Behavioral Signals - The Team

What We Do

We are bridging the communication gap between humans and machines by introducing emotional intelligence, from speech, into conversations with AI. We have created the fastest evolving and most robust emotion AI, enabling everyone to add emotion and behavioral recognition to their own software solutions, through the Behavioral Signals API. Whether it’s for a virtual assistant on a mobile phone, on the web, in a car, on a smart speaker, or for a social robot, an interactive child’s toy, a robotic carer, companies, developers or DIY enthusiasts can now design and build engaging interactions which can seamlessly benefit from our internationally acclaimed speech emotion recognition technology. Our production-level Behavioral Signals ΑPI, offers a rich variety of emotional and behavioral metrics and allows both real-time and batch audio processing, and can readily support heavy-duty applications.

Our Founders

Driven by a passion to bring our ground-breaking patented speech-to-emotion and speech-to-behaviors technologies to market, Professors and Scientists, Alex Potamianos and Shri Narayanan founded Behavioral Signals in 2016. With the goal of enhancing and forever changing the world of business, technology is at the core of what we do. Our algorithms analyze human emotions and behaviors, transform data into usable information, and lead to making better business decisions and increasing profits. Until now, human emotion has been considered impossible to quantify, and impossible to measure. With our patented analytics engine, we use science to measure and interpret the “how” part of human interactions.

The Team

CEO & Chairman

Jim Demetriades

Jim Demetriades (Jimmy) works at the intersection of breakthroughs in hard science and artificial intelligence, and works towards their subsequent commercialization. 
He is the CEO and Chairman of Behavioral Signals and Founder and CEO of Kairos Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners with universities to identify some of the world’s most important scientific discoveries and subsequent  commercialization. Kairos has invested in more than 55 deep technology companies across AI, chemistry, healthcare, cybersecurity, plasma physics, nanotechnologies, and other transformative sectors.

In 1989, Jim founded SeeBeyond Technology, which grew into the world’s largest organically grown and self-funded enterprise integration software company, serving thousands of organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies, major healthcare systems, and government institutions. Jim started the company with 5,000 dollars, lead the companies recognition by the Gartner group as the visionary leader and creator of the enterprise application interaction technology sector, took the company public, created a board of directors which included the founder of Accenture, the managing partner of Ernest and Young, the president or Oracle, the president of Peoplesoft, and the head of business development for EDS.

As CEO & Chairman at Behavioral Signals, Jim contributes his expertise to the company’s vision for behavioral intelligence and AI-powered deepfake and deceptive speech detection. His perspective extends beyond the technology itself, connecting the rapid evolution of generative AI with the broader challenges facing enterprises, governments, and critical infrastructure: how to establish trust in AI, protect organizations from synthetic media, and build secure, trustworthy human-AI interactions.
Chief Scientist & Co-founder

Shri Narayanan

There is a lot that we can say about Shri, our Chief Scientist. In fact, there is an entire wikipedia page about his many accomplishments. He is a pioneer in human-centered information processing and communication technologies, with a special emphasis on behavioral signal processing and informatics.

Shri brings his vision to the team, encouraging new ways of thinking. He informs and inspires us to reach beyond what is possible today, setting new standards for tomorrow.

Granted, Shri is a very busy person, but in his leisure time he enjoys playing the citar.

He is a graduate, with an M.S. Engineering and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering, of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and is an Andrew J. Viterbi Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Shri holds appointments as Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Linguistics, Psychology, Neuroscience and Pediatrics and is the founding director of the Ming Hsieh Institute. Prior to USC, Shri was with AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Research from 1995 to 2000. At USC, he founded and currently directs the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL).

 

Director of Machine Learning

Theodoros Giannakopoulos

Theodoros is Director of Machine Learning at Behavioral Signal Technologies. Based in Greece, Dr. Giannakopoulos has multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens.

