Management Team

Ian Templeton - Chairman

Ian is the Chief Executive and a founder of Acorn Capital Partners. Ian was a founding Partner of the Manchester and Liverpool firm of BDO Stoy Hayward. He has extensive experience in corporate finance and corporate restructuring and shares his experience and expertise with a number of Acorn investee companies as a board member.

Akeel Al-Attar - Managing & Technical Director

Akeel holds a First Class B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in Telecommunications both from the University of Leeds - England. He is a pioneer and a veteran of the business rules automation market. He co-founded XpertRule in 1985 and is responsible for both the business development and technical direction of the company.

He has extensive experience in delivering innovative technologies and solutions using rules automation and data mining technologies. He has been involved in the implementation of over 70 successful technology projects in the UK, USA, Europe and Japan in the areas of financial services, process industries and manufacturing.

Roy Davies - Finance Director

Roy qualified with Price Waterhouse as a chartered accountant in 1974 and was admitted as an FCA in 1978. He joined the consultancy practice of Price Waterhouse in 1981 and was admitted to partnership four years later. He was then appointed partner in charge of the North West consultancy practice, which he grew to over 100 consultants before being asked to take on the national operations director role for the largest of the national consultancy groups, totalling 1000 consultants. His responsibilities also involved the development of finance transformation products for large national and multinational clients.

Haider Al-Attar - Director of Products & Services

Haider holds a BSc in Information Technology and an MPhil in Data Mining. He joined XpertRule in 1989 and progressed to his current position of Principal Consultant and Director of Products & Services.

Haider has managed the technical design and implementation of over 40 major knowledge-based projects involving the application of the Rule-based systems and Data Mining technologies in financial services, manufacturing and process industries with clients such as Lloyds TSB, Norwich Union, Bank of Ireland, Mortgage Express, BP, ICI, APC, Ericsson, Still & Saxby, Merck, Gehe, Nestle, AOL and many others. He is responsible for ensuring the provision of high quality technical services for XpertRule clients, and that the evolving needs of the clients are reflected in the on going development of the XpertRule products.

Clive Duebel - Director of Process Solutions

Clive holds a first class BSc degree in Chemical Engineering from Bath University and joined XpertRule in 2000. Clive has over 25 years experience with advanced applications in the process industries in the UK and overseas, working with leading companies such as Honeywell Industrial Controls where his last position was product line manager for their Process Optimisation and Simulation business on a global basis.

Clive is responsible for XpertRule Software business in the process industries. He has managed the implementation of projects and the development of software solutions for companies such as BP, Talisman Energy, RWE, Scottish Power, Powergen, Kimberly Clark, Hosokawa Micron and Liverpool John Moores University.