Composing the soundtrack to your life

People

• Team
• Advisory Board

• Philip Sheppard

  CEO and Co-Founder

  Philip is an award-winning film, television and video game composer, producer, virtuoso cellist, inventor, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member, and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.

  Philip has produced several large scale and high stakes projects including the 2008 Olympics Closing Ceremonies, all of the world’s national anthems for the 2012 Olympics, the Rugby World Cup, the Tour de France and the Montreal Grand Prix.

  Philip has composed more than 60 film, television, gaming and theatrical scores and has had 11 films premiere at The Sundance Film Festival in the last 10 years.

  Philip regularly performs with Odesza, Pretty Lights and Unkle and was a guest artist for music legends, such as, Scott Walker, Grace Jones, Jimmy Page, Jeff Buckley, David Bowie, Sia, Suzanne Vega and Jarvis Cocker.

  He regularly works as a creative consultant for large enterprises including, Google, EY, Deloitte, Kering, Kyu Collective, IDEO, and TTi Vanguard, specialising in innovative thinking and communication.

  Philip also invented and created, Compose Yourself, a game featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

• Tom Gruber

  CTO, VP of Design & Co-Founder

  Tom Gruber is a product designer and entrepreneur who uses AI technology to augment human intelligence. He was cofounder, CTO, and head of design for the team that created Siri, the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. When Siri was released by Apple in 2011, it was a watershed moment in the history of Artificial Intelligence, bringing AI to the mainstream user experience. Now an integral part of Apple’s products, Siri is used more than 2 billion times a week in over 30 countries around the world. At Apple for over 8 years, Tom led the Advanced Development Group that designed and prototyped new capabilities for Siri and related products that bring intelligence to the interface.

  Tom has also applied AI to support collective human intelligence. His research at Stanford in Artificial Intelligence, particularly ontology engineering, helped lay the groundwork for semantic information sharing and the Semantic Web. He invented HyperMail, the open-source software that turns email conversations into collective memories; HyperMail and its progeny have helped to create a dynamic conversational history of the Web. He was founder and CTO of Intraspect Software, which pioneered the space of Collaborative Knowledge Management — software that helps large communities of professionals contribute to and learn from a collective body of knowledge. He designed and built built RealTravel, a Collective Knowledge System where travelers from around the world share their experiences. Tom has served as an advisor to LinkedIn, SocialText, Mindjet, Radar Networks, Powerset, and the Internet Archive.

  He is passionate about underwater photography and ocean conservation.

• Chris Walch

  COO & Co-Founder

  Chris leads LifeScore in its short and long term strategy formation and execution, as well as, the day to day operations of LifeScore. 

  Chris led the LifeScore team on their debut project with Twitch for their live, original content, Emmy and Webby award-winning show Artificial Next. Chris also led the project team responsible for the world’s first prototype of a vehicle composing a musical score in real-time. 

  Prior to LifeScore, Chris was a senior associate at Latham & Watkins LLP where she represented a broad client base of Fortune 500 companies, private equity funds, investment banks and high net worth individuals in a wide range of matters, including, leveraged finance, commercial acquisitions and dispositions, cross-border transactions, development projects, mergers and acquisitions, project finance, corporate banking and secured high yield transactions.

  Chris is also Founder and Producer of Women of Winter, a grassroots community organization, whose mission is to inspire and empower women and girls in her local community of Big Sky, MT to get outside, to be courageous and to fully embrace and boldly pursue their dreams. In February 2020, Women of Winter provided 8 women with scholarships to an Avalanche Level 1 Course and provided tuition support to a female ski patroller to attend National Avalanche School. In February 2021, Women of Winter provided 6 BIPOC women with tuition and gear scholarships for a PSIA Level 1 Ski Instructor Course and Exam.

  Chris received her BA in Economics and Computer Science from New York University, her MS in Science and Technology Commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, her JD from St. John’s University School of Law and completed Stanford Business School’s Emerging COO: Driving Innovation and Operational Excellence Executive Education program.

• Mary Lockwood

  Chief Audio Officer

  Mary leads our Audio team and interactive audio efforts and is a French music supervisor and producer. She hails from a family of musicians and trained as a cellist at the Music Conservatory. She graduated from the Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Son (ISTS Paris) where she studied audiovisual sound.

