Leadership
Board of Directors and Management Team
Dr. Manuel Aparicio, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Dr. Manuel Aparicio sets Saffron’s corporate vision and fundamental company direction. With more than 25 years experience in the industrial development and commercialization of software solutions supporting real intelligence for intelligent agents, Aparicio has long been an evangelist for broad adoption of associative-memory technology, or what Saffron calls Experience Management solutions.
Prior to Saffron, Aparicio was Chief Scientist of the IBM Knowledge Management & Intelligent Agent Center. At IBM, he and Jim Fleming, co-founder and president of Saffron, worked on the development and commercialization of associative memory systems. Aparicio also served on the Board of Directors for The Agent Society and the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, an international standards body.
Aparicio holds several patents for memory-based technology, and has published numerous papers and journal articles. For example, he wrote “Concepts of Personalization” for The Practical Handbook of Internet Computing, and “Learning by Collaborative and Individual-based Recommendation Agents” in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the latter co-authored with with Dr. Dan Ariely, another Saffron board member. He co-edited Neural Networks for Knowledge Representation and Inference and is now writing Making Memories: Applying Neuron-inspired Associative Memories to National, Business, and Consumer Intelligence.
Aparicio formed Saffron in 1999, and currently serves as a technology advisor to Sociocast, LLC, a Web 3.0 social influence network company. A frequent speaker and guest lecturer, Aparicio is an alumnus of the University of South Florida, where he earned a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, with a focus on biologically based neuro-computing.
He lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Mr. Jim Fleming, President, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder
Jim Fleming leads Saffron’s research and development in Associative Memory Technology and is Chief Architect for the Saffron Natural Intelligence Platform, the company’s flagship product.
In 1999, Fleming and Aparicio left IBM to establish Saffron Technology and develop truly intelligent associative memory-based computing solutions. Fleming’s engineering leadership has resulted in Saffron becoming the world’s first commercially scalable associative memory analytic platform. In the Saffron engine, memories are implemented as coincident matrices for greater storage efficiency and processing speed, an approach wholly different from traditional tables or other semantic stores of explicit graphs. It is this patented method of data representation that enables Saffron’s associative memory-based solutions to achieve enterprise scale, the primary shortcoming of competing offerings.
Prior to founding Saffron Technology, Fleming worked for IBM on agent-based learning technologies and security products. He also helped pioneer LAN-based e-mail systems while working as a technical lead at Lotus/cc:Mail. His interest in agent-based software formed while at cc:Mail working on rule-based systems in the early 1990s. He also worked with Microsoft’s PowerPoint division on writing slide-imaging software.
Fleming is an alumnus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he earned his bachelor of science in computer science.
He makes his home in North Carolina.
Dr. John Poindexter, Member, Board of Directors
Dr. John M. Poindexter serves on the Board of Directors of Saffron Technology.
Now a private consultant, Dr. Poindexter most recently served as Director of the Information Awareness Office (IAO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The IAO developed and demonstrated information technologies and systems to counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption, national security warning and national security decision-making. In addition he initiated research on privacy protection. As Director, Dr. Poindexter established the new office, managed the technical and financial aspects of all assignments, and identified revolutionary new projects within the Office’s mission.
Prior to coming to DARPA, Dr. Poindexter served as Senior Vice President for SYNTEK Technologies, a small, high technology firm, where he worked with DARPA on Project Genoa. He also served on the Board of Directors for Digital Commerce Corp. In 1990, he co-founded TP Systems, Inc., serving as that firm’s chief designer and programmer until 1996. From 1993 to 1996, Dr. Poindexter was a consultant with Elkins Group, where he was Chairman of the Maritime Advisory Committee and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to that, he served as Senior Scientist with Presearch, Inc.
Dr. Poindexter served as National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor for President Reagan from 1983 to 1986, and as Military Assistant in the White House prior to that. He provided recommendations to the President on national security, foreign policy and defense policy issues. He was also responsible for improving command and management systems to support the President in national security crisis management, culminating in the creation of a new high-technology crisis management center.
Dr. Poindexter served 29 years active duty in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of Vice Admiral. While in the U.S. Navy, he specialized in training, new tactics and battle management procedures and pioneering uses of shipboard computers. He holds doctoral and master’s degrees in physics from the California Institute of Technology (1961, 1964). He received his bachelor’s degree in engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy (1958).
He lives in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Gayle Sheppard, Executive Chairman, Board of Directors
Ms. Sheppard leads Saffron’s overall business direction and market growth strategy.
With more than 25 years experience in enterprise software and services, Sheppard’s background combines international executive leadership at global companies, with hands-on involvement in emerging companies, boards and academia.
Prior to joining Saffron, Sheppard was Vice President and Managing Director at PeopleSoft, Inc., CEO and President with MarketMile, LLC (now Ketera, Inc.), Vice President, Worldwide Sales, J.D.Edwards & Company, President and General Manager, J.D. Edwards Japan, K.K., and Vice President Sales and Marketing, J.D.Edwards Asia Pacific Ltd.
Sheppard is a Research Fellow at UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, and serves on the Advisory Board of Sociocast, LLC, a Web 3.0 social influence network platform company. Additionally she is on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Life and Sciences Museum, and on the Board of Directors of RedOak Logic, LLC, a drug discovery analytics firm focused on the pharmaceutical industry.
Sheppard is graduate of the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, where she received a B.S., Business Administration.
She makes her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
