Imagineer was established in June 2001 by Allan Jaenicke and Dr Philip McLauchlan, but has since grown to include the following key figures in addition to its superb R&D team:
Bruce Smith - Non Executive Director and Investor
Bruce Smith, CBE, MA, DPhil, FREng, FIEE, is also Chairman of the Council of Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and System Engineering, a Knowledge Transfer Network and collaboration between industry and academia in applied mathematics and computing. Until a management buyout in 1997 he was the Chairman and majority shareholder of Smith System Engineering Limited. Before founding that company in 1971 he worked in design engineering for Decca Radar Limited after a period in the United States with Bellcomm Inc in the U.S. Space programme. Prior to that he occupied a physics research post at the University of Chicago, having previously obtained a first class honours degree and a doctorate in physics at Oxford University.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Institute of Physics. He is Chairman of the Rainbow Seed Fund, a Director of IP Group plc, and a member of the Board of the British Antarctic Survey. He is also a Director of a number of private companies and a Domus Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford.
Allan Jaenicke - CEO
Allan Jaenicke is a co-founder of Imagineer Systems. After a number of years as an IT entrepreneur in Denmark, Allan moved to the UK and obtained a BEng in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College in 2000 as a mature student. During the course he was awarded a bursary from the Nuffield Foundation to work with Dr Philip McLauchlan on a novel image mosaicing algorithm, which eventually led to the creation of Imagineer and the mokey product.
Through participation in local and international executive courses at institutions such as MIT's Sloan School of Management, he has augmented his practical experiences gained by starting businesses with the theoretical frameworks taught at top business schools. Allan is using these skills not only to ensure the success of Imagineer, but also to help foster entrepreneurship in the local business community.
John-Paul Smith - CTO
John-Paul MEng, ACGI, MIET, MIEEE completed an MEng in Information Systems Engineering at Imperial College, London in 2001, where he met Allan Jaenicke, and immediately joined Imagineer as a Software Engineer working on Mokey. His flexible technical skills and ability to communicate with both artists and technologists have seen him through a variety of roles in the company, including technical support, consultancy services and since 2004, Head of Engineering and then Chief Technology Officer. Through his work at Imagineer, John-Paul has developed a strong grasp of the post-production industry and its unique software demands.
David Miller - CFO
David is a graduate Chartered Accountant who has extensive experience in the smaller business sector and the associated 'growing pains' of expanding operations. David qualified with E&Y and then moved to Gillette where he became involved in warehousing and logistics, IT systems, customer service as well as corporate accounting, rising to Finance Controller in one of the UK divisions.
David then moved to the USA taking a 20% holding in a manufacturing company selling nationwide; this position involved significant exposure to sales and marketing, advertising and trade shows as well as streamlining the finance function. He later was instrumental in selling the company to Lincat plc. David then joined a Management buy-in buy-out team and purchased Homecraft Holdings Ltd in Surrey for £3.5m selling 3 years later to Smith & Nephew for £29m
David is currently self-employed and is focused on assisting growing companies exploit technology in a careful and controlled manner. Imagineer is currently his largest (and most exciting) client, and he continues to encourage the company to expand the excellent product range they have developed.