In addition to his work with Behavioral Signals, he is also teaching Multimodal Information Processing and Analysis in the Data Science Master of IIT, NCSR.  He is the co-author of more than 70 publications in journals and conferences, and also co-author of the book “Introduction to Audio Analysis: A MATLAB Approach”.

His accolades include winning two best-paper awards at MMSP2007 and ICMLA2010 and being ranked in the top 0.5% of Python users according to gitawards.com. He is an enthusiastic and active member of the open-source community.

 

Chief of staff & Technical Project Manager

Raj Chinnasamy

Raj Chinnasamy, Chief of Staff & Technical Project Manager at Behavioral Signals, is a customer experience and contact center technology professional with around 16 years of industry experience. Since 2009, he has worked across diverse customer environments, helping organizations modernize their contact centers and enhance day-to-day operations. His expertise spans cloud platforms such as NICE CXone, Cisco Webex Contact Center, and RingCentral, covering IVR design, ACD configuration, outbound dialers, routing logic, and API-based integrations. He began his career in telephony and voice engineering, supporting migrations from traditional PBX systems to IP-based communication and cloud telephony, which provided him with a comprehensive understanding of end-to-end contact center operations. Over time, he took on deeper responsibilities in CCaaS implementations, solution design, and customer-facing technical leadership, often collaborating with clients on CRM integrations to streamline agent workflows and improve the overall service experience.

Raj focuses on understanding real business challenges, simplifying technical approaches, and delivering solutions that are stable, scalable, and practical for the teams who use them. He has contributed to numerous enterprise projects and worked closely with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth deployments and successful adoption. He holds certifications as a NICE CXone Implementation Consultant, ReachCx Outbound Dialer Implementation Manager, Customer Dynamics e2 Agent Solution Architect, and RingCentral Certified Engineer, and is an active member of PMI. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Anna University, Chennai, and holds the title “Dr” in recognition of his contributions to technology and customer experience innovation.

Outside of work, Raj enjoys candid photography and is a passionate football enthusiast, interests that bring both creativity and balance to his life

Head of Business for LATAM

Ronald Goldstein

Ron is an entrepreneurial cross functional senior executive with 20+ years of global payments: Cross border transactions, financial services, fin-tech, e-commerce, mobile pay, SaaS, biometrics, AI, mobile top-ups and payment API’s developing business, alliances, partnerships, country strategies and international sales. He is working on business development in the LATAM region for Behavioral Signals.

Marketing & Communications

Popi Paraschaki

Popi is a Marketing & Communications Lead at Behavioral Signals. She holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of West Attica, a degree in Cultural Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and a Master’s degree in Digital Marketing from Alba Graduate Business School.

With extensive professional experience in communication, public relations, and project management, Popi has worked with leading advertising agencies, like Ogilvy, V&O, and JNL, spearheading communication campaigns for large public and private organizations. Her expertise in digital marketing is complemented by her specialization in the e-health, tech, and education industries.

A creative and results-driven professional, Popi thrives on collaboration and innovation. Based in Athens, Greece, she balances her career with a fulfilling personal life, enjoying coffee, good food, trekking, and deep conversations with friends.

R&D Software Developer

Ledion Sotiri

Ledion is an R&D Software Developer at Behavioral Signals with an extensive knowledge of system analysis and software engineering for networks, including mobile communications. He’s also prolific in image and video processing. With a strong mathematical background, he excels in analytical thinking and probabilities analysis.

When Ledion is not tinkering away with writing code he loves to read about philosophy and psychology, interpreting human behaviors, while also looking up towards the stars in his spare time.

Machine Learning Engineer

Dimitris Sgouropoulos

Dimitris has a BSc Degree in Informatics and an MSc Degree in Signal and Information Processing and Learning. He’s working with the Machine Learning team at Behavioral Signals.

He has worked as a Research Assistant at the National Centre of Scientific Research “Demokritos” in the field of Machine Learning with multimedia content.

In his spare time, Dimitris likes to relax by playing computer and board games with friends.

