Management Team
Francis Charig, Chief Executive and Co-founder
Francis, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer for 2006, is the Chief Executive and founder of Antix. During his career he has raised more than $70m in capital investment, is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalist and is the former Chairman of the Open Contents Platform Association, headquartered in Tokyo.
Prior to forming Antix, Francis was the co-founder, Chairman & Chief Executive of Tao Group, the pioneer of binary portable, high performance multimedia software. Francis has consulted to numerous blue chips including Dow Jones and IBM and was also the Head of the Trading Systems Business Unit at the London Stock Exchange successfully launching and deploying the world's first digital front office trading system.
Francis began his career as a software engineer at Hoskyns (now Cap Gemini) after completing a degree in Political Science.
Francis is also a board director of Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon plc, a Japan-focused investment fund.
Chris Hinsley, Director of Technology
Chris was one of the world's leading engineers at the birth of the video games industry with numerous successful games titles such as Pyjamarama, Onslaught and Everyone's a Wally, and was the recipient of major games industry awards.
He conceived of the unique ideas that led to the formation of Tao Group with Francis Charig; Tao’s products were embedded into more than 30 million devices including phones, PCs and phones.
Chris is a key member of the engineering team at Antix and has an innate understanding of multimedia technologies and the games market based on over 25 years of experience.
Mike Foss, Chief Operating Officer
Prior to being appointed as Antix’s COO, Mike had a similar role at Tao Group. All engineering development and IT management are under his control and he has direct responsibility for coordinating third party/partner development programs. He has over 30 years of Design and Technical Management experience.
Mike headed the Systems Design Group at Hitachi Micro Systems Europe, leading a group of 70 engineers driving Microcontroller Tools development and manufacturing. He had a major influence and impact on Hitachi's worldwide strategic directions, working closely with the Japanese and U.S. headquarters.
He is an Honors graduate from the University of Bradford.
Andrew Spriggs, Chief Financial Officer
Andrew oversees all financial and operational management of the company.
Prior to Antix he worked for Tao Group as CFO for some years which followed work at Motorola as European Financial Reporting Manager for the mobile phone sector, expanding that role to encompass all aspects of financial planning and analysis for that sector, and becoming European controller for the sector’s advertising and marketing function and budget. Always involved in business development projects, he became EMEA Strategy & Business Development Controller, working on strategy formulation, investment process and projects involving the delivery of compelling entertainment content to mobile devices.
Prior to Motorola, Andrew worked at Arjo Wiggins Appleton plc, the Anglo-French paper company where he restructured the central accounting department, installed new accounting systems, and culminated his stay at AWA by working as project manager on a major merger deal.
He holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Durham University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in 1990, working in PW’s London and Paris offices.
Shelly Askew, Legal Counsel and Company Secretary.
Shelly reports directly to the CEO and the Board, responsible for all IP and contract-related activity, company secretarial matters, M&A and company financing transactions.
Shelly worked for Tao Group as its Legal Counsel and Company Secretary for more than six years, prior to which she was at an NYSE-listed company involved in television direct marketing and e-commerce as Vice President, Head of Legal Affairs, and Company Secretary. At Tao Shelly developed the legal team and was responsible for advising on all legal matters relating to the business.
Shelly began her career in 1989 at a leading media & IT law firm, Olswang. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1991, she worked in the corporate/commercial department on M&A, MBOs, flotations and public offerings, joint ventures, shareholder agreements, capital restructurings, private equity and other financings, agency and distributions.
Shelly graduated from Warwick University with a law degree.
Adrian Dawson, Engineering Director
Adrian is responsible for technical development within Antix. He oversees product planning and architecture, and co-ordinates all aspects of the product development lifecycle.
He spent 17 years at ICL (now part of Fujitsu) where he worked on a variety of mainframe, PC and telecommunications engineering projects before spending 10 years at Tao Group in various senior engineering roles, his last year as Engineering Development Director.
Adrian has a BSC in Computing and Maths from the University of Manchester.
Peter Davidson, Developer Program Director
Peter leads Antix’s Developer Program. He has over 20 years experience in Information and Communications Technology engineering, sales, software development and customer support services.
Peter worked at Tao Group as Engineering Sales Director, Prior to that he was at Arrow in Technical Sales and Marketing of both Silicon and Sub-assembly electronics.
Before Arrow, he worked in technical sales for a small high tech start up and spent several years in the Ministry of Defense where he was responsible for managing internal and external avionics research programs.
Peter has a Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Leeds.
Neil Curtis, Marketing Director
Neil has 25 years experience in technology marketing, business development and general management.
He has held a variety of senior marketing and management positions implementing communications strategies and frameworks for internal and external audiences, helping companies successfully translate technical innovation and features into business solutions and benefits and creating and implementing joint business development plans forming relationships at all levels between partner companies.
As Antix's Marketing Director, Neil is responsible for formulating, directing and implementing the company's marketing strategy and associated plans including the strategic direction of all marketing activity on the company's products and services.
Prior to joining Antix, he was Marketing Director at Tao Group, Group Head of Marketing at ITM Group and Marketing Director, EMEA, at NCR WWCS. He has held management positions at Computervision and Prime Computer.
Neil is a member of the Institute of Marketing, the Institute of Directors and Cranfield Alumni.
Weiyee In, Business Development Director
Wei, an American citizen who is based in Taipei drives the commercial activities across Asia as well as providing direct input to the CEO on strategy.
Wei worked with Tao Group for one year before joining Antix having spent some years publishing out of both New York and across Asia as the Global Technologist in equity research at UBS. He then became Head of Research and Global Tech Strategist at Terra Nova.
Prior to joining Wall Street he was responsible for the business operations for BYTE Magazine in Asia-Pacific at McGraw-Hill and was then managing director of MSI Consulting.
Wei has advised many of the world's leading technology corporations, and built a unique network of some of the industry's most significant decision makers and influencers. He has been a frequent speaker and panel Chair in industry conferences globally, including Bluetooth Congress, WLAN, Wireless Java™, Semiconductors, among others.
Wei has a degree in Political Science, East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.
