Who is in the project team and what are their roles?
IOG Atala Team Leadership:
David Harding
David is the General Manager of the Atala business unit of IOG. He brings industry recognition as a leading expert in SaaS and scalable cloud computing, digital identity, multi-modal biometrics, FinTech, healthcare, privacy, and enterprise cybersecurity.
Over the years David has held C & SVP level positions in international public and private companies in several different industries including digital media and entertainment, electronic manufacturing and distribution, digital identity, and cyber security. He’s created and managed offices and teams across the globe including the United States, Europe, Canada, Latin America, India, and Asia. He has spent the past 18 years as a leader and executive in SaaS platform, mobile, digital identity, and multi-modal biometrics.
As SVP of Platform Engineering for CLEAR®, he was tasked with refactoring their digital identity and biometrics platforms to scale from a few million users to hundreds of millions in support of their airport security, healthcare, and FinTech business units.
As CTO & SVP of ImageWare Systems Inc.®, David led the delivery of digital identity and biometric authentication solutions for airport security, law enforcement, border control, enterprise, and much more with hundreds of millions of identities under management using multiple types of biometrics including fingerprint, iris, face, DNA, and more. He also successfully delivered several biometric smart card solutions including the HSPD-12/PIV program for the US Veterans Administration, the Canadian TSA (CATSA) biometric security and access card, as well as biometric enabled ID cards for several governments (U.S. Australia, Canada, Mexico) and major corporations (AT&T, IBM, Delta Airlines, UPS, and more).
As an executive and business leader, David has worked with boards and the C-Suite to lead companies, raised millions (USD) in public and private equity, delivered impactful products and services, and increased shareholder value. As an inventor and innovator, David holds multiple patents in digital identity, biometrics, security, and privacy. David joined IOG in 2023 as General Manager of Atala and leads a team of approximately 30 dedicated digital identity developers and product experts.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveh003/>
Matt Klepp
Matt is the Chief Technical Officer of the Atala business unit of IOG. Matt’s extensive industry and software development experience includes a successful career at ImageWare Systems where he was the Director of Engineering - Applications. Recently, Matt was the Director of Software Development and acting CTO at XWell, a New York based, publicly traded healthcare company where he was responsible for multiple engineering squads and products. Matt has over a decade of experience in digital identity, SSI, and biometrics in markets including healthcare, fintech, airport security, enterprise, and more. He's successfully managed and delivered multiple projects and delivered several products and SaaS-based services. Matt joined IOG in 2024 as Chief Technical Officer of Atala and leads a team of approximately 20 dedicated developers and digital identity experts.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-klepp/>
John Mattson
John is the Vice President of Product of the Atala business unit of IOG. John has over 25 years of experience in marketing and product management in the Networking, SaaS, Cloud and Blockchain/Web3 spaces. He has been instrumental in the ideation, development and launch of several successful products at Cisco and Oracle NetSuite, among others. He was part of a small team at Cisco and Broadcom that played a significant role in the creation and mass adoption of the Cable Industry's high-speed broadband service. He formally entered the Web3 space in 2021 with the goal of helping to create a fairer, safer, more transparent and fully decentralized version of the internet that works for the benefit of everyone. John joined IOG in 2022 as Director of Product Management and leader of the Product Management chapter, working across all of IOG’s disparate technologies and business units. He was drawn to and eventually joined the Atala team as Vice President of Product in 2024, and in that capacity he leads a small but powerful team of digital identity product experts and evangelists.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jomattson/>
The Core Development team contributing to Hyperledger Identus is listed <u>here</u>.
Uros Mrvic(Scrum Master)
Project manager with a software engineering background. Worked across different sectors and companies from financial, social networks, media, and international design, construction and engineering company.
Degree in Information and Communication Technologies and postgraduate in E-business, Belgrade University.
Based in Belgrade, Serbia and hometown in northern Montenegro.
He likes nature and outdoor sports, in his free time he prefers to go scuba and free diving, speleology and hiking.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/urosmrvic/>
Anushka Soma-Patel (Product Manager Customer Development)
Over 20 years in IT and Lean, consolidated with her MBA and experience in various industries, have empowered Anushka to explore blockchain with an open mind and much curiosity since 2018. Her roles as the Co-Chair of the South African Financial Blockchain Consortium Identity Working Group, guest lecturer for blockchain at The University of Stellenbosch Business School, the University of Cape Town Fintech Program, Lead writer for the African Union Blockchain report, and speaker at blockchain conferences as well as being an advisory working group member of the IAMZA project qualify her to collaborate both locally and abroad to move the dial on digital identity in South Africa and the World.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/anushka-soma-patel/>
Fayyaadh Adams (Community Manager)
Fayyaadh Adams has been in the Blockchain space since 2018 with a keen interest in Self-Sovereign Identity. Before joining IOG in 2022, Fayyaadh worked in the financial services industry, where he spent time in Business Operations, Cyber Security, and Marketing, building out MVPs for Blockchain based identity solutions. He is passionate about community outreach programs and considers himself a catalyst for change.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayyaadh-a-63415b234/>
Esteban Garcia (Product Owner)
Esteban is an IT professional with 15+ years of experience as a technical consultant for various corporate clients. He has performed different roles, including solution architect, developer, QA engineer, and PO. Esteban has worked on multiple projects related to search applications, SAP implementation, and, most recently, blockchain and decentralized identity technology. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and a specialization in data science from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. Esteban is also the co-founder of RootsId, an SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity) consultancy group focused on developing the decentralized identity ecosystem for the Cardano community.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/esteban-garcia-cr/>
Lohan Spies (Product Manager)
Lohan has deep experience with Decentralized Identity (SSI) and the deployment of this emerging technology in the African context and other low resource environments including implementations using SMS. He was one of the earliest entrepreneurs in Africa building solutions using the Trust over IP stack , on the world's first-ever public utility for SSI, the Sovrin Main Net. As a serial entrepreneur and self-sovereign identity thought leader, he continues to find motivation in building start-ups that leverage exponential technology and decentralized trust networks with the vision of achieving the identity for all. He is an ex-officio Sovrin Foundation Board member and trustee, chair of the Sovrin Steward Council, and actively involved in various initiatives to further the adoption of self-sovereign identity in South Africa and Africa such as South African Financial Blockchain Consortium (SAFBC), South African National Blockchain Alliance (SANBA), World Economic Forum Digital Identity Coalition, Bankserv Digital Identity project, decentralized Identity Foundation, Trust over IP Foundation and a frequent speaker on self-sovereign identity.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/lohanspies/>
Mark Griffin (Product Manager)
Mark has worked for two decades across financial, telecoms, and fintech sectors delivering complex systems. Mark's vision is to simplify the complexity of SSI interactions in a connected world. He visualized this to be delivered by creating best in class UX processes that will empower developers to build user-friendly applications in the SSI space. He Joined IOHK in 2019.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-griffin-9842514/>
Bernard Sibanda (Community Member & Evangelist + Director of WIMS)
Women In Move Solutions (WIMS) is a world-class women empowerment project. WIMT is an ERC20 Token powering WIMS blockchain ecosystem crafted to eliminate global gender imbalance in ICT
