Walter is a co-founder and CEO of Sovran. Walter has spent over 21 years in the speech recognition industry and started developing the technology behind Sovran after experiencing the limitations resulting from the ordinary machine learning methodologies applied to speech recognition first hand.
Prior to Sovran, Walter collaborated with the FBK institute of Trento in Italy, and worked in technical roles in the research laboratories of Telecom Italia and with AT&T Shannon Labs in Florham Park (New Jersey, USA). During his time at A&T, Walter was involved in the development of an advanced VB help desk system which was presented to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2006. He speaks Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and English, and has a degree in engineering with a specialism in robotics from Politecnico di Milano.

Giovanni is a co-founder and IT & R&D Director of Sovran and has been working alongside Walter since the beginning in 2008. He has been instrumental in developing the technology and trade secrets that give Sovran an edge over every other VB provider in the industry today. Prior to Sovran, Giovanni worked with Walter at AT&T laboratories as a researcher focusing on natural language, advanced dialogue systems and grammar designs. He also collaborated on various R&D projects with the University of Edinburgh, Berkeley ISCI and TechnoMarch Scientific Park. He is fluent in Italian, Portuguese and English, and has a masters degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Rome, a masters degree in Audio-Visual Processing and Information Technology degree from the CEFRIEL Research Centre in Milan.

Giovanni joined Sovran with the task of helping the company develop its corporate strategy and governance. With previous experience in executive roles and strategic partnerships he is responsible for ensuring the business infrastructure evolves as the business goes through its next phase of growth. Giovanni is London based and speaks Italian and English.

Patrick is responsible for defining, implementing and ensuring the alignment of the IT strategy to the company’s strategic goals and also leads the company’s R&D team. Prior to Sovran, Patrick worked in technical roles at Unisys Brazil, Banco BBM, Datamec, Contax and Tata. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering, a masters in Business Management and IT, and a masters in computing with a research line in machine learning and natural language processing. Patrick speaks English and Portuguese.

Clive joined Sovran to lead the company’s growth strategy and revenue. Clive has over 30yrs of B2B marketing and enterprise development in UK, US and EMEA. He commenced in the tech sector in the 90’s, developing fraud prevention solutions for the banking and insurance sector. Since then he has developed both start and scale up’s in the tech enterprise space such as Translation and E-learning, including some of the fastest moving markets in digital commerce such as The Hut Group, IHG, and TJ Maxx. Clive attended Brunel University studying Vehicle Technology and Engineering and is classically trained via CIM and Miller Heiman.

Marcelo is responsible for pre-sales, bot solution architecture, the preparation of technical proposals and ensuring the company’s main customer VBs are fully functional at all times. He has extensive experience in telecommunications, having previously worked in technical roles for NEC Brazil, NEC Japan, Telecom Systems, nTime, MobWave and BizVox. Marcelo holds an MBA in Telecom Management at Educação Executiva, and Electronic Engineering degree from The Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica and a masters degree in Business Administration from The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Marcelo speaks Portuguese, Japanese and English.

Mateus is responsible for marketing and sales at Sovran LA. He develops the sales strategy, customer experience and improves various customer facing technology platforms. Prior to joining Sovran, Mateus began his career in trade marketing at Danone in Brazil and then shifted his focus to restructuring companies in the metallurgical domain to help them diversify into new markets. Mateus has a degree in business administration from Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing in Brazil and a postgraduate degree in business management from Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil.