CLOUDARMY - Key Persons
Alex is Chief Operating Officer, working with our clients in tandem with CloudArmy's internal teams to align product and service offerings with our customer expectations. Alex is responsible for ensuring the quality and stability of our products and systems.
Alex has over 25 years of experience managing teams in the areas of Release Management, Quality Assurance, Information Technology, and Network Architecture and Security. He has been successful in ensuring the availability of large scale online systems supporting tens of thousands of concurrent users while maintaining 99.99% uptime.
Alex has broad experience supporting clients across a variety of industries and products including Interactive Online Gaming, Internet Security/Acceleration appliances and software products, and School District Management/Administration. A lover of puzzles and gaming from a young age, Alex has continued on the path of applying his highly analytical mindset to effective problem solving, technical involvement, and strategic planning. During his time off, Alex can be found listening to music, surrounded by his massive collection of meticulously cataloged and graded vinyl records (over 15,000) and/or working on restoring vintage 1980's video arcade machines.
Job Titles:
- Client Project and Support Manager
Job Titles:
- VP, Operations and Customer Experience
Job Titles:
- Chief Science Officer
- Cloud Army 's Chief Science Officer
- Editor for the Neuromarketing Science
Darren is Cloud Army's Chief Science Officer, ensuring client research questions are matched to the right test designs to maintain scientific integrity. Additionally, he is the architect of a range of core test applications and designs available on the Reactor platform.
As one of the original pioneers of the Consumer Neuroscience industry, Darren has spent the last 20 years helping to found several companies in this sector, designing and executing many hundreds of projects globally for a large variety of industries and brands. Starting with developing tests using EEG (electroencephalography) and biometrics in the late 1990s, he has also worked with multiple other neuroscience methodologies including eye-tracking, facial action coding, and implicit response methods.
For the last several years, Darren has been an editor for the Neuromarketing Science and Business Association's yearbook and has published a number of books, including 'Decoding the Irrational Consumer' (an overview of methods used in consumer neuroscience) and 'Neuro Design' (a book about the science of how we perceive and respond to visual designs). He has degrees in Psychology and Psychological Research Methods.
Job Titles:
- Cloud Army 's Lead Software Developer
- Lead Software Developer
Davey is Cloud Army's Lead Software Developer, working with the development, quality assurance, and Science teams to control and write the code for each new iteration of our Reactor software platform. Davey believes that he can use his programming powers to transform the Cloud Army team's vision into user-friendly features and an accessible interface for our clients.
Davey is a self-taught developer with a diverse background and myriad interests, working in many previous positions including bar manager, construction builder, photographer, videographer, 3D modeler, and marketer before finding his love of software development.
In his spare time he is always working on health/ technological optimization including his YouTube channel for helping increase focus, and calisthenics. Additionally, he has worked to increase collaboration between siloed tech Meetup groups in Vancouver to grow the tech community there. He worked as an organizer for the Google Developer Group Cloud Vancouver and the Women Techmakers Meetup groups, focusing on increasing diversity & inclusion in technology and empowering people of all backgrounds and education levels to create using their imagination. In the rare case he is able to relax, he takes comfort in watching videos on any of the evolving Sciences or sitting in a place with a good view and his notebook.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Associate Professor of Psychology and Affiliate With the Core for Neuroethics
- Member of Cloud Army 's Advisory Board
- VP of Product
Dr. Andrew Baron is a member of Cloud Army's advisory board, leveraging his expertise in neuroscience to provide strategic advice to help drive the business forward. Dr. Baron also works directly with Cloud Army clients on their research projects to design impactful studies and deliver meaningful insights.
Additionally, Dr. Baron is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Affiliate with the Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia. He received his PhD in Psychology from Harvard University where his research began focussing on establishing best practices for measuring implicit cognition. Since joining the faculty at UBC he has published extensively on how implicit associations form and change across the lifespan, founding and directing two research labs. Dr. Baron's research also focus on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion with a particular focus on reducing barriers for women to pursue careers in STEM fields (see http://successinstem.ca). He has received a Killam Research Prize and has been recognized as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science for his research accomplishments. Dr. Baron has over 12 years of experience in applying best-in-class principles of cognitive science to marketing research as the Chief Neuroscience Officer at Olson Zaltman. At OZ, he has overseen all quantitative research on consumers' unconscious thinking with a particular emphasis on brand positioning and concept testing globably across many sectors including CPGs, financial, and healthcare. Dr. Baron's particular passion with marketing research is ensuring and promoting best-in-class practices that are transparent in order to bring the same rigor and confidence in the science from academia to our industry. For more on this, you can read a recent paper.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of Cloud Army 's Advisory Board
Dr. Brendan Murray is a member of Cloud Army's advisory board, as well as co-founder and Chief Science Officer of DIRT. Brendan holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Boston College, and has been a thought leader in the consumer neuroscience industry for nearly a decade. He has conducted transformative research with businesses across the industry spectrum, from advertising and package design to aerospace, gaming, and health care. He has worked regularly with global Fortune 500 brands, applying neuroscientific principles in carefully-considered ways to help answer those brands' most challenging business questions.