  After several years in recording studios and music production companies, she joined Quantic Dream in 2012 where she supervised and integrated the music for Sony PlayStation’s award-winning game Beyond Two Souls . In 2015, she founded her own production and music supervision company, Mary Lockwood Productions, where she provides services for media, cinema, video games (including, Sony PlayStation’s award-winning Detroit Become Human, where she met and worked with our CEO and COO), radio fiction and broadcast (France Inter on Affaires Sensibles).

  She is passionate about interactive music, and is always looking for new talent in composers and music producers.

• Ian Drew

  Chairman & Co-Founder

  Ian is the Chairman of Tantalum Corp, a European leading Automotive and Software telematics company. Ian is a 25-year international tech veteran with ARM and Intel.

  He has experience in M+A, strategy and sales across the globe. Ian founded Trustonic, the world leader in security key injection and management in phones and IoT with revenues of $20m and a gold standard customer base.

  He also founded linaro.org, the world’s leading Linux kernel patch company with over 250 engineers and revenues in excess of $40m.

• Donald Tillman

  VP of Audio Technology

  Donald is a software engineer who has covered everything from microcode and compilers to AI and full-stack web technologies. Software development at Riverbed Technology, Marimba, Netscape, Apple, and Intel. Donald built the web-based user interface for Riverbed Technology’s flagship product lines.

  …And an electrical engineer at Symbolics Lisp Machines (from the MIT AI Lab) and Texas Instruments.  And a noted expert in analog and audio circuit design, electronic music, and synthesis.

  …And a musician; guitar, bass, keyboards, composition, minor album credits.

  Donald is passionate about product design, usability, user experience, and introducing new technologies in an embraceable way.

  Donald has worked for seven startups, of which three went public.

  Donald’s JavaScript simulation of Marvin Minsky’s “Muse” music composer has toured the Barbican Centre in London and the Groninger Forum in the Netherlands as part of “AI – More Than Human” exhibit.

• Nicholas Stern

  Chief Financial Officer

  Nicholas is the Chief Financial Officer at LifeScore and is responsible for planning, developing, and advising the Board on their strategic and corporate finance options in order to support the business in delivering its objectives, as well as overseeing the more routine day to day finance activities.

  Prior to joining LifeScore, Nicholas spent over 16 years working in global restructuring, corporate finance and lead advisory, having spent 8 years at PwC working with clients ranging from small privately owned businesses and high growth technology companies through to large listed corporates across the UK, Europe, Asia and the US. Whilst in consulting, Nicholas has always had a close link to the music and media industry advising both recording artists and also major labels on their finance, tax and M&A activities.

  During his time at PwC, Nicholas seconded into the private equity team of a leading European investment bank, where he was responsible for the hands-on turnaround and strategic development of a number of their investments in preparation for an exit. On leaving PwC, Nicholas now operates at a C-Suite level with a handful of companies and currently holds a number of non-executive directorships.

  Nicholas has a deep passion for music, having classically trained as a clarinettist and jazz saxophonist. He was awarded a music scholarship and also had the good fortune to be coached in jazz improvisation by Martin Hathaway, Professor of Jazz at Guildhall School of Music. On leaving education, and prior to qualifying as an accountant, Nicholas signed to an established record label as a songwriter and session musician on a development deal and performed as a session musician at a number of large-scale venues such as Wembley Arena.

• Liz Craig

  Operations Manager

  Liz supports the efforts of the LifeScore team as the Operations Manager by optimizing systems and processes, developing organizational efficiencies, and cultivating an environment for creativity to thrive.

  Prior to joining LifeScore’s team, Liz worked as a Mechanical Engineer optimizing manufacturing processes and executing large capital projects followed by a hiatus of a few years doing marketing for outdoor gear shops in the Pacific Northwest and Anchorage, Alaska.

  In addition to LifeScore’s Operations Manager, Liz is the Social Media Manager for Women of Winter, a grassroots organization whose mission is to inspire and empower women and girls to get outside, to be courageous and to fully embrace and boldly pursue their dreams. She is passionate about women having representation in snowsports and access to gear to enjoy and excel in her favorite sport, skiing.