Machine Learning Engineer

Antonia Petrogianni

Antonia holds a Diploma (Integrated Master’s) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Thessaly, specializing in key research domains such as music information retrieval, speech emotion recognition, and multimodal deep learning.

With prior experience as a research associate at the Computational Intelligence Laboratory of the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications of NCSR “Demokritos,” Antonia now contributes her expertise as a valued member of the Machine Learning team at Behavioral Signals.

Outside of her professional pursuits, Antonia finds joy in embarking on road trips and immersing herself in music during her leisure time.

VP of Sales Engineering

Harish Ruparel

Harish is a highly driven professional with a deep passion for optimizing and transforming Customer Experience. Over the course of his career, he has successfully spearheaded numerous Hi-Touch digital transformation initiatives across a wide array of industry verticals, with a specialized focus on Unified Communications (UC) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platforms. He has led Sales Engineering, Product Management, Professional Services and Delivery Management, built high performing teams to deliver multi-million dollar Customer Engagement and Customer Experience Digital Transformation projects on CC / CCaaS platforms such as Avaya, Cisco, Alvaria (Aspect), Genesys, AWS Connect, NICE CXOne, LiveVox and many others.

His holistic approach to customer experience transformation is centered on integrating innovative technologies to create seamless, efficient, and scalable solutions, empowering organizations to meet the evolving expectations of their customers while driving operational efficiency and business growth.

Harish is based in Mumbai, India with his family. He enjoys long drives over the weekend and go on treks to experience the beauty nature provides us.

Machine Learning Engineer

Lefteris Kapelonis

Lefteris is a Machine Learning Engineer at Behavioral Signals. He received his M.Eng. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at NTUA.

During his dissertation, he conducted research on NLP and dialogue systems. His main interest is bridging the gap between ML research and real-world applications.

Lefteris enjoys reading, running, and playing computer games in his free time.

Machine Learning Engineer

Sofia Eleftheriou

Sofia is a Machine learning engineer at Behavioral Signals. She holds a master’s equivalent degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).

Over the past years, Sofia has made significant contributions as a Research Associate at the Computational Intelligence Laboratory of the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications at NCSR “Demokritos.” Her primary research interests lie in multimodal machine learning and deep learning, with a particular passion for speech-related applications. She is currently pursuing her PhD studies, jointly affiliated with NCSR Demokritos and the Department of Informatics at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). Her doctoral research centers on “Behavioral Analysis in Human Communication using Deep Learning.”

In her free time, Sofia is an avid traveler, exploring new cultures and destinations around the world. She is also an enthusiastic reader with a deep love for books and enjoys delving into various literary genres. Additionally, she has a keen interest in the art of acting, which she actively pursues as a hobby.

Full Stack Software Engineer

Orestis Vaggelis

Orestis is a Full Stack Software Engineer at Behavioral Signals, contributing to the development of advanced AI-driven solutions. He holds an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from NCSR Demokritos and a BSc in Mathematics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), grounding his work in both solid theoretical foundations and applied machine learning expertise.

Before joining Behavioral Signals, Orestis worked as a Computer Vision Research Engineer at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). There, he focused on cutting-edge research in 6D object pose estimation and 2D/3D scene understanding—fields central to robotics, automation, and intelligent perception systems.

Passionate about innovation, problem-solving, and the constantly evolving world of AI, Orestis continues to explore how emerging technologies can transform real-world applications and user experiences.

Machine Learning Engineer

Andreas Patakis

Andreas holds a Bachelor’s degree in Informatics from the University of Piraeus (UniPi) and an MSc in Data Science and Machine Learning from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), with research interests spanning audio, speech, and natural language processing. He has worked extensively on generative music, with a particular focus on real-time musical accompaniment that adapts to a live performer, as well as on music information retrieval, where his work has centered on interpretable approaches to music tagging.

With prior experience as a research assistant at the DataStories Data Science Lab of the University of Piraeus, where he worked on geospatial data, mobility analytics, and predictive modeling, Andreas now contributes his expertise as a valued member of the Machine Learning team at Behavioral Signals.

