About Us
Future Route is focused on one activity: delivering insight to business strategists in data-intensive markets.
Our core technology is a uniquely powerful combination of Inductive Logic Programming (an exciting new field in artificial intelligence) and sophisticated data analytics.
Our technology can be applied to any market that struggles to extract insight from data.
Validis, our first commercial application was launched in October 2007 and is already making a major impact on the way accountants analyse their financial data.
Validis won the 2007 Accountancy Age Award for Best Software innovation.
Future Route is actively partnering with software vendors, resellers, systems integrators and service providers to create new solutions for a wide range of markets.
Future Route is a privately owned company managed by experienced entrepreneurs, with a team of top analysts, mathematicians, accountants and developers creating the technology. Its financial backers include Octopus Ventures, a division of Octopus Investments. Octopus Ventures has a strong track record of making investments into early-stage, unquoted companies and benefits from a Private Investor Group that consists of successful entrepreneurs and business men who help to identify suitable investment opportunities and provide business expertise to companies within the Octopus Ventures investment portfolio.
The Board
Christopher Poll, Chief Executive Officer: Chris has been in the City for nearly 40 years. He is a former investment manager and investment banker turned stockbroker and then entrepreneur. Chris was founder, financier and Chairman of Micropal 1983-1997, before its sale to Standard and Poors. Since then he has advised the Chinese Government on the creation of their domestic Asset Management and Fund Industry and is a VC investor in a number of early stage companies.
John Brendon, Chairman: John has nearly 40 years experience within the accounting and auditing profession having joined PricewaterhouseCoopers ('PwC') in 1968. Prior to his retirement in June 2007, he was Global Chief Accountant at PwC, responsible for the global team which provided all IFRS advice. During his time at PwC, John worked with a number of major international clients and held a variety of other senior positions including being a member of the UK firm Supervisory Board, a member of the Global Oversight Board and the UK Ethics Partner. John joined Future Route's Board as a Non-Executive Director in November 2007.
Alexander Macpherson, Non-Executive Director: Alex spent ten years with S.G. Warburg, specialising in structuring, trading and marketing equity derivative products before forming a financial and management consultancy that advised small businesses on growth and expansion. He is currently the Chief Executive of Octopus Ventures, a division of Octopus Investments.
Ryan Shuttleworth, Solutions Director / Chief Technical Officer: Ryan joined Future Route in September 2007 to drive the definition and delivery of solutions to customers and third party channels. Prior to joining Ryan was responsible for advanced software solutions at Cisco Europe, delivering advanced data centre architectures in support of SaaS and Service Oriented initiatives for key strategic global accounts. Ryan has 10 years of experience in delivering complex software systems and prior positions include senior technical architecture and product management roles in financial services at IBM, Ascential and Mercator Software. He holds a Masters degree in Engineering Management and Software Engineering.
Keith Marriott, Chief Financial Officer: Keith, a Chartered Accountant, has been heavily involved in media over recent years, having held the positions of Finance Director and CFO in several countries. He has worked in the media sector for 17 years, the majority of the time with Emap and latterly as a consultant. He has covered almost all aspects of maximising financial returns from various types of brands - consumer magazines, awards, business to business magazines, events, sampling, contract publishing, book publishing, internet and licensing. Keith was the Finance Director of UK consumer magazine division of Emap plc and was involved in several high profile acquisitions. In 1994, he moved to Paris, to acquire three separate companies to create Emap France and significantly improve profitability. Recently, Keith has worked in Australia and USA. Among other current assignments, Keith is advising a leading consumer magazine publisher and a B2B academic publisher.