  Liz received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
• Danny Ryan

  Lead Associate Composer and Audio Innovation Researcher

  Danny divides his time between composing new music for a wide variety of media, and roles as orchestrator and copyist on major productions such as Birds of Prey (2020), The Dark Crystal (2019), Yesterday (2019), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), and The Crown (s2&3).

  Danny is thrilled to compose and orchestrate new music for Lifescore, and to typeset and supply scores and parts for recording sessions. He is fascinated to explore the musical possibilities and demands of each individual application of the Lifescore platform, and engage extensive compositional craft to make the user’s musical experience even more extraordinary, emotive, and visceral.

  Danny studied contemporary composition at the Royal Northern College Music in Manchester, and then London’s Royal College of Music on the Christopher Hogwood Scholarship. He won the 2016 SFO Composition Competition, the RNCM Gold Medal for Composition, the 2014 Grindon Dearden Prize for composition, and 3rd place in the 2017 Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest.

• Stefano Civetta

  Lead Producer

  Stefano was previously an engineer at the iconic Abbey Road Studios for the past 6 years, where he engineered for major pop and classical acts including The Carpenters, The Beach Boys, Mary J Blige, One Direction, Earth Wind And Fire, Andrea Bocelliand the BBC Orchestra, Take That, Royal Blood, PJ Harvey, Alt-J, and Harry Styles’ live recording in Studio One. He supported the Apple Music Festival 2015, mixing for artists including Ellie Goulding, Leon Bridges, The Shires, Jack Garratt, Cam and Lion Babe. His lifelong dream came true when Giles Martin asked him to work together on The Beatles. He had the huge privilege to be credited on the 50th anniversary reissues of two of his favourite, and best selling, albums: The White Album and Abbey Road.

  Stefano’s interest in music began early when he started playing the piano at five years old and began listening intently to his parents’ records. He went on to play keyboards and accordion for several bands in Italy, where he grew up, eventually performing on both national and international stages as well as on radio and TV.

  Always intrigued by the art of recording, Stefano graduated with a degree in computer science for music from the University of Milan and then spent five years engineering at various recording studios in Italy, on different genres, from jazz to rock to classical.

  He moved to England in 2012 to study the famous Tonmeister course in music and sound recording at the University of Surrey. While there he worked in sound design and music supervision on various musical theatre projects in the UK, Sweden, Italy and South Korea. He also did his placement year at Abbey Road Studios, and since then has never looked back.

  Always a fan of a big orchestral film score, but born with a soul for rock ‘n’ roll, Stefano’s wide musical knowledge and score reading abilities brought him to assist on soundtrack engineering for some of the biggest Hollywood films including The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Martian, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Thor 3, Hacksaw Ridge, Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 and The Mummy, as well as international top selling video games Halo 5: Guardians, Assassin’s Creed Unity and the latest Final Fantasy. Over recent months he’s been working on huge projects such as Solo: A Star Wars Story, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald, Our Planet, Avengers: Endgame and Rocketman.

  Thanks to his positive attitude, musical creativity and friendly smile, Stefano has engineered sessions for Will.I.Am, Skrillex, OneRepublic and Ed Sheeran, as well as Nile Rodgers’ recent recordings with Bruno Mars, Anderson. Paak and several other artists. He’s equally comfortable working with a classical/orchestral ensemble, at the studios or on location, having engineered classical sessions ranging from a piano solo in Studio Three to a large scale orchestral ensemble at the King’s Chapel in Cambridge.

• Steve Blumenthal

  Associate Composer

  Steve writes music for a wide variety of projects for film, television, video games and the web. Most recently, he wrote the multi-award-winning score for Rob Husted’s comedy Lost Treasure of the Valley. He has also written music and done synth programming for Home Before Dark on Apple TV+; ad campaigns for Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Chevron, and T-Mobile, the video game The Night Is Long, and Novel Effect, an award-winning, interactive voice-recognition app. Steve has also guest lectured at Carnegie Mellon University and La Salle University.

  With LifeScore, Steve is excited to compose music for a platform that brings us into the 21st century. He believes this innovation is the logical next step in using music and technology to deepen the connection between music and our experiences.

  Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Duquesne University in Music Technology: Composition, and after working in Los Angeles, California for close to a decade, Steve is now based in Portland, Oregon.

