These recommendations are from my LinkedIn profile, but since they are only visible to LinkedIn members, I have copied them here for others to see. There may be more on my actual profile, so I'd recommend signing up for LinkedIn and viewing them there. Even if you don't want to see them there, I'd still recommend joining LinkedIn - it's a cool service.
"Kevin's technical insight, troubleshooting skills and dedication to delivering a high quality product combine to make him a terrific CTO and valuable contributor at any company. Kevin successfully drove the growth of a six person engineering department to over fifty people while instilling a sense of ownership and agility in all of the Engineers. Kevin is not only a gifted leader but also a respected mentor and dependable team member. It was truly a privilege to work with Kevin over the last four years and I hope to have the opportunity to work with him again someday." February 1, 2007
"I had the pleasure of working very closely with Kevin and his teams at WhitePages for four years. Kevin was a key exec, leader and contributor in the company's growth from 20 people / $5mm revenue to 150+ people / $50+mm in revenue. He is an incredibly smart and practical CTO with very sound business acumen. He would be a leadership asset to any fast-growing technology company facing technical and business challenges / opportunities. He oversaw the architecture and development of a system that supported the meteoric growth of an internet success story at WhitePages.com. He has an "A" game, and I would welcome the chance to work with Kevin in the future." January 29, 2007
"I recommend Kevin very highly- he is extremely knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics, easy to work with, and a very clear and analytical thinker. I feel strongly that Kevin would be both an important and strategic hire for any company. I am providing this reference in my personal capacity, and not on behalf of WhitePages.com." January 29, 2007
"I was fortunate enough to work with Kevin while at WhitePages.com. He is a top-tier developer/manager that I would recommend on those factors alone. But he also has the rare ability to communicate and connect with all strategic areas of a business and to focus the attention of himself and his team on those common goals. I full-heartedly recommend Kevin to any organization lucky enough to get his consideration." January 25, 2007
"It was a pleasure working with Kevin during my time at WhitePages.com. His technical knowledge, attention to detail, and ability to maintain an exceptional engineering team was inspiring. I highly recommend Kevin to any technical leadership position." January 22, 2007
"Kevin created an incredible work environment at WhitePages.com: vibrant, creative, challenging, and supportive. He clearly conveyed his high standards to the entire engineering department while empowering us to use our own initiative and creativity. This combination of organizational structure and intellectual freedom made Whitepages.com a very, very special place to work. Kevin's brilliance, drive, and leadership talent combined with his broad knowlege base and techinical skills make him an ideal Chief Techincal Officer for any company fortunate enough to have him." January 15, 2007
"One of the things that attracted me to WhitePages.com was the opportunity to work with highly experienced & successful innovators like Kevin Fink. Kevin is a great visionary and successful team leader with a long track record of achievement. I witnessed Kevin successfully manage a variety of simultaneous projects while successfully motivating his team and consistently exceeding company goals and objectives. Combined with his wide range of experience and ability to identify strategic opportunities and cutting edge solutions makes Kevin a great CTO. I highly recommend Kevin to any company looking for a hands-on technology focused leader determined on delivering innovative and market leading results." January 7, 2007
"I unreservedly recommend Kevin Fink. While Kevin served as WhitePages.com's CTO, he impressed me - not only with his in-depth knowledge of technology - but with his knowledge of product design, program and project management, and (even!) sales and marketing. He is extraordinarily multi-talented. I learned as much from Kevin, simply by listening to his insights, as I have from many reporting reletionships in my career. Kevin approaches challenges with preparation and attention to detail. His insight into problem solving are almost always accompanied by real-world example or hard data. One characteristic I observed with Kevin that is not always the case with technologists is his ROI-mindedness. He demonstrated a proficiency to deliver the best possible product within the guidelines and limitations of the business and technology. I want to thank Kevin for having the opportunity to work with him and learn from him. Thanks Kevin!" January 5, 2007
"I had the pleasure of working under Kevin for nearly three years at Whitepages.com. Without hesitation, I can say that he was the finest technologist and leader I've ever had the opportunity to work with. He brings a unique blend of technical acumen, managerial expertise, and savvy leadership to each of his endeavors. Any company would be lucky to have Kevin on its team and I'd welcome the opportunity to work with him in the future." January 4, 2007
"Kevin is great to work with. He is very intelligent, forthright, innovative, rock solid in his thinking, and a general joy to be around. I always feel that I can explore ideas with him and walk away with even a better idea that can actually work. I look forward to any chance I have of working with him in the future." January 3, 2007
