Lucid Appoints Tom Meredith To Board Of Directors And Expands Executive Management Team Talent

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucid announced its newly formed executive team, headed by Tom Meredith as vice chairman of the board of directors. Five new members were also named to its executive management team, including Jim Welch, president, Paul Rector, chief operating officer, Stephen Garrison, chief commercial officer, Scott Shepherd, general counsel, and Robin Goad, vice president of marketing.

Meredith brings more than 30 years of extensive experience in corporate finance, manufacturing and operations. He also serves as the co-founder and chair of the board of managers of Meritage Capital, an investment management firm specializing in multimanager hedge funds, and the CEO of MFI Capital, the Meredith family's private investment arm. Previously, he served on Motorola Inc.'s board of directors and as acting executive vice president and chief financial officer. For nine years, he also held several leadership positions at Dell, including chief financial officer and executive vice president. Before joining Dell, he served as vice president and treasurer for Sun Microsystems and co-founder and general manager of Amdahl Capital Corp. As vice chairman, Meredith has already led a $10 million round of funding to scale Lucid's team.

"Meredith's extensive business strategy and financial intuition in the technology world is invaluable to Lucid," said Michael Stewart, founder and CEO of Lucid, "His experience is critical to building a global team to scale with the company's expected growth."

"I believe Lucid's artificial intelligence (AI) technology will transform companies trying to manage AI strategies and data across their entire organization," Meredith said. "I'm energized by the potential to disrupt virtually every industry sector for the better using the world's only true AI platform for the enterprise."

Executive Management Team Additions

Jim Welch, president, has extensive experience leading emerging and global businesses focused on enterprise solutions, software and services. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Motorola Solutions Enterprise Business. He has a proven ability to build world-class teams, establish sound business models and create environments that are centered around the voice of the customer. "We are working with customers who are familiar with quantitative and narrow AI solutions, but recognize there is more required to truly improve top-line and profit performance," Welch said. "We see an opportunity for bringing a true enterprise AI platform to the market as the equivalent, potentially bigger, to what Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and salesforce.com did in building to scale their enterprise solutions."

Paul Rector, chief operating officer, delivers experience spanning multiple global industries, including public sector, telecommunications, energy and healthcare. He has held executive positions at Fortune 500 companies and technology startups, concentrating in technology services, hardware and software. Most recently he was vice president of global business development for Silicon Valley based Apigee, the leading digital SaaS enterprise platform for creating and deploying APIs and apps. Previously, he held multiple executive roles at Dell including vice president of global business development, vice president of global sales and executive director of operations. "It's not very often you get to deliver technology with the potential to improve the quality of living worldwide now and for future generations," Rector said. "It's the right time, the right technology and the right team."

Stephen Garrison, chief commercial officer, brings strategic and operational experience from executive roles in the public and private sectors. At the White House, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy under President George W. Bush. At Bain and Company, he served clients across industries and launched a new regional industry practice. Later, he led a successful turnaround and strategic transaction as CEO and general partner of a full service acute hospital. Most recently, he served as CEO of Cooper Wellness Strategies, the corporate and technology affiliate of the world-renowned Cooper Clinic. "Clients want actionable output from an AI solution and our enterprise platform creates that real value across industries," Garrison said. "The platform does not only crunch clients' data with an algorithm, it truly understands the data enabling impact in a way differentiated from anything in the market today."

Scott Shepherd, general counsel, served as Texas assistant attorney general and as a USMC lieutenant colonel where he successfully led teams to execute a wide range of projects. During his legal career, Shepherd was primarily a litigator and handled bet-the-company commercial cases involving contract disputes and trade secrets. He is skilled at developing and leading high-performing teams and has led diverse groups ranging from seasoned attorneys to young Marines. This experience will serve him well as he counsels the company toward a bright future. "AI is a highly charged topic, and we understand that," Shepherd said. "We work closely with Lucid's Ethics Advisory Panel  to ensure ethical practices are instilled into the company's business practices."

Robin Goad, vice president of marketing, brings a wealth of experience building high-performing global teams to deliver products to market with immediate value. During her time at Dell, she created and managed strategic relationships with alliance partners, built global ecosystems and delivered inventive solutions. Most notably, she built a Global Cloud Ecosystem, bringing together infrastructure organizations, cloud providers, and a channel and sales strategy in India, Singapore and the U.S. "It was a simple decision to join Lucid," Goad said. "I'm ready to be a part of a company with the ability to disrupt every industry in the best way possible."

About LucidLucid is an artificial intelligence (AI) company based in Austin, Texas, with the privilege and responsibility of globally commercializing the Cyc intelligence platform. As the world's smartest AI for the enterprise, Cyc software provides insights along with rationale, enabling organizations to make informed business decisions. This AI has been licensed to more than 300 projects in government and commercial organizations. Ready to solve the world's most complex problems, Lucid is committed to discovering new ways for AI to improve lives.

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SOURCE Lucid