Team

Renée Bunnell, PhD
Founder; Innovation & Research

Renée is trained as a clinical psychologist and the inventor of REAL’s core methodology and patent that applies humanistic psychology to decode the emotion drivers that connect people, content and media. She is a board member of the IEEE’s working group on Ethics and AI/Values in Autonomous Systems. Prior to co-founding REAL, she was a business development executive in various Silicon Valley startups.

Stewart Pearson
Enterprise Client & Partner Strategy

Stewart is a highly experienced global enterprise sales and advertising expert, who serves as the enterprise lead of media and entertainment clients while overseeing strategic partner relationships. Formerly he was Vice-Chairman and Global Chief Client Officer for Wunderman (WPP) where he served enterprise clients including Microsoft, Nokia, Best Buy, Adidas, Shell, Lufthansa and United Airlines delivering campaigns in up to 50 markets. Stewart has degrees as a Statistician and Economist.

Neil Key
Finance & Operations

Neil has led the finance, operations, and administrative functions for multiple early and mid-stage companies in various industries and verticals. He was a co-founder of PayPossible, an innovative multi-lender consumer finance platform that enables businesses to offer financing options at the point of sale to customers. Neil began his career with Ernst & Young and was controller for one of the largest and most prestigious equine thoroughbred farms in the world within a family office.

Mayank Agarwal
Character Engineer

Mayank has been with REAL from the very beginning. His specialty is mapping character with client content, and translating the results in a way that they understand and can apply to their business strategy. Mayank is also involved with the research & development aspects of character within REALs solutions.

Yury Korvel
Product Development

Yury is the co-founder of ITRex, a development firm with notable clients such as Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Proctor & Gamble. Yury oversees a staff of 100+ developers specializing in machine learning.

Advisors

Mark Johnson

◉ 30+ years leading venture-backed companies in entertainment, advertising, and fintech sectors

◉ Founder Equity Management Group, focusing on intellectual property rights

◉ Former CEO of Smart System Technologies and Primedia Communications, both having successful exits

Howard Appelbaum

◉ Nielsen

• President, Nielsen Entertainment

• SVP, Business Development, Licensing, Marketing, and Events

◉ Prometheus Global Media

• President, Brand and Business Development

• Billboard (a Nielsen Company)

President

Udi Schlessinger, PhD

◉ Data scientist specializing in machine learning, NLP, deep learning, and recommender systems

◉ Neurobiology

◉ Tech entrepreneur

◉ University of London (PhD) and New York University (MSc)

Owen Flanagan, PhD

◉ Neurophilosophy; Duke University
◉ Author of several books on human consciousness including The Really Hard Problem which addresses the need for humanistic measures in social and business models

Armando Fandango

◉ Machine Learning Director for Nike. Accenture; IBM.

◉ Author of Python Data Analysis – Second Edition and Mastering TensorFlow

Kathryn Williams, PhD

◉ Clinical Psychologist

◉ Founding partner of KRW International where she counsels Fortune 50 boards and executives on the operationalization of character which has shown a 5x return on assets

Daniel Zubrik

◉ Founder of multiple start-ups having had successful exits

◉ Investor