Ray Thompson

Ray Thompson, Senior Director Partners and Alliances, Avid

Ray Thompson is currently senior director partners and alliances with Avid, where for the past six-and-a-half years, he has been working in product marketing and business development. He has 25 years of business development, sales and product management/marketing experience focused on sports, media (broadcast and film) and e-sports.

Career highlights include the development of an IP live streaming platform strategy for sending SD, HD, and 4K video over a standard IP connection from anywhere to anywhere at broadcast quality and at low latency to mobile and web. Thompson was a driver in the transformation of start-up software company from video editing focus for sports to content licensing and management/distribution of college sports assets via the web to college sports fans.

Thompson executed the release of high-performance graphics chip, landing a large-scale bid as a primary provider of a graphics processor for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. He also penetrated the media/entertainment space for a Fortune 500 technology company, developing an ISV echo-system, creating a solutions-based approach to selling.

Thompson has played a vital leadership role in the full-phase startup of a pioneering software company, reaching $26M in annual revenue, playing a leadership role in the positioning and sale of the company. He is the co-author of a patent for assigning game data to a universal time clock on traditional- and IP-based streams for the purposes of the automated creation of highlights across a user-specified sample of games (video), the creation of edits for purpose of recruiting and scouting and for reporting based on game statistics with drill down to video capability.

He was behind the development of 3D, real-time, motion capture application able to measure athletes down to the sub-micron level, leveraging the game relationship with EA Sports to develop simple UI and incorporating real NFL and college playbooks and behavior into the Madden game engine for the purposes of high school, college, and pro athlete development, pre-hab and rehab.