• Carter Harrell

  Associate Composer

  Carter is a composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist for visual and interactive media. He was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya with a diverse range of musical and cultural influences. Starting with piano at an early age, he gradually added guitar, drums, bass and voice to his arsenal as well as a passion for recording and mixing.

  After auditioning for the piano, guitar, and voice programs at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, he was accepted into all three. He went on to combine them into a hybrid degree of Commercial Music and Composition, where he developed his pursuits in performance, composition, and audio production.

  On top of creating music for film and video games, Carter has also accumulated a growing Instagram following for a variety of short musical videos. He entertains his audience with found sound, sample flips, or even playing multiple instruments at once.

  Currently working out of his home studio in Nashville, Carter now contributes his music to the LifeScore platform. As both a composer and a hobbyist of tech and video games, his talents and passions fit right in with LifeScore’s unique vision for adaptive music.
• Nick Cecconi

  Audio Assistant

  Nick is an audio editor, music producer and composer who writes original music for various media. He has assisted in major productions, such as How To Train Your Dragon (2019) and Lady and the Tramp (2019), as well as major classical acts, such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

  He is a classically trained pianist with perfect pitch and “golden ears” who graduated from Michigan Technological University with a degree in sound design. Nick then interned at Bravo! Vail Music Festival as a sound engineer recording and mixing orchestras.

  Nick is excited to support the audio team at LifeScore and curate our growing database of interactive music. He is especially passionate about the composing process and is determined to fully unlock LifeScore’s capabilities as an emerging adaptive music technology.
• Kerry Balanza

  Owner, Balanza Vineyards

  Kerry is a former technology executive, turned Oregon winegrower.

  Kerry was formerly Vice President of New Ventures at ARM where she led a business and technology strategy team focused on identifying and building new growth businesses and partnerships focused on innovative software for computing platforms, ranging from server and network infrastructure to mobile client and IoT devices.

  Kerry works closely with start-up companies to foster disruptive technology innovation and to develop ecosystem partnerships that can transform industries.

• Julie Jenson Bennett

  CEO & Design Strategist, Precipice Design

  Julie is the CEO of Precipice, a strategy and innovation consultancy based in London that helps companies design their future products, services and technologies for the next two to twenty years.

  Julie and her team are experts in how people’s thoughts, feelings, bodies, and relationships are changing, and how that will change what we consume.

  Julie has 25 years’ experience as a designer, researcher and business leader for internal start-ups at Intel Corporation and consulting with brands like Coke, Bang & Olufsen, Wrigleys, and Nestle.

• Saul Kaplan

  Founder, Business Innovation Factory

  Saul is the Founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory and author of The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to Stay Relevant when the World Is Changing.

  Saul started BIF in 2005 with a mission to enable business model innovation.

  Prior to BIF, Kaplan served as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation and as the Executive Counselor to the Governor on Economic and Community Development.

  Saul received his MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute focusing on the strategic management of technology and his BS in Pharmacy from the University of Rhode Island.

• Estelle Métayer

  Principal & Founder, Competia

  Estelle is an expert in Competitive and Strategic Intelligence. Facilitator strategic governance workshops on future trends and industry disruption.

  She is an adjunct professor at McGill University, a guest lecturer at IMD (Switzerland), a faculty member at the Institute of Corporate Directors (Canada), and taught in joint programs with the IMB (India), MIT (United States) and INSEAD (France).

  Estelle is an Independent Non Executive Director and member of the audit committee of BRP Inc. (Canada), a Board Member and member of the strategy committee of Audemars Piguet (Switzerland), a Board Member of Blockstream (Montreal-Silicon Valley), an Advisory Board Member of Ricardo Media (Canada) and Réseau Sélection (Canada), and a Board Member, member of the executive committee and chair of the strategy committee of the Montreal Board of Trade.

  She was formerly an Independent Non Executive Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee at Ubisoft Entertainment SA (France). She obtained her Drs and MBA from Nijenrode University, The Netherlands. In 2000, she was awarded the Arista Sunlife Award for “Entrepreneur of the Year”

• Courtney McKee

  CEO, Headframe Spirits and Headframe Spirits Manufacturing

  Courtney is the co-owner, co-founder and CEO of Headframe Spirits and Headframe Spirits Manufacturing in Butte, MT, both of which are certified B Corporations.

