Gideon Harbour, Chairman
Before founding Optial, Gideon Harbour ran the London operations of a private investment trust focusing on technology and real estate. Prior to 1995 he was with the consulting firm McKinsey & Co working in the Sydney and Atlanta offices. At McKinsey he worked with clients in finance, insurance and the steel industry, specializing in change management. Gideon holds an MA from Oxford in PPE (Economics).
Chris O’Brien, CEO & CTO
Joint founder of Optial, Chris has over 15 years experience in leading-edge system design and technology. After commencing his career in software development for retail and offshore banking with Lloyds Bank in London, he moved to Logica where he was involved in the design and definition of workflow applications. Optial is the result of Chris' research into extensible object relational architecture and highly flexible and scalable XML technology. Chris leads engineering and development of the system and sits on the Board of Optial.
Judith Graham, Strategic Advisor
Judith has twenty years experience in defining and delivering financial services software solutions. A co-founder of Optial in 2000, she now provides strategic advice, in the context of her non-executive management role on the board. Her previous roles include Product Director and COO at Optial. Prior to Optial, Judith led the SAP initiative to build profitability analysis and risk management solutions for banks and corporate treasurers in her role as Development Manager in the SAP headquarters near Heidelberg, Germany. During the 10 years Judith worked with SAP, she advised clients throughout Europe in finance, oil, energy and manufacturing.
Peter Baldwin, Sales Director
Peter has over twenty years experience in the provision of software solutions within the financial sector. A large proportion of that time was spent with the Thomson Corporation culminating in five years as a Strategic Accounts Director with the now Thomson Reuters group. In that role Peter managed the global relationships with some of the financial sector's largest institutions gaining an in depth knowledge of their complex software and data requirements. Since 2006 Peter has specialised in the area of Risk and Regulation and brings to Optial a clear understanding of the challenges faced by major institutions with ever increasing pressures to maintain the highest possible standards of Governance, Risk, and Compliance.
Advisory Board
The Optial Advisory Board is headed by Gideon Harbour, Optial’s founding chairman and includes industry experts Jeff Warren and Jean-Marc Blankert, both of whom have exceptional experience in the financial markets, working with large and small corporations in a variety of senior roles.
The board will act in an advisory capacity to help steer Optial’s strategy and growth with respect to corporate issues, new business and product direction, bringing new ideas and perspectives to the existing Optial executive team and enabling closer ties with the financial services industry.
Their individual and joint experience and viewpoint will be of particular value in driving forward the strategic growth of the Optial business.
Jeff Warren
Jeff is a Director of Close Brothers Venture Capital Trust and Oxford Bio Theraputics. He was previously Chief Executive of the Bank of Ireland operations in the UK, having joined Bristol and West Building Society in 1992 as Finance Director and subsequently being promoted to Chief Executive, after the Society de-mutualised and became a subsidiary of the Bank of Ireland Group. He previously worked for Forte (then Trusthouse Forte) for ten years, mainly as Group Treasurer, for UBS Phillips & Drew in Corporate Finance and for Mountleigh Group as Finance Director. He is a Certified Accountant, a graduate of Manchester University and an alumnus of the London Business School Senior Executive Programme.
Jean-Marc Blankert
Jean-Marc has held a number of senior positions in Capital Markets for various European Investment Banks, including Global Head of Debt Capital Markets Origination at Calyon, the Corporate and Investment Banking arm of Crédit Agricole and European Head of Financial Institutions Origination at Société Générale Corporate and Investment Bank. He has 15 years of experience in capital markets, advising both corporations and financial institutions on debt and capital raising. He has a Masters of Science in Business Economics from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.