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Team Information

Here is a list of the team members who were there from the start, as well as non-executive directors and consultants.

Name
Position
Information
 
Demis Hassabis
Company Director, Head Programmer, Designer
Worked alongside Peter Molyneux over a six year period at both Bullfrog and Lionhead. Co-created multi-million selling Theme Park and also worked on the very early stages of Black & White.

After teaching himself how to play chess at the age of four, he became a chess Master at twelve and was the highest ranked player of his age in the world. He also plays many other games to an accomplished level including Shogi, Go, and Diplomacy. He has won over 20 medals in total at the 1998, 1999 and 2000 Mind Sports Olympiads, including the prestigious overall title, the Pentamind World Championship on all three occasions. For these achievements Demis was awarded the title of International Grand Master.

 
 

 
 
Adrian Bolton
COO and Producer
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Project managed SKUs to retail including the BAFTA award winning Sydney 2000 and the Official UEFA Champions League. Has managed to rack up 136 hours during one particular week and seems to order taxis that rarely ever arrive on time….

 
 

 
 
Dave Silver
Lead Programmer, AI Expert
-----

His Finals' average of 93% is the highest in the history of Cambridge Computer Science. At Elixir since the beginning.

 
 

 
 
Joe McDonagh
Designer and PR Manager
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Came from Wireplay. At Elixir since the beginning. Interests include origami and boxing. At UbiSoft he worked on several hit games for console and PC including "Street Racer" and "Pod".

 
 

 
 
Tim Clarke
Head of R & D
-----

Holds a Masters Degree in Maths and Theoretical Physics from Cambridge University.

He wrote the famous Mars Demo in 1993. As a result was headhunted by NASA, and spent a summer working in Washington D.C. on the real time rendering of planet terrain Single-handedly wrote a successful 3D spaceship shoot-em-up game for Apogee Software, Texas, in under a year, inspiring Apogee to release the game Terminal Velocity. At Elixir since the beginning.

 
 

 
 
James Doornbos
Lead AI Programmer
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Jamie has had an outstanding career in games development, culminating in his last position at Maxis where he worked for 7 years alongside Will Wright as his right hand programmer on the best selling game of all time - The Sims.

In his role as Simulation Engineer, Jamie was responsible for writing the simulation that underpins the entire game - including the massively acclaimed 'simantics' object-centric AI system. He is, unquestionably, one of the games industry's leading experts on artificial intelligence.

 
 

 
 
Wayne Kresil
Lead Artist
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Spawn, football, and cars, enough said. Worked on the pioneering internet game, Iron Wolves and the interactive Rocky Horror Show. At Elixir since the beginning.

 
 

 
 
Colin Seaman
Art Manager
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Previously worked at Psygnosis. Always laughing. Owns a blue Peter Badge (very creditable) and was on the Tony Hart show. Has a magazine collection that took 12 hours to burn. Apparently……

 
 

 
 
Jim McDonagh
Associate Producer
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Ex-producer for Ubisoft Entertainment responsible external UK based titles such as Revolution Softwares, In Cold Blood (PC) and El Dorado:The road to Gold and Glory, Caffeine Studios Football World Manager 98, and 2000. Not to be confused with his younger brother Joe.

 
 

 
 
Dave Norwood
Non executive director
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David Norwood is the Chief Executive of Beeson Gregory, the stockbroking and corporate finance house that achieved a stock exchange listing in April 2000. He read modern history at Keble College, Oxford, and worked for Duncan Lawrie as a fund manager for four years. A former investment analyst, he started his career at Bankers Trust, then joined Williams de Broe before moving into consultancy. He founded IndexIT in July 1999, selling it last March to Beeson Gregory. David is a regular contributor to the Telegraph and the Economist, is an international chess grand master and a former captain of the English chess team.

 
 

 
 
Nick Gibson
Non executive director
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Nick Gibson is the senior games and Internet analyst at Durlacher Research, the research and consulting arm of investment bank, Durlacher Corporation. He acts as an industry and business development advisor to Elixir Studios.

 
 

 
 
Stewart Block
Non executive director
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Stewart Block acts as business development advisor to Elixir Studios. He has over 20 years of business experience. During a fifteen-year tenure at British Technology Group he was a member of the management team responsible for the 1992 MBO and the 1995 Stock Exchange flotation. Currently a Director of IP Business Consultants, he specialises in commercialising intellectual property, mainly centred on Cambridge University.

 
 

 

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