Outside of his professional pursuits, Andreas finds joy in playing music during his leisure time.

Data Annotator

Ero Lefa

With a rich background in theater, radio, and management, Ero is passionate about supporting talent and nurturing creative vision with her work.

She is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts – New York and The Barrow Group Theater. Having lived and studied in both New York and Europe, Ero brings a global perspective and a rich cultural understanding to her work. Her experiences in diverse artistic communities have shaped her ability to connect with people from all walks of life, fostering collaboration and synergy among creative professionals.

She is a gym rat, a habitual contrarian and an undercover nerd who enjoys going down intellectual rabbit holes and debating counterfactuals.

Data Annotator

Venetia Kyritsi

Venetia is a data analyst, annotator, and communications professional in the fields of Tech, AI, Health Tech, Health and Wellness, event management, international delegations, integrated marketing campaigns, new media marketing, social media content creation, curation, and project management. She is a firm believer that it is time to put the EQ into IQ and start developing soft skills in all industries. I love my dog and my cat, swimming, going to the theater, and binge-watching series.

Behavioral Data Analyst

Efi Arvaniti

Efi is a graduate of the School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, from the Technical University of Crete. Her diploma thesis is in the field of image and signal processing of medical images, titled “Quantitative Analysis of Spatial Profiles of Intensity in Dynamic Optical Signals: Applying to the Estimation of risk Transformation from Neoplasia into Cancer”.
In 2011, she received her Master’s Degree from the University of Ioannina, School of Informatics. Her master’s thesis is in electronics and power consumption of circuits during the testing phase of their production, titled “Scan Chain Partitioning for Low-Power Scan Testing”.
During her master studies, she worked for two semesters as an assistant in the Digital Design Lab at the University of Ioannina, Greece. She has received a certification diploma in education training. She has also worked in a specialized high school as a teacher of informatics in Thessaloniki. She also is a co-founder and partner of a computer and software business in Thessaloniki specializing in websites, web advertising, technology consulting, computer services and software development.
Efi works with Behavioral Signals as an Annotator. She speaks Greek, English and German.

Advisory Board

Dr. Ben Goertzel

Dr. Ben Goertzel

Goertzel is the CEO and founder of SingularityNET, a project combining artificial intelligence and blockchain to democratize access to artificial intelligence. He was a Director of Research at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He is also the chief scientist and chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC; chairman of the OpenCog Foundation; and advisor to Singularity University. Goertzel was the Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics, the company that created Sophia the Robot.

He is a member of Behavioral Signals’ Advisory Board

Dr. Joscha Bach

Dr. Joscha Bach

Joscha Bach is an AI researcher who has worked and published about cognitive architectures, models of mental representation, emotion, motivation, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. His cognitive architecture MicroPsi builds on a framework for simulating agents as neuro-symbolic spreading activation networks, situated in a simulation environment or fitted with robotic bodies. Joscha earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI, and in using computational models and conceptual tools to understand our minds and what makes us human. He has taught computer science, AI, and cognitive science at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, the Institute for Cognitive Science at Osnabrück, and the MIT Media Lab, and authored the book “Principles of Synthetic Intelligence”.

He is a member of Behavioral Signals’ Advisory Board

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and the President of Sinovation Ventures’ Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures, managing US$2.7 billion in dual currency investment funds, is a leading venture capital firm focusing on developing the next generation of high-tech companies. Prior to founding Sinovation in 2009, Dr. Lee was the President of Google China, and a senior executive at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Dr. Lee received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Columbia University, his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, and Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Carnegie Mellon and the City University of Hong Kong. He is the Co-Chair of the Artificial Intelligence Council for the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has appeared in Times 100 in 2013, WIRED 25 Icons, Asian Business Leader 2018 by Asia House, and was followed by over 50 million users on social media.

He is a member of Behavioral Signals’ Advisory Board

Our Investors

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