Entertain. Engage. Upsell.

Our Team

Sean Riley

Co-Founder / CEO

Riley is a senior media executive with over 20 years’ experience from his time at Fox Networks, Liberty Latin America, The Golf Channel and other media companies.  He has built sports networks from the ground up and has expertise in sales and marketing, content creation/distribution, sponsorship sales, development of on-air talent, and digital/direct-to-consumer content strategy. Sean’s family was in the neighborhood bar business in Albany, NY for over 20 years.

Duvon Lawrence

Co-Founder / CTO

Duvon has had a passion for technology for as long as he can remember and loves using it to drive innovation. Specializing in Video Delivery Engineering for over 10 years, He brings a wealth of knowledge on maintaining and delivering Barvanna to customers across the globe.

Tom Straszewski

President, Global Sales

Tom Straszewski is a senior sales executive with over 20 years of digital and television media experience. Tom has led high-performing sales teams at Comcast/NBCU, Ampersand, Slickdeals.net as well as various cable TV MVPDs (Multichannel Video Programming Distributors). Career experience includes data-enabled video, digital, programmatic, search, social, mobile, OTT/CTV, ad tech, e-commerce, and affiliate marketing. Tom converts data and media insights into revenue-generating, multiplatform solutions for brand and agency media partners.  

Paula R. Doerzbacher

Barvanna Communications Consultant

Paula R. Doerzbacher is working with Barvanna to execute effective communication strategies on the network. Paula creates high-impact, targeted messaging that achieve results for Barvanna partners. Doerzbacher is also an engaging trainer and adjunct professor who teaches, coaches, and empowers companies and individuals to articulate value in business writing, presentations, social media and organizational development.

Chris O’Connell

Visual Design

Based in Los Angeles, CA, O’Connell is the technical advisor to Barvanna, where he provides expertise on visual development and design, drawn from his years of experience in film animation with Disney, plus video games, TV commercials, and graphic arts.

Our Story

The Beginning

Barvanna was created by sports television executives Sean Riley and Duvon Lawrence. In 2019 Riley was living in Trinidad, managing the Caribbean’s highest rated sports channel, Flow Sports when he was approached by a major alcohol distributor who was looking for a way to digitize the huge volume of monthly printed promotional banners, posters and other collateral they provide to 1,000 local bars throughout Trinidad and Tobago.

 

The Evolution

At first local bar owners rejected the concept of purely digital advertising inside their establishments. After consulting several proprietors about their needs, Riley and Lawrence created a better solution: a fun, engaging TV network for bars designed to entertain guests while giving bar owners and alcohol distributors the ability to display their own nightly drink specials, menu items and other promotions. The end result is Barvanna Network which delivers a combination of sports trivia, bar games, sports video and personalized bar-specific content.