Christopher J. Alden is an American entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of Red Herring, a magazine focused on the business of technology, and Rojo.com, an early web-based RSS reader.
Alden is Chairman and CEO of Six Apart, Ltd., the world's largest blogging company. In 2006 Six Apart acquired Rojo Networks, Inc., creator of an innovative RSS feed reading service, where Alden was co-founder and CEO.[1] Before Rojo, he was CEO of Red Herring Communications, Inc., publisher of Red Herring magazine — described by the Wall Street Journal as the “bible of Silicon Valley” — which he helped launch out of his house in 1993. Prior to that he founded Computer Guides, a consultancy, and taught computer studies at Crystal Springs Uplands school. Alden also has a background in real estate development and hotel management, having worked for Western Land Corporation and Woodside Hotels & Resorts.
In the non-profit realm, Alden is a board member and former board chair for Peninsula Bridge, which offers academic enrichment programs for low-income middle school students to motivate and prepare them for success in the next steps of their education. He is also a founding board member of SV2, the largest venture philanthropy partnership in the Bay Area, and is a founding board member of Lead21, an influential political organization formed by entrepreneurial business leaders, for entrepreneurial business leaders. Alden currently sits on the advisory board of the Pacific Research Institute's Center for Technology Studies and is a former board member of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Tuck Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship. He was awarded the Business Leadership Award from the Anderson School of Business at UCLA in 2000 and graduated with a degree in history from Dartmouth College in 1992.