John O’Grady is the co-founder and CEO of Rise Local and Status26 Inc. He brings deep technical and operational expertise rooted in the same directional media and local advertising industry where Rise Local’s DNA was forged.

From 2005 to 2009, John served as Manager of Internet Operations at Idearc Media (formerly Verizon Superpages.com) in Dallas, where he managed daily operations for SuperPages.com’s customer service team. That experience—running operations inside one of the country’s largest local advertising platforms—gave John a systems-level understanding of how digital advertising infrastructure actually works at scale.

Like Mike, John saw the industry shift from print directories to digital search from the inside. Unlike most agency operators, he didn’t learn local advertising theory from a course—he lived it operationally at Verizon.

After Idearc, John served as Managing Director at RVglobalsoft, a provider of software solutions for web hosting companies, where he led corporate strategy, product development, team building, and online marketing. In 2015, he and Mike formalized their partnership under Status26 Inc., combining Mike’s sales and client strategy expertise with John’s technical and operational infrastructure knowledge.

At Rise Local, John architects the company’s technical backbone—from the Zonedock hosting and server infrastructure to custom WordPress development, site performance, and security. He ensures every client site is fast, secure, and built to scale.