"Kevin was CTO when I joined WhitePages. Under his leadership we more than doubled the size of the engineering group as the company grew, while maintaining the fastest paced development environment I have ever seen. Kevin was an effective leader at all levels: setting broad goals, managing engineering resources, making detailed technical decisions, or even contributing code when needed. He earned the respect of everyone he worked with, while empowering engineers to do their best work. Top notch in every respect." January 2, 2007
"I consider it to have been more than an enriching experience having worked under the most competent, distinguished and accomplished CTO I have had the pleasure to work with. Witnessing the Engineering department nearly double in size since my inception at WhitePages.com, many dozens of high-impact projects roll through the department all while sustaining an extremely dynamic and efficient SDLC and an encapsulated development environment that fully accommodates the speed and efficiency we have been able to carry; all while empowering a culture that has continued to be extremely enjoyable and fulfilling. All attributes I can"™t imagine would have materialized without the calculated direction put forth by Kevin. Given another opportunity to work with Kevin, I would take in less than a heartbeat. Given any of my colleagues; past, present or future having an opportunity to work under Kevin"™s executive direction, I would highly recommend they take it as well." January 2, 2007
"Kevin is without question the most capable and knowledgeable CTO I've ever worked with in my career. I strongly recommend him to any CTO or similar position for which he feels he"™s qualified. Kevin is able to balance a suite of competing and often mutually-exclusive company goals, translating them into clear directions for his department so we can execute plans in the company"™s best interests. Unlike the average CTO, Kevin has both the ability to discuss and defend difficult decisions in Board and executive meetings and the raw technical skills to drop-down into real coding. During an especially time-sensitive project I was managing, Kevin was able (and eager) to drop in to help write a small component of the code-base. While this was an exception to the rule, it clearly demonstrated to the whole team they could trust Kevin as he made longer-term strategic decisions and represented Engineering to the rest of the company. Personally, I was always impressed with Kevin"™s sphere of knowledge; he seemed equally the expert in software development, hardware, networking, and advanced (and cutting-edge) computer science theories such as genetic algorithms, neural networks, and beyond. I would eagerly work with Kevin again if given the opportunity, as I"™m sure the vast majority of our Engineering department would as well." December 30, 2006
"I really learned a lot under Kevin's leadership here at Whitepages.com. What he has done while working here will continue to be a positive influence in this company for years to come. He has a vast breadth and depth of technical knowledge, and combines that with excellent business skills for a winning combination as a CTO. He'll be missed here, but will be a strong asset to another company." December 29, 2006
"Kevin brings vision, purpose & drive out of chaos. He traverses the inherent politics of an executive positon while still being a leader of geeks. This is someone the development team truly WANTS to have around during a major product launch - and someone I would gladly work for again." December 29, 2006
"I had the opportunity to work with Kevin over the course of several years during his employment at WhitePages.com. I am pleased to say he has a great intellect and brilliant ability to debug complex problems. Kevin is a resourceful, creative, and solution-oriented person who is sincere and highly respected within the development community." December 28, 2006
"Kevin possesses tremendous knowledge of his field and continues to search out the best in new technologies. He maintains an excellent balance between incorporating new innovations and maintaining existing systems to handle heavy usage. I have known Kevin as an outgoing member of the Seattle area software community for a decade, and consider myself lucky to have worked with him for the past two years." December 28, 2006
"As part of the development team at WhitePages.com, Inc, I was able to work directly with Kevin and discuss alternative technologies and solutions. Kevin has a variety of experience in many different fields, and with that experience he is able to offer many directions to approach a problem. He uses the advice of people both above and below him to find the best solution to a problem or issue. Kevin is not afraid to get hands on in the process and I would look forward to working with him again in the future." December 27, 2006
"Kevin is a great asset to the team. He's capable of providing vision for entire engineering departments and pragmatic enough to focus on business needs and objectives. He's whip-smart, has no ego and is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and help out where possible. Working with Kevin has been a pleasure." December 27, 2006
"As the dedicated recruiter for the Engineering Department at Whitepages.com, I worked with Kevn and all those who reported to him. Unequivocally, in my nearly 8 years of technical recruiting, Kevin's group is the best run, most efficient, effective and content bunch I've ever worked with. Kevin's professionalism, leadership and intelligence is the highest and best I've witnessed, period. I found it extremely easy to recruit for Kevin's teams because the atmosphere that he described to me, which, in turn I descibed to our candidates, is exactly what they found when the candidates were hired. This 'congruency' caused these new hires to be more than willing to refer others that they respected, who, in turn, were hired as well. This allowed us to build a very high quality and cohesive team, whose members respected and liked each other. And, needless to say, this made my job much easier. Kevin is a technology leader, who is always involved in finding new and better ways to make software work and is never afraid to get his hands dirty. He led our own think tank incubator, from which many new ideas were hatched. And many were the times when a developer would pop his head into Kevin's office late in the day, to bounce an idea off of him, in an effort to try to solve a problem that the developer had been grappling with all day. Kevin comes with the highest of recommendations." December 27, 2006
