The Executive Team

Neural Audio's executive team brings leadership in both commercial and technical aspects, which is the reason for the company's rapid expansion.

	Geir R. Skaaden, CEO Geir is an enthusiastic, creative, hands-on executive with a passion for how technology can enhance entertainment. Under his leadership, Neural Audio has gone from a start-up to a profitable growth company emerging as a leading provider of embedded audio software for digital media. Mr. Skaaden received a BA in Finance from the University of Oregon, a Business degree from the Norwegian School of Management and an MBA from the University of Washington. Prior to joining Neural Audio, Mr. Skaaden was a Venture Capital Partner serving emerging technology companies in the Seattle market with a focus on software and new media technologies. Mr. Skaaden is an active member and acknowledged public speaker at industry forums such as NAMM, AES, GDC and SMPTE.
	Mark R. Seigle, President & COO As President and Chief Operating Officer, Mark oversees Neural Audio's business development, marketing and day-to-day operations of the company. Since 2000, Seigle has played an instrumental role in the strategic planning, partner relations and direction of Neural Audio's market presence in DTV, Radio, Game, Auto and Mobile. Mr. Seigle received his BA in Marketing from the University of Puget Sound. His extensive background in sales and marketing includes positions in the Telecommunications, Internet, Entertainment, Publishing and Hospitality industries. Mr. Seigle is a member of AES, SMPTE, SBE, SCTE, NAMM, NRSC and ATSC.
	James D. "JJ" Johnston, Chief Scientist Mr. James D. "JJ" Johnston has been called the father of perceptual audio coding for his pioneering contributions that revolutionized digital audio. His accomplishments during a 26-year career at AT&T Bell Labs have, among other achievements, allowed for the distribution of digital music and digital audio over the Internet. As a technology leader at AT&T Research Labs, Florham Park, New Jersey, he invented a number of basic techniques used in perceptual audio coding, especially in MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) and MPEG-2 Part 7 and MPEG-4 Part 3 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). He also created the standards used for coding audio-visual information in movies, video and music formats in a digital compressed format. Mr. Johnston retired from AT&T Labs in 2002 and has worked as Audio Architect at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington since. His most recent accomplishment at Microsoft was designing and implementing all audio post processing functions for the Vista operating platform. Johnston is an IEEE Fellow, the recipient of the 2006 James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award and is a co-recipient of the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award. He also is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, has published more than 50 technical papers, and has been awarded more than 20 U.S. patents. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, both in electrical engineering.
	Robert Koester, CFO Mr. Koester has been with the Neural from initial formation and has been instrumental in molding the legal, financial, tax infrastructure and corporate framework. Mr. Koester has been a leading advocate of self-funding, controlled growth and strategic unified access to markets. Mr. Koester did his undergraduate business and accounting work at SUNY Cobleskill and University at Buffalo. He is a graduate of Insurance Institute of America, The American College, The American Institute for Property and Casualty Liability Underwriters Inc. and American Mutual Insurance Alliance. His graduate degrees include CPCU, CLU, ARM and CIC. Mr. Koester has experience on profit and non-profit board of directors. He currently is on the board for Neural Audio Corporation chairing the compensation committee and is the Corporate, CFO, and Secretary Treasure.
	Paul Hubert, Co-Founder, Chairman Paul Hubert is Neural Audio's resident Golden Ear and ensures that all Neural Audio solutions hold the highest standard with respect to audio quality. Prior to co-founding Neural Audio, Mr. Hubert owned and operated a major recording studio in Seattle and was the lead mastering, recording or mix engineer for hundreds of major and independent label recordings. Prior to his studio business, Mr. Hubert helped launch the Apple Programmers and Developers Association, an Apple Computer-sanctioned distribution arm for Apple's technical and developer products which later, Microsoft used as a model for the Microsoft Developer Network. Mr. Hubert is a world-class musician and an active member of AES and SMPTE.
	Robert Reams, Senior Fellow Emeritus Robert Reams is a 30-year veteran of the audio industry. He has developed over 35 products for various world-class companies and the user list of his developments reads like a Who's Who of the music industry. He is a published author and lecturer in the fields of transducers, human perception, neural processes, spectrum analysis and signal processing. His work has included ultrasound interferometry research for the medical industry, human emotional response to audio stimulus and computer controlled re-synthesis of modeled sounds for General Electric, American Airlines Training Corporation, Flight Safety and Motion Servo (ILM). His sound models were the first in the world to be rated "Phase II", the highest level of realism in that era. He is presently researching the application of neural nets to data compression. Robert has a BS/EE degree from University of Oklahoma. He is on the advisory board of ITTI and HTEI Institute and has lectured for The Audio Engineering Society since 1977. Mr. Reams is currently an active member of AES, IEEE, ASA, SAE and SMPTE.