People
Michael Smith CEO
Michael has been fascinated by games and puzzles ever since receiving a copy of Masquerade for his seventh birthday.
More recent distractions have included Poker, Go, Set, Sensible Soccer, Burnout Paradise, and Guitar Hero. In his early twenties he co-founded the online retailer, Firebox.com. Firebox recently featured in 13th place on the Sunday Times Fast Track list of fastest growing companies in Britain.
Michael launched Mind Candy in 2003 and development on Perplex City began soon after. Michael’s interest in Monsters probably stems from reading too much Dr Seuss and Maurice Sendak as a child.
Divinia Knowles COO/CFO
Divinia is Mind Candy’s meticulously organised COO/CFO whipping everyone at Mind Candy into shape (the whip’s a hangover from her Archaeology degree from the University of Wales at Lampeter) where she had a love of digging, dinosaurs and (we assume) Indiana Jones.
Post university Divinia’s passion for amazing old stuff led her into the antiques and high end bespoke goods industry for a number of years, until the need to look for new pastures (and jellybeans) got the better of her.
Divinia has been at Mind Candy since 2006 and lovingly looks after Operations, Finance and HR for the company.
While she’s a fully qualified chartered management accountant, don’t let that fool you: underneath that love of numbers and all things ledger-like, you’re likely to meet up with her sooner or later if you too spend your (well scheduled) time gig-going, scuba diving, snowboarding, DIY-ing, cycling, running, reading, painting or puzzling.
Toby Moore Chief Technical Officer
After taking a break from building large realtime systems for blue chip and media companies, Toby spent 3 months traveling from Russia to Bali (almost) overland before washing up on Mind Candy’s shores looking for something exciting to get stuck into.
Toby’s technological passions revolve around agile development, large-scale distributed systems and data visualisation and design.
When he isn’t working on managing and growing our systems, teams and processes, Toby likes to spend his time snowboarding and scuba-diving when the weather permits, and behind his cameras and guitars when it doesn’t.
Ed Relf Chief Commercial Officer
Ed joined Mind Candy after being lured away from the dark world of MMO gaming where he had previously managed the marketing efforts for the hugely successful MMORPG games Warhammer Online and The Lord of the Rings Online to name but a few.
After spending 10+ years directing / heading up the marketing divisions for many successful online gaming companies he finally saw the light and joined Mind Candy! Hooray!
Famous for his global travelling adventures, Ed has taken his biggest travelling expedition yet packing his bags and traveling 60 miles from Oxford to London to join us at Mind Candy. :)
Across Ed’s career he has released over 100 games and has one of the biggest games collections known to man. A lover of studying (boring) and playing board games (geek) Ed is now heading up Mind Candy’s global marketing efforts.
Rebecca Newton Chief Community & Safety Officer
Rebecca has been involved in the online world since the 80s and the offline world since Elvis wore the 3-cornered pants. She spent her formative community management years (the 90s) at AOL Inc., where she held many positions, finally landing as the Program Manager for AOL’s Community Leader Program. After 6 years at Sulake managing moderators, online safety and community for 24 Habbo Hotels world-wide, Rebecca joined Mind Candy in 2007.
Rebecca speaks on community, kids and online safety regularly, is a member of the Safe Internet Alliance and in her spare time plays “cut throat” bridge, writes music for plays, performs in several bands and is the Chairperson for GirlsRockNC.org, a non-profit agency that teaches girls 7-17 self-confidence and empowerment through rock music performance.
Darran Garnham Head of Global Licensing
After leaving university with a degree in Sports Science, Darran has been in the media and licensing industry for over 12 years now – a deviated career route from his dreams of becoming head coach or physiotherapist at Tottenham Hotspur FC. He still keeps and plays all his favourite games and consoles from over the years – SNES, gameboy, N64, PS1 and his favourite games of all time are still Mario kart, Chuckie Egg, and Golden Eye. The Mind Candy culture of gaming meant Darran was like a moth to a flame!
His first ever car was a vintage mini which he would drive to all the summer festivals. His favourite artists of all time are The Who and David Bowie. This year he will be taking his new son on the festival circuit but will be swapping the usual tent for Yurtel .
He has also been employed as a member of Mind Candy FC and looks forward to helping towards another winning streak in this year’s football season!
Darran’s other passions include London Irish RFC (social member rather than player!) and his chocolate Labrador frank who likes nothing more than a walk to Bushy Park and stopping for a Guinness (or two) in the pubs on the way home.
Follow me on Twitter: DarranGarnham