  The companies are equal parts history and technology. Headframe Spirits produces beverage alcohol and operates a Tasting Room while its Manufacturing counterpart designs and builds industry-disrupting distillation equipment for the global distilled spirits industry. She serves on the board of the American Craft Spirits Association and co-chairs their Education Committee. Prior to her work in the distilled spirits and manufacturing industry, Courtney built and ran an IT and Information Security consulting business. Her common thread: assisting individuals and organisations in identifying opportunities and eliminating obstacles, making tiny corners of the world just a little bit better in the process.

  Courtney is married to John McKee, her business/shenanigans partner. Their nerd flag was hoisted high when their distillation equipment was featured in Popular Mechanics in May of 2016. They have been recognised in Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine and were awarded the 2013­ Montana Entrepreneurs of the Year award, 2015 Montana Tourism Ambassadors of the Year award and the 2015­ Grant Project of the Year for The Orphan Girl Film.

• John McKee

  Owner and Founder, Headframe Spirits and Headframe Spirits Manufacturing

  John is the co-founder of Headframe Spirits and Headframe Spirits Manufacturing in Butte, MT. Both companies serve the alcohol distillation industry and are operated as certified B-Corporations to the benefit of our community in Butte.

  Over the last 15 years he has been involved in a publicly traded biodiesel company as a founding member and then alongside his wife and business partner has founded and grown a fledging distillery into a 33-employee closely-held group of companies with a focused attention of impactful economic change for their community.

  John is married to Courtney McKee, his business/shenanigans partner. Their nerd flag was hoisted high when their distillation equipment was featured in Popular Mechanics in May of 2016. They have been recognised in Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine and were awarded the 2013­ Montana Entrepreneurs of the Year award, 2015 Montana Tourism Ambassadors of the Year award and the 2015­ Grant Project of the Year for The Orphan Girl Film.

  John is dad to two fantastic children and, when not at Headframe Spirits, can generally be found on a body of water somewhere in Western Montana.

• Margaret Minsky

  Haptic Interface Expert

  Margaret is an internationally-known researcher in the field of haptic interfaces (computational interfaces that simulate objects that you can touch and feel), as well as a contributor in computer graphics, educational technology, and human-computer interaction.

  She developed the first technique for creating haptic textures, a Lateral-Force Algorithm, while at the MIT Media Lab.

  Holding a doctorate from MIT, she was Research Director at Atari Cambridge Laboratory; was among the first ten technical staff at Interval Research Corporation; and is now an advisor to the ATLAS Center, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the University of Colorado-Boulder as well as a consultant.

  She also founded a design/manufacturing company to produce innovative clothing and textile processing. Her research has been published in conference proceedings in the fields of computer graphics, haptics, and mechanical engineering, and she served as editor and contributor to a book about the Logo programming language, LogoWorlds

• Jane Rosch

  Executive Producer, EG

  With an extensive background in small business consulting and events production, Jane has a reputation for helping creative individuals and organizations articulate and expedite their dreams with a unique combination of common sense, candor and cheer. A producer of the TED conference in its earliest days, Jane is now Executive Producer of EG, an event that gathers the makers and doers of extraordinary things. In these roles she has managed and supported a jaw-dropping breadth of talent over three decades. She brings to LifeScore her solid, practical skills in financial management and human resources, her network of experts in communications and strategic design, and her personal passion for the team and its vision.

• Coe Leta Stafford

  Executive Design Director, IDEO

  Coe Leta is an Executive Design Director at IDEO in San Francisco, California.

  Since 2006, she’s been leading innovative design projects for organizations including Google, Microsoft, Target, Wells Fargo, Ford, eBay, Hasbro, Sesame Street, and Government and Healthcare groups.

  Known for expertise in digital design, education, and data, her work has won international awards and patents for clients and been featured in the New York Times and Wired.

  Currently, she is Managing Director of IDEO U, an intrapreneurial venture to teach the skills of creative leadership and Design Thinking to global audiences.

  Coe Leta has a Ph.D. in Cognition and Development from UC Berkeley and guest lectures at Stanford University’s d.School.