"Kevin Fink was an excellent boss and mentor to me and I highly recommend him for any technology/management role to which he is applying. I would not have stayed at Whitepages.com if he hadn't have been hired. I am truly sorry he has left. Besides being an great manager of people, he did an excellent job of mapping out and implimenting the technology at Whitepages.com that allowed us to grow revenue by 2,600% over his 4 year tenure. He greatly increased uptime while lowering our operational costs. We owe a great deal of our success as a company to his knowledge and creativity." December 27, 2006
"I knew Kevin as the CTO of N2H2 before he was at W3 Data and he knows his stuff. He managed the world's largest Linux network there too." April 19, 2004
"Kevin is a very detail oriented manager who has very good rapport with his dev people and can motivate creative solutions to constantly changing requirements. Kevin is a very level-headed and methodical thinker." January 5, 2007
"Kevin was a knowledgeable resource and a skilled leader in all areas where we collaborated. His technical ability and people skills made it easier for my team to do our work and contributed greatly to the overall quality of our projects." December 29, 2006
"I worked with Kevin from day -60 of N2H2. I still remember, and live by Kevin's favorite motto: "If it's not scalable, it's not worth doing" I have always been impressed with Kevin"™s technical ability to see how to scale systems to meet monumental demands. What has been even more impressive (and valuable) is his ability to inspire and manage people that he works with. His business sense and ability to manage and inspire staff to produce products that work, and scale is the best I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I can highly recommend Kevin to lead your organization." February 3, 2007
"Kevin Fink is the most technical and competent CTO I have worked for or with. He created the technology N2H2 was founded on and drove the technological direction of the company. Just before I started working for him, Kevin guided N2H2 through becoming a public company. Consequentially he is firmly grounded on the business side in addition to his technical skills. I found Kevin to be one of the best managers I've ever had, and he is one of my favorite people to work with." January 14, 2007
"Kevin is an extraordinarily talented CTO and is gifted at understanding and incorporating new technologies into the development process to create a development environment that is both fun and inspiring. I reported directly to Kevin for about 3 years at N2H2 where he provided me with extremely helpful guidance as I progressed through software development and database development positions. I also worked directly with Kevin at WhitePages.com in a management capacity where he instilled a sense of efficiency and scale into the development organization while maintaining a creative environment. Kevin is sure to be a key component of success for any company fortunate enough to hire him. I would feel priveleged to have the opportunity to work with Kevin again." January 11, 2007
"Kevin has become my gold standard by which I measure technical excellence. His extensive understanding of technology and how it fits into the business make him a proven problem solver. Kevin is the inspiration that set me in pursuit of my current career. He hired me as a novice developer and provided the materials and challenges I needed to grow; both as a software developer and as a leader." January 10, 2007
"I had the pleasure of working with Kevin from the very beginning at N2H2 as it grew from a small outfit with a handful of people to a multimillion-dollar public corporation with over 300 employees. In that time he proved himself a very intelligent, wise, and capable leader of engineering--not to mention a great and likable person to work with all around." January 2, 2007
"During my employment at N2H2 I was the General Counsel of the organization. I interacted with Kevin on a daily basis and found his intelligence, professionalism, commitment to producing a solid product, and his interpersonal skills to be exceptional. I would work again with Kevin without hesistation." December 29, 2006
"I worked with Kevin for approximately 3 years and can recommend him highly. Probably most notable was his ability to foresee the near future and design the system technology around that. Some of the tools, processes, or system he originally designed is still being used 8 years later by a company that acquired it. Engineers I currently work with have repeatedly commented about the wisdom in his initial system architecture and coding choices." December 29, 2006
"I worked with Kevin from the N2H2 start-up days to close to its buy-out end. Throughout this period Kevin was always the "brain" behind the product and directed the product development. He always amazed me with his technical knowledge and his ability to get involved with both software and hardware problems. As the company grew, I was not close to Kevin but worked with IT staff that regarded Kevin as the technical leader and final decider of programming and hardware strategy. I would not hesitate to recommend Kevin as a CTO in any environment." December 29, 2006
"Kevin is one of the smartest guys I have ever worked with and an effective CTO. He grasps the big picture and sweats the details with a voracious capacity for knowledge and understanding, coupled with a high performance dedication to excellence and productivity. I recommend him highly." December 29, 2006