Audience

Audience has a strong executive management team with experience at both established and start-up companies in the voice, audio and semiconductor technology markets.

Peter Santos
President & CEO

Peter Santos brings to Audience more than 20 years experience in product management, business development and engineering in semiconductors, software and telecommunications. Before joining Audience, he was VP of Marketing & Business Development at analog IP & tools supplier Barcelona Design, where he led the company's product & business model definition as well as its product launch and early revenue. As VP of Marketing at DSL technology provider Voyan Technology, Santos led the company's identification and penetration of the DSL market opportunity. Previously, he was head of worldwide ASIC product marketing at LSI Logic, driving revenue from $600M to $1.2B. He holds a BA in Chemistry from Colby College, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

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Lloyd Watts, PhD
Founder & CTO

Lloyd Watts is the founder of Audience, and as CTO provides ongoing guidance and impetus for the company's core technology direction, as well as the vision of neuro-morphic computing for voice systems. Prior to Audience, he was principal researcher at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, where he collaborated with the world's leading auditory neuroscientists on his vision of a machine that could hear as people do. Before Interval, Watts developed integrated circuits and software for satellite communications systems, telephony systems, optical character recognition systems and LCD displays for Microtel Pacific Research, Synaptics, and Arithmos. He also invented a low-delay digital speech coding algorithm that was sold to Cisco in 1999. Dr. Watts is the author of 3 issued and 7 pending patents. He holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, a Master's degree from Simon Fraser University in digital speech coding; and a BS in Engineering Physics from Queen's University.

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James Lau
CFO & Vice President of Operations

James Lau was named Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Operations for Audience, Inc. in October, 2009 and is responsible for financial and manufacturing operations. He was previously Chief Financial Officer for LitePoint Corp. and before that, spent nearly 10 years with Foveon, Inc.  At Foveon, he served in multiple executive roles, most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before joining Foveon, Mr. Lau was Senior Vice President, Manufacturing Operations and Chief Financial Officer for Synaptics, Inc., overseeing all finance and manufacturing operations functions.  He previously held senior financial management positions with Amdahl Corporation, Key Computer Laboratories, Valid Logic Systems, and Rolm Corporation.  He began his career at Arthur Andersen & Company.  Mr. Lau earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

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Bill Hoppin
Vice President of Sales & Business Development

Bill Hoppin leads sales activity worldwide for Audience and is responsible for all customer, service provider and partner relationships. Prior to joining Audience, Hoppin was VP of Sales & Marketing at video component supplier Adimos, where he drove numerous strategic design wins, as well as at high-speed interconnect supplier Accelerant Networks, where he re-aligned the product offering, gained key design wins, and led a successful IEEE standards strategy. As VP of Sales & Marketing at Celeritek, a leading provider of power amplifies for mobile terminals, Hoppin built a 60-person sales team and drove revenues to triple in 2001 to $130 million. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and is the author of numerous articles on wireless and data communications.

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Karim Younes
Vice President of Engineering

Karim Younes brings to Audience 20 years of experience in product development, strategy and engineering in software, DSP and telecommunications. Previously, he was executive director of Voice-over-IP Development at Mindspeed Technologies, where he created a highly effective worldwide engineering organization, which allowed the company to capture more than 40% of the worldwide VoIP market. Prior to Mindspeed, he was at Nortel, where he developed speech processing products for some of North America's first digital wireless base stations. Most recently, Younes held the position of senior director of Software at Borland, where he led the development of Configuration Management products for the Enterprise Software market. He holds a B. Eng. and a M. Eng. from McGill University, and an MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

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