Attensity Group Management Team

Ian Bonner

President and Chief Executive Officer, Attensity Group

Ian serves as President and Chief Executive Officer for Attensity Group.  In a career spanning over 28 years, Ian has built a strong reputation for driving corporate value and operational growth. After founding and ultimately selling many technology companies, Ian led the independent channel infrastructure and organization for IBM. Over the next 11 years, Ian became IBM’s most visible promoter of software partner initiatives in his roles as Vice President and then General Manager of Partner Programs, overseeing channel revenue growth from $200 million to over $3 billion. He was also appointed to the IBM Senior Management Group in 1998. Since leaving IBM in 2001, he has been CEO of such high-growth companies as Terraspring Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Sistina Software(acquired by Redhat Software), Xerox PARC spin-off Inxight Software (which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Business Objects in 2007 and is now owned by SAP), and most recently, ColdSpark, a leading provider of enterprise solutions and platforms of email processing and delivery.

Ian holds both a Bachelor of Commerce and a Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management from the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) and he is a graduate of the IBM Executive Management Program at the Indiana Graduate School of Business.

Ian Hersey

Global Chief Technology Officer and EVP, Products, Attensity Group

To his role as Attensity Group’s global CTO and head of products, Ian brings more than 20 years of experience delivering innovative research technology into the commercial mainstream. Ian is responsible for providing the technical and strategic product vision to complement the company’s business vision, setting the tone and direction for Attensity’s Group technologies and business applications and driving Attensity’s global engineering organization. Prior to Attensity Group, Ian was vice president of technology development and strategy at Business Objects, an SAP company. He came to Business Objects through its acquisition of Inxight Software. As co-founder of Inxight, Ian led the definition and development of what became the industry's broadest text analysis platform; he also held senior product management and engineering management roles at Logos Corporation and Inso Corporation. Ian began his commercial career at IBM as a computational linguist.

Ian received his bachelor's degree from Rice University, with graduate study at University of California, Berkeley, and at universities in Ghent and Leuven, Belgium. Ian is fluent in German, and he is an avid Ironman and competing member of the Team Sheeper triathlon team.

David L. Bean, PhD

Chief Technology Officer, Semantic Technologies, Attensity Group

In his role as CTO of Natural Language Processing, David is focused on the development of technologies that better manage and deliver superior natural language processing applications. David is the author/recipient of six patents and has over sixteen pending software patents. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the University of Utah's Linguistics Department, where he teaches applied computational linguistics. David is a sought-after guest lecturer to a wide range of commercial and academic groups. He is also passionate about lecturing at the elementary school level to introduce young minds to astronomy, physics and other cool science things. Prior to Attensity, David was an IS director and an independent consultant in the healthcare industry.

David’s education includes a BA in French and Arabic from the University of Utah, an MS in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Utah. His PhD work focused on natural language processing issues including partial parsing, thematic role assignment, automated extraction and anaphora resolution. He has additional interest and has done graduate study in medical informatics, embedded systems, databases and object oriented languages – as well as a healthy fascination with antique tractors.

Mario Lenz, PhD

Chief Technology Officer, Applications, Attensity Group

Mario is focused on delivering next-generation business applications that generate business value from unstructured data. During his studies, Mario proactively participated in numerous industrial cooperation projects that delivered solutions to large enterprises.  In 1999, Mario became Director of Development at tec:inno, a knowledge management company. After the successful integration of tec:inno into empolis and having served in several management positions leading Product Development Mario was appointed CTO and became a member of the empolis management board in 2006.

Mario earned his PhD in Computer Sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin, majoring in Knowledge Management with a minor in Psychology. He is fluent in English and German and has a penchant for fast BMW motorcycles and alpine skiing.

Stefan Wess, PhD

General Manager, EMEA, Attensity Group

In his role as General Manager, Stefan leads the company’s operations in EMEA. He is a recognized high technology industry veteran with multinational front-line technology and scientific leadership experience. Stefan has written and published numerous books and articles in IT journals on Artificial Intelligence and he has organized several international AI conferences.

His professional career includes roles as the technical manager of the U.S. CRM software company Inference (acquired by eGain), where he directed international CRM projects for Global 2000 organizations. He was executive board member at tecmath AG and also led Kaiserlautern-based tec:inno as CEO, directing the  knowledge management solutions company’s rapid and profitable growth. After tec:inno’s acquisition by Empolis, Stefan became a member of the Empolis executive board and was appointed as the company’s CEO in 2005. He is fluent in English and German and is conversant in French.

Craig D. Norris

Managing Director, Attensity Government Systems, Attensity Group

Craig leads company operations in the Americas. He is a high technology industry veteran with over 20 years of front line experience leading profitable organizations in the areas of strategy, operations and sales. He has served as chairman, CEO or COO of both private and public organizations, including Ion Systems, Workexchange Technologies and Connectinc.com. Craig has successfully navigated start-ups and early stage companies to IPO's and other significant funding events, and has been continuously engaged with the completion of major sales to Fortune 500 organizations. Craig also brings to Attensity a strong management consulting and systems integration background, having been a regional vice president for leading international consulting firm CAP Gemini America.

