Michel Courtoy began his career in design engineering and software engineering with seven years at Intel. He managed product marketing for layout verification software at Cadence Design Systems and held executive positions at Quickturn Design Systems, Osprey Design Systems (which he also co-founded), Aptix Corporation, and Frequency Technology. As vice president of marketing for Silicon Perspective, Courtoy created the market for silicon virtual prototyping and was a key player in the company's acquisition by Cadence in 2001. Immediately prior to joining Certess, he was vice president at Cadence. Courtoy holds a BSEE from University Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; an MSEE from University of California, San Diego; and an MBA from Santa Clara University, California.

Mark's technical career has progressed during 12 years from card design for Mobile Digital Radio to ASIC design for GSM to verification of microprocessors to consulting on verification to EDA research to company creation. He has been managing engineering projects for 11 years with multidisciplinary engineering teams in New Zealand, Ireland, England and France. Mark brings a user's perspective to EDA development which ensures Certess is addressing existing challenges with usable solutions. Mark has a Bachelor of Engineering Electrical and Electronic degree with 1st class honors from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Michael Lyons has over 20 years of experience in developing software for operating systems, compilers, embedded systems and electronic design automation. Prior to joining Certess, he worked in Software Development for Synopsys. He has also held software development and management positions at Unisys and Epic Design. Lyons holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the Queen's University, Belfast and a Diploma in International Business from Grenoble Graduate School of Business.