With co-host Jonelle Procope, Jeff Ragovin and his husband, Kurt Giehl, hosted a five-course meal in their home in Harlem.

Chef David Waltuck prepared food from Classie Parker's Five Star Garden.