Rosanne Siino is the retired former Vice President of Communications for
Netscape (Communications Corporation). Siino is responsible for crafting the 1990s message that "the web is for everyone", as well as making the pivotal decision turn
Marc Andreessen in to a "rock star," and creating the publicity strategy which landed Andreessen, barefoot, on the cover of
Time Magazine. She spent 16 years in
corporate communications, 13 of which were in high-tech public relations. Siino retired from Netscape after the 1998 acquisition by
AOL and returned to graduate school. Since retiring, she has consulted for numerous high-tech and Internet companies, such as
AOL,
Google,
Shutterfly, and
PlanetOut. Siino is also known for her
philanthropy and interest in
developing nations. She currently (2007) teaches and conducts research for the
Management Science and Engineering Department at
Stanford University. Her research focus is the "socio-emotional effects of digital technologies on how people work and interact." Her past research topics specifically include
work-role enactment over geographic distance, and
interaction rituals on
distributed teams.
Early life
Rosanne Siino was born on March 29, 1962. The daughter of an
Italian immigrant and first generation
Italian-American, she was raised in the
East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area),
California,
United States. After graduating from a
Catholic high school, she earned a degree in
Communications, with minors in
Sociology and
English, from
University of the Pacific and began her career in
journalism and
television.
Career
In the early 1990s, Siino began advising
Jim Clark at
SGI. She was a key founding team member for Netscape, creating the Netscape brand and lifting the company into high public visibility. She is responsible for creating and initiating the education campaign that promoted
Internet access for the public and made the now-ubiquitous
web browser a household word.
Siino created the communications team that led Netscape in the 1990s browser wars.
See also
References