Above all, Brendan is passionate about teaching, and finds the most joy in his work when he is explaining human cognition to others. Apart from his client work, he is a frequent industry and university lecturer. He has spoken regularly at the Neuromarketing World Forum and Advertising Research Foundation, and has delivered lectures at Darden, Stern, Rutgers, and many other universities. His work has been featured in Forbes, Engadget, and MediaVillage, and he has been a contributing author on several university textbooks (Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, Consumer Neuroscience, and The New Marketing).
Brendan currently lives in southern New Jersey with his wife (an assistant professor at Temple University) and daughter. He is an avid cook and snowboarder, although he is dramatically more competent in the kitchen than on the mountains.
Michael E. Smith is a neuroscientist and consumer insights professional, with over three decades of basic and applied research experience. He serves as a scientific and business advisor to Cloud Army and helps clients incorporate brain-based consumer insights into their marketing strategies and tactics.
Previously Michael served as VP of Consumer Neuroscience at the market leading research firm Nielsen; President of CorTechs Labs, an innovator in creating AI-based quantitative brain imaging tools for precision medicine; Program Director for Cognitive Neuroscience at the US NSF; and Principal Neuroscientist at SAM Technology, a groundbreaking R&D organization focused on applied neuroscience R&D. He has also worked in research and teaching positions in a variety of academic settings.
Michael earned a PhD with a focus on the neuroscience of cognition from UCLA and an MBA with a focus on marketing from the University of California, Berkeley. He currently lives in La Jolla, California with a professorial spouse and a teenage son.
Hugo is Chief Financial Officer at CloudArmy, based in London. Joining the company at a very exciting time in its evolution, his role is to ensure that CloudArmy moves smoothly into the next phase of its rapid growth.
Hugo started his career in investment banking, working first in corporate finance and then structuring and underwriting traded debt products for 10 years. He then spent 16 years at a private equity firm, investing in sectors ranging from power generation to marketing agencies. In recent years he has co-developed an energy infrastructure start-up and advised a number of businesses in the marketing sector.
Kent is an entrepreneur, software architect, and technology innovator. As CEO, he leads CloudArmy's executive team by providing governance and vision for our employees, customers, and investors. Kent is a key member of the board of directors, driving strategic direction and ensuring company values are instilled at all levels. In addition to his leadership role, he also works as a software developer, architect, and innovator, building the company's flagship product Reactor.
Kent trusts in authenticity and transparency as the keys to long term discovery and success. He believes we are in a field with a lot to learn, and many different ways to grow and enhance value for clients, where the winners in our market will have the vision to adapt to the changing world and an understanding of how humans behave in it.
Kent has founded and sold three previous startups (Eclipse Software, IronPoint, and Strangeloop Networks). He began computing at age 9 and has over 35 years of professional software development experience. He is the principal author on 10 patents in the area of software and computer networking. He leverages his industry expertise to speak on technology, software programming and leadership. Kent holds a B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Calgary.
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer
- CTO of Cloud Army
Shawn Bissell is CTO of Cloud Army, working with the software development, product, and operations teams to design and deliver best-in-class cloud based solutions, including the Cloud Army Reactor platform.
Shawn brings over 20 years of experience as a senior software developer and architect in the areas of web applications, web performance, front end optimization, enterprise software and network appliances. He believes that innovations in artificial intelligence and data science technologies in the next few years will transform the market research industry as we know it today.
Shawn is a co-author of 3 patents related to automated web performance and acceleration. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University.
Thom Noble - Chief Strategy Officer, President
Job Titles:
- Chief Strategy Officer
- President
Thom's career in international brand marketing and business consultancy has spanned senior roles in CPG, Media, Entertainment, Leisure & Technology. He's worked at GSK, Diageo and Walt Disney Corp. and advised many others including Universal Studios, Unilever, PepsiCo, & Tesco.
As a pioneer in the emerging neuromarketing field, he is credited with co-launching the world's first dedicated neuro-brand consultancy almost 20 years ago. Since then, through a series of pace-setting neuro-ventures, he has pivoted from lab-based (NeuroCo, NeuroFocus, NielsenNeuro) into online, globally-scalable neuro-led businesses. Collaborating with top neuroscientists, technologists, researchers & marketers around the globe, he has centred on developing new best-practice methods of evaluating & optimizing marketing strategy & creativity.
Now with CloudArmy, he is focused on the next evolution of consumer neuroscience application - transforming it from an ad hoc intervention, into an embedded, everyday, test-n-learn capability for brand owners, researchers and creative agencies