Leadership
URM GROUP was founded by technology innovators, dedicated to advancing the science behind risk management.
Charlie Fote
Chairman of the Board
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Charlie Fote retired as Chairman and CEO of First Data in 2005 after 30 years in various ascending roles at the global electronic payments company. While CEO at First Data, he was responsible for the overall strategy and operations of the Fortune 250 company. During his tenure, he served in an assortment of roles, helping to grow First Data from a $1.2 billion U.S. spinoff to a more than $10 billion global payments powerhouse. Prior to joining First Data, Mr. Fote was Vice President of Operations for Framingham Trust.
Mr. Fote has served on numerous boards of directors over the years. He currently is Chairman of the Board of Accretive Technologies Inc. and serves on the board of Payfone. Additionally, he is a board member for the President’s Club at Colorado State University, and is head of the Travis Hukill Foundation, as well as the Fote family foundation. He also serves on the board of Project C.U.R.E., a nonprofit, humanitarian relief organization that delivers donated medical supplies, equipment and services to medical professionals and the patients under their care in developing countries. Fote also has been an active member of The Business Council, a voluntary association of national business leaders exchanging ideas to generate greater understanding of major public policy issues and to create consensus for solutions.
Nabil Abu el Ata
Founder and CEO
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Dr. Nabil Abu el Ata is the co-founder of URM Group, and has invested over 20 years in maturing the science of risk management and the practical application of technologies to predictively expose and prescriptively treat operational risks caused by dynamic complexity. With over 15 patents and decades of experience providing consultative services to some of the world’s largest and most complex organizations, he offers a breadth of analytical skills, risk management and business intelligence expertise, as well as IT and business process management knowledge.
In the late 1970s, Dr. Abu el Ata’s mathematical discoveries provided the predictive accuracy necessary to support innovative space exploration missions. By solving a dynamic complexity problem that was previously defined as unsolvable, Dr. Abu el Ata set the foundation for a new era of risk management, which today enables companies to more accurately predict future risk events and take strategic actions to improve business outcomes.
Annie Drucbert
Co-Founder & VP of Operations
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Annie Drucbert is a co-founder of URM Group and a recognized authority in the predictive and prescriptive analysis of economic, financial and enterprise systems. Mrs. Drucbert’s specialties include modeling, emulation and performance management of complex database and corporate systems. Career highlights include the successful emulation of the 2007 financial meltdown and post crisis analysis, which proved the amplitude of the disaster could not be solely blamed on the subprime market collapse as popularly promoted and the impact would not of been so severe had the interdependencies of financial structures not existed.
Mrs. Drucbert holds 3 US patents and has delivered strategic, tactical and operational services using X-Act OBC Platform for global clients including: First Data, McDonald’s, La Poste, Deutsche Bank, BNP, CLS, Reuters, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, GE-Capital and BT.
Tomy Abu el Ata
VP of Customer Delivery
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As Vice President of Customer Delivery, Tomy Abu el Ata is in charge of business and technical operational activities for URM Group. He is depended upon for his leadership and oversees the full project life cycle for many of URM Group’s key customers. In this capacity, Tomy also manages the production of educational materials, training and workshops for URM Group’s customers and partners. Tomy is greatly valued for his contributions to the strategic direction of URM Group’s market plans and customer services.
Tomy joined Accretive Technologies, Inc. in 2008 with strong competencies in business and technical disciplines that rapidly contributed to the success of Accretive service engagements with industry leaders, like BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, CLS, Air France/KLM, and La Poste. Previous to Accretive, Tomy worked as a consultant at Sogeti, Devoteam and SFR. As his business interest and skills developed, he took on increasing responsibilities within client engagements including project oversight and requirements analysis. Tomy began his studies in Computer Science and Information Technologies, and then studied business, graduating from American Business School of Paris.
Valerie Driessen
VP of Marketing
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As vice president of Marketing, Valerie is responsible for URM GROUP’s brand, communications, product marketing and partner programs. Valerie has 20 years of experience focusing on category creation and go-to-market strategy within the B2B technology industry.
Before URM GROUP, Valerie has held various marketing leadership roles at early stage as well as established companies including Accretive Technologies, Agiliance, First Data and Certicom. She received a BA in Organizational Development from Pitzer College.
Stephen Doyle
Legal Counsel
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Stephen Doyle is an accomplished lawyer and businessman who has practiced law for 30 years. He has been a partner in leading law firms, general counsel and international counsel to public and private companies, and COO, chief strategy officer, and member of executive teams at public companies and companies he founded. Steve has substantial experience in technology as international counsel to Prime Computer and Computervision, General Counsel to Aspen Technology and Acronis, and founder and COO to Tego.
Steve is a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Denver, with both JD and MBA degrees. He is the author of various articles on law and is a contributing author to The Law of Transnational Business Transactions, (1980-2018 ed.) published by Thompson Reuters, and is an adjunct professor of international transactions at Boston University School of Law.
Stephen Wells
Managing Director, US Lab
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Stephen Wells manages the URM GROUP US Lab, where he oversees research relating to universal risk management and best practices, as well as the development of technologies that respond to the market opportunity and meet customer needs.
Before joining URM GROUP, Mr. Wells managed the research and development lab for Accretive Technologies, Inc. and First Data Resources (FDR). His research interests include performance and behavior characteristics of distributed systems. While at FDR he led the efforts in evaluating and modeling leading J2EE containers to determine best of breed for development of new product offerings. Prior to running the lab he was a lead architect in developing middleware solutions allowing clients to integrate their in-house systems with those of FDR. Mr. Wells has a BS from Fort Hays State University and is a patent holder of Anonymous Account processing.
