Bio

I have 4 decades of innovation in digital technology, as a founder, and in a CTO or CEO role. I was born and raised in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and attended the Scarborough Boys High School and then the University of Kent at Canterbury where I studied British Constitution and Sociology and earned a BA (Hons) degree. I also have an honorary doctorate from the university. I have lived in Palo Alto, California since 1997. I am a technical person, but I am led by a product mentality and a people-first, technology second, point of view. Today I am a founder of SignalRank Corp. SignalRank is a technology company that uses data intelligence to form a partner network with top-performing managers. We have built a financial instrument which captures top decile value creation that is exclusive to the best early stage companies My 4 decades in technology (so far) have taught me to anticipate change. In the 1980s I pioneered the use of computer networks and databases to power the transformation of organizations like Warner Brothers Music and Mobil Oil. Clerkswell, the company I founded is still operating in the UK. In the 1990s I was founder and CTO of Europe's first Internet Service Provider for consumers - EasyNet. We did an IPO 15 months after formation. I also co-founded the world's first Internet Café - CYBERIA. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, I built RealNames as founder and CEO. We invented paid keywords on the Internet. Partnering with Google for “I’m Feeling Lucky” and Microsoft in their Internet Explorer browser. Our keyword system became the internet’s primary navigation system in many countries through partnerships with the Chinese Government, the Japanese domain name system, and 20 other nations all of whom needed to use non-latin characters for Internet Navigation. In 2001 VeriSign used our technology to launch the first multilingual domain name capability on the Internet. RealNames and Easynet were both valued at over $1 billion by investors during the late 1990s I have helped raise over $1 billion in my career and returned many times that to investors. In that time I have worked with Governments, including China, Japan, the UK, and the US Government, Investors, boards, partners, customers; advertisers and their agencies, bankers, and others. I have served on many boards, public and private, as a member or as Chairman. I have managed small teams of 2 or 3 and larger teams of hundreds. I have always focused on the point at which change is happening. Now I am thrilled to wake up every day and be involved in what comes next.