Our team combines creative, technical, and strategic talents.
Chris Jackson - Founder and CEO
Chris’s in-depth experience of developing strategy and technology for online and offline media prompted him to found MetaBroadcast in the fall of 2007. He aims to build video navigation software with a focus on metadata and social interactions. Chris’s thinking has been informing industry-wide services and debates for a decade.
Chris still acts as a consultant, independently and as part of The Publishing Project. Prior to MetaBroadcast, he worked as Head of Strategy at the BBC, and as a senior consultant across the Media and Technology practices at McKinsey. He led projects involving broadcasters, publishers, TV platforms, independent producers, private equity investors and regulators. His practice was focused on the UK, reaching the US, continental Europe and the Middle East.
Before McKinsey Chris worked as a developer and as project manager on a wide range of websites, becoming an entrepreneur in the process. He also built web, DAB, and DTT systems at BBC Research and briefly designed novel phone directories at BT labs. In the distant past Chris produced sports and music programmes for BBC and independent local radio. He holds an MEng degree in Computer Science and Electronics from Imperial College London.
Mirona Iliescu - Experience Designer
With a background in computer science and communication sciences, Mirona coordinates user experience in commercial, consultancy, and research projects at MetaBroadcast. In parallel, she runs her agency, catching stories, and presents on communication in the digital era. Previously, she founded and exited a newsletter company, was IPRA Chair for Romania, and one of the first Londoners to join Twitter.
In 16+ working years she’s mastered the skills for and the transitions between a plethora of professions: commercial radio anchor and producer, commercial TV editor and assistant producer, indie TV production screenplay writer and assistant producer, record industry A&R manager, e-PR project coordinator, PR consultant, copywriter, translator, voice over and DJ.
Mirona has run branding projects, built compelling websites and campaigns, created and implemented national CSR programs and managed events with thousands of guests including celebrities, international artists, and prime ministers. She was published in Esquire and featured on the Tate Liverpool poster for its Colour Chart exhibition.
Dr. Robert Chatley - Principal Engineer
Robert joined MetaBroadcast in January 2009 and was instrumental in implementing agile software development processes. Previously, he worked as an engineer in the TV Technology team at Google, and acted as an agile coach in their offices throughout EMEA.
Before Google, Robert developed personalised public transport information systems as a technical lead at Kizoom, worked in academic software engineering research, and on core infrastructure teams in the oil and finance industries.
He’s a regular speaker at international software development events and organiser of XPDay, UK’s premier agile development conference. Robert also is a guest lecturer in software engineering at Imperial, from where he holds an MEng Information Systems Engineering and a PhD in Software Engineering.
John Ayres - Engineer
John joined MetaBroadcast full-time in July 2009 and became an expert in integrating with social networks. He also contributed part-time in the spring, alongside studying text processing and machine learning with a group of leading international experts at Imperial College.
John previously developed the Clarence application at Kizoom to monitor passengers’ multimodal journeys in real time and alert them of disruptions to their trip. He holds a 1st class MEng in Computing from Imperial, where he’s started a PhD titled ‘Automated topic detection and tracking for syndicated web feeds’.