CAREERS

NaturalMotion is looking for talented individuals to join its teams in San Francisco and Oxford.
Visit our careers page for more details.

NaturalMotion Ltd is the creator of Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a break-through in 3D character animation. Based on Oxford University research, Dynamic Motion Synthesis creates high-quality 3D character animation in real time by combining artificial intelligence, biomechanics, and dynamics simulation.

NaturalMotion's first product, endorphin, utilises this approach to dramatically accelerate the production of offline 3D character animation.

In March 2006, NaturalMotion announced euphoria, which brings Dynamic Motion Synthesis live onto Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. euphoria is able to create truly unique game moments, which never happened before, and will never happen again - just like real life. We believe this is the biggest revolution in games since the introduction of 3D graphics.

NaturalMotion's third product, morpheme, is an advanced animation engine and powerful authoring tool chain. For the first time, animators have total control over the look of their animations in-game, resulting in dramatically increased in-game animation quality.

Based in Oxford (England) and San Francisco (California), NaturalMotion markets, sells and supports its products globally to customers in the games, film, post production and broadcast markets.



Management Team

Michael Penington (Chairman)
Michael Penington is a director of a number of technology companies. He spent 16 years as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in London, where he worked in Capital Markets and Corporate Finance, and was responsible for the bank's relationships with the European private equity houses. He is also a non-executive director of Future plc. He has a BSc from the University of Melbourne, and a D.Phil from Oxford University.

Torsten Reil (CEO and co-founder)
Torsten graduated with a BA in Biology from Oxford University and holds an MSc in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from Sussex University. Prior to founding NaturalMotion, Torsten was researching for a PhD in Complex Systems at Oxford University. In 2003, he was named as one of the world's top 100 innovators by MIT's Technology Review. Torsten developed NaturalMotion's core technology together with Colm Massey.

Adam Whittaker (COO)
Adam graduated with an MEng in Engineering & Materials Science from Oxford University. Prior to joining NaturalMotion, Adam worked for Detica as a business consultant specialising in the management and implementation of large business & technical change programmes. Particular achievements include redesiging finance and strategy management processes, benefits measurement, organisational change and architecting the supporting IT infrastructure for blue-chip clients.

Leighton Webb (Vice President, Business Development)
Leighton’s background spans Entertainment, Digital Media and International business having held senior-level positions with start-up and leading Fortune 500 companies alike - including 20th Century Fox, America Online, Vivendi Universal, I-play and Ubisoft Entertainment. Leighton came to NaturalMotion from mobile entertainment provider, I-play, where he was SVP of Global Publishing and Content Strategy. Prior to I-play, Leighton was Vice President of Fox Mobile Entertainment where he oversaw several highly successful wireless product launches – both domestically and internationally - for 20th Century Fox Film and 20th Century Fox Television. Before joining Fox Mobile Entertainment, Leighton was General Manager for America Online where he was responsible for the AOL Games Channel. Leighton received his MBA in international finance from the Fischer School of Management in Monterey, CA. Leighton also holds a BA in philosophy from the College of William and Mary.

Andy Payne (VP Sales, Europe and Asia)

Andy first got into 3D Computer Graphics in the late 1980s whilst working as consultant within the architectural industry. He then joined wavefront technologies in 1993 as a product specialist working with customers using animation and compositing tools in the film, TV, post production, games and product design industries. Subsequently wavefront was merged with Alias Research and by 2005 Andy was the Entertainment Territory Manager at Alias looking after sales, marketing, consultancy and channel business for the UK and Ireland. After the acquisition of Alias by Autodesk, Andy moved into a more strategic account management role working with successful companies, like Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Microsoft Rare, FramestoreCFC, The Moving Picture Company, The Mill, and Double Negative.

Christian Staack (VP Sales, The Americas, Japan and Australia)
Christian joined NaturalMotion from REALVIZ, the visual effects software company, where he was the Director of Sales for the Americas. During his five year tenure at REALVIZ, Christian oversaw a move from indirect to direct sales, resulting in a substantial increase in revenue while working closely together with VFX and games companies. He was additionally responsible for business development and strategic partnerships in the US. Prior to REALVIZ he held various sales and business development positions in the service industry. Christian has a BS in hospitality management and economics from Heidelberg.