The story of any product development is the story of data, of understanding what you want to achieve, and what you need to know to achieve it. Building those pipelines, grappling with that data and answering those questions is why Matt loves what he does, and has done for over 30 years.

He has worked with companies as diverse as the BBC, NHS, Jaguar Land Rover and Adobe, as well as small product teams, and they all have two things in common - the need for insight from data, and the need to build, often faster and faster.

Garrett was born in the north of Canada in Labrador city in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. He graduated from the memorial university of Newfoundland with the intention to be a lawyer. A years backpacking trip to Europe led to a 20 year diversion into business development in the creative Apple market and software markets that resulted in Garrett running his first business in 1997. Since 1997 Garrett has run several high profile IT businesses with an increased focus on creativity and innovation. Garrett is the Co-CEO and Commercial Director of The Virtual Forge, a Director for our sister company, Dreamtek, and he also holds several non-executive partnerships.

Over the last 14 years Matt has worked with global brands to develop their digital capabilities and more effectively leverage their data. He believes that businesses are at their best when actively managing their data as an organizational asset, and continuously driving a data-centric culture. Matt has a Business Administration degree from the University of Richmond, a professional background in IT Project Management, and a passion for data analysis and problem solving. As President of the North American arm of The Virtual Forge, Matt manages the daily operations of the business, sets strategic direction, and ensures that the VF team is equipped and empowered to deliver exceptional work for our clients.

Tiago is VF’s Head of People & Culture. He joined VF in September 2018 and holds a master's degree in Human Resources Management and Organizational Analysis. Passionate about recruitment, engagement, talent attraction and retention and international human resources management, he is responsible to handle everything that relates to People Management at The Virtual Forge throughout all locations, in a short way, 360º International Human Resources Management. A passionate advocate of Employer Branding, he enjoys developing new processes and policies that improve the employee experience and therefore, their engagement and also to keep the candidates satisfied making sure their candidate experience is in line with what VF is. Tiago was one of the nominees for the Young HR Talent Award in 2019, in Portugal. Outside of work, he enjoys travelling, surfing, radical sports, animals, music, live concerts and baking (Tiago makes the best brownies in our Lisbon office).

A sharp, driven finance professional with over 15 years of proven experience in finance and business operations. Enthusiastic in approaching organisation wide challenges from many angles and utilising financial expertise to deliver effective solutions. Collaborative and hands-on management style with strong leadership instincts and ability to excel independently. Specialised ability to design tools for greater efficiency and profitability. Experienced in procurement, and proficient in gaining government grants (R&D Strategy) and private funding streams through venture capital organisations and dealing with shares equity negotiations. Spare time activities include travel, music and spending time with the family.

Anita has over twenty five years experience in IT, Network and Telecommunications Industries. Over this time she has acquired and developed skills in business analysis and project management on a number of significant hardware and software projects. With extensive experience on various system consolidation projects which includes project initiation, requirements gathering, data migration and implementation. In February 2015 Anita joined The Virtual Forge team as Project Manager working on multiple projects in the automotive industry and has since progressed into leading the Project Management Office.

Christian is the resident Swede at The Virtual Forge, and is also the Head of DevOps. He has spent a little more than a decade dabbling with a range of web technologies, and slightly more recently clouds (not the fluffy kind). As a certified AWS tinkerer, he is responsible for provisioning and maintaining all systems and services operated by VF, particularly those running in AWS and Azure. Along with his trusty DevOps team, Christian wields his Allen key to leverage the legendary power of the cloud in support of the development teams. In his 'down' time, Christian has of late developed an unhealthy interest in Training For Warriors and obstacle races.

Victoria is Dreamtek’s CEO. Victoria has led the development of Dreamtek’s video products and services business, greatly expanding their provision of integrated media solutions across multiple markets. With a background in video, Victoria has been instrumental in the rapid growth of Dreamtek globally, delivering products and services that align to the ever changing video tech industry. Victoria has a hands on approach to leadership and has built strong, cohesive and strategic partnerships with key global customers.

With over 20 years' helpdesk experience and 10 years' of cloud services, Michael has worked with customers ranging from small production houses up to global corporate institutions. Regardless of client size however, his approach to customers is the same across the board; listen to the client, help them meet their goals and delight them with an empathetic and friendly manner. Michael is happiest went digging into challenging issues and finding the best result for his customer. When not tackling the helpdesk, he enjoys karate, going to the gym or playing the guitar (badly).

Nicola is our Head of Global Client Relationships for VF based in the UK. She is an experienced IT professional with experience working in Banking, Commercial & Education sectors. She is passionate about Digital Transformation always looking for ways to improve business systems and efficiencies. Her career has seen her work as an IT Trade Floor support manager for an Investment Bank, Technical sales support to designing & implementing cloud services using Google & Azure platforms in Education. She sees the fun side in everything, and will always greet you with a smile. Skiing is her favourite holiday with the family. She loves to travel & will spend time looking for new destinations to experience, new cultures, tastes and adventures. She has 2 teenage boys & spends most weekends watching them either play football or referee.

Ivo is a software engineer with over 10 years of experience of developing web based systems in .NET technologies. He started at a very early stage of his career managing software development teams. He has a particular interest in constantly improving his set of soft skills. Helping his team mates to work better is Ivo’s main motivation. To accomplish that, his 4 years as an Object Oriented Programming teacher in Lisbon’s Engineering Institute (ISEL) have been a great help. He also worked 5 years in the travel sector as a web development manager and another 5 years in a Portuguese software house, first as a developer and then as CTO. On his free time, Ivo dedicates himself to his passion for music. He is a guitarist, singer and a proud owner of his guitar collection.