Craig graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BA degree in economics from Macalester College, St. Paul, MN and holds an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford, NJ.

Michelle de Haaff

Chief Marketing Officer, Attensity Group

Michelle leads Attensity’s Marketing and Product Management efforts globally.  She has led marketing and product management for both large and small technology and services companies.  Michelle came to Attensity from Adspace Networks, where as vice president of marketing and product management she developed programs that helped to more than double the company's revenue in just six months. Michelle oversaw product management and sales to consumer enterprises at Blue Martini Software where she led the development of Blue Martini’s eCommerce, Content Management, Campaign Management and Business Intelligence applications. Previously, Michelle led the eCommerce and database marketing teams at Levi Strauss & Company and worked at Ernst & Young as a CRM practice manager serving large enterprise clients.

Michelle graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a B.S. degree in management operations and marketing. She holds an M.S. degree in integrated marketing from Northwestern University. Michelle spends her free time with her three very active sons.

Guido Polko

Chief Strategy and Integration Officer, Attensity Group

To his role as Attensity Group’s Chief Strategy and Integration Officer, Guido brings more than 20 years of leadership and achievements as an entrepreneur, sales, and marketing executive in developing high tech ventures and markets in Europe, Asia and the U.S. Guido oversees operations in all regions. Prior to Attensity Group, Guido founded and led both Living-e, Inc. and Living-e AG. His past roles include numerous board member seats and managing director positions at privately held management consulting and venture capital investment firms in Germany. From 1994 to 1999, Guido was executive director of GfK Asia, the Asia arm of the market research services giant GfK AG (GFK), where he successfully restructured operations, developed new services, and launched the mainland China business. He started his business career at Proctor & Gamble where he quickly climbed the managerial rungs within the financial and sales areas.

He holds a MBA from the University of Duisburg-Essen and studied Business Administration and Economics at the University of Toronto. In his spare time, Guido loves to sail in the Bay Area.

Dr. Peter Tepasse

Office of the CFO Europe, Attensity Group

Peter leads our financial management, and planning activities in Europe.  Until February 2009, Peter was responsible for financial planning, record keeping, as well as financial reporting for Living-e AG. As member of the board of directors, Peter has a long-standing track-record in financial management and mergers and acquisitions. During his time at Living-e AG Peter managed the acquisition of Xtramind Technologies GmbH, one of the leading providers of intelligent e-Mail-Response-Management-Systems in Europe. Prior to Living-e, he worked for the SNL Accounting department of the Deutsche Post AG, Medialab AG and was the head of financial accounting for the arf Gesellschaft Organisationsberatung mbH in Nuremberg.

Peter holds a degree in Business Administration and is a certified accountant and certified controller.

Mike Compton

Office of the CFO Americas, Attensity Group

Mike leads our financial management, planning, administrative, and accounting activities in the Americas. He has more than 30 years of finance and accounting experience across a broad cross-section of industries. Prior to Attensity Group, Mike was a consultant and served as Interim CFO of BakBone Software in San Diego where he helped lead the financial team through a complex restatement and SEC filing process and worked on installing new systems and processes strengthening internal controls. Previously, Mike was Vice President of Finance and Administration for Inxight Software, Inc. which was acquired by Business Objects.  At Inxight, he helped lead the organization through a recapitalization of the business in 2005 and achieving significant cost improvements during a rapid revenue growth period. A respected manager and executive, Mike has held senior finance and management positions with Terraspring (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Cooke Pharma (acquired by United Therapeutics), Siemens Telegyr Systems, CBR, and ITT.  Mike has also worked with entrepreneurs that founded two start-up technology companies in homeland and network security and provided consultative services in mergers and acquisitions for three acquisitions completed by Keynote Systems.

Mike is a licensed CPA and a graduate of the University of Central Florida, in Orlando. He is a member of the Florida Institute of CPAs, California Society of CPAs and the Institute of Management Accountants.

Lisa Feher

Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Attensity Group

Lisa runs Human Resources worldwide for Attensity Group. She is a seasoned Human Resources executive with over 12 years of organizational development, management and leadership experience.  Lisa comes to Attensity from Inxight Software where she was Vice President of Human Resources.  Previously, she led numerous U.S. start-ups through rapid growth by creating strong and nimble organizations, including, most notably, Sistina Software which was acquired by Red Hat in 2003 and Provation Medical, which became a Wolters Kluwer company.  Lisa started her career as a consultant with Hertel & Murray, a premier boutique consulting firm delivering Human Resources and Organizational Development consulting to multi-national high-tech and manufacturing companies.

Lisa received a B.A. in psychology from St. Norbert College and an MS in Management and Organizational Behavior from Silver Lake College. She is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources.