Synthesia

Ph.D. in computer science from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1996), followed by postdoctoral work at Oxford's Active Vision Lab (1997–2000) with an EU Marie Curie Fellowship. Joined Queen Mary University of London as a lecturer in 2001, advancing to reader in computer vision by 2011; moved to UCL in 2013 as Professor of 3D Vision leading research in 3D dynamic scene understanding from video. Received an ERC Starting Grant (2008–2014) for work on human motion analysis. Co-founded Synthesia in 2017; her team's breakthrough algorithms for monocular non-rigid 3D reconstruction form the underpinning technology enabling photorealistic, low-cost AI video synthesis. Balances academic leadership with hands-on involvement in R&D at her company spinout.

Earned a Ph.D. in computer graphics from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2013, then spent 2013–2017 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. Now a professor at Technical University of Munich, leading the Visual Computing Lab. His foundational research in facial reenactment—particularly Face2Face, which enabled real-time facial expression manipulation from consumer cameras—directly informed Synthesia's technology. Co-founded Synthesia in 2017 with three fellow AI researchers and received an ERC Starting Grant and Eurographics Young Researcher Award. His leadership bridges academic rigor with commercial pragmatism, maintaining a chair while scaling a unicorn venture and launching a parallel AI startup.

Earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and finance from Stanford University and later completed a master's degree in applied economics and finance at Copenhagen Business School. Previously held a sales development position at Saxo Bank, contributed to business development at Founders, and worked as an investment manager in a regional PE/VC firm in Zambia, Sub-Saharan Africa. His experience investing in and building startups across Europe and Africa instilled a pragmatic leadership style—focused, iterative, and deeply informed by data. Distinguishing trait: willingness to be brutally honest about where technology is ready to deliver; chose to double down on learning and development use cases when others might chase trendier sectors, prioritizing delivering clear, tangible value over attempting everything at once.

Studied computer science and business informatics at IT University of Copenhagen (2012–2015), including a transformative semester at Stanford. Early career spanned digital strategy (founding RBLI, a consultancy serving Danish e-commerce firms) and startup acceleration at Founders, the largest Nordic startup studio, where he focused on growth and product marketing. Later built Immersive Futures, specializing in machine vision, AR/VR, and machine learning, collaborating with the UK government on the VR/AR sector. Co-founded and sold Coincall, a crypto portfolio tracker, in 2019. The founding of Synthesia came after meeting Professor Matthias Niessner in London, whose early AI video research papers sparked the vision. Distinguishing trait: Developed a "rebellious" mindset and knack for spotting trends early, reflected in his consistent emphasis on pragmatic enterprise utility over flashy technology novelty.