Simpson Todd

Worth knowing

He has taken a company from founding to a Toronto listing, sold another inside six months of taking the CEO seat, and led innovation inside Mozilla, InterDigital and AVG, so he knows both how a startup gets bought and how a large platform decides what to buy. He has sat on boards and advised founders through those same decisions.

Story

Simpson earned his BSc and PhD in computer science at the University of Calgary and stayed to build, co-founding Call Genie, which went public in Toronto, and launching EZone Networks, Worldplay Networks and Headplay along the way. He served as CTO of Zi Corporation, then became President and CEO of Jasomi Networks, which Ditech Networks acquired in 2005; two years later he was running Ditech itself. At Mozilla he led the move to mobile and cloud and put a privacy-protecting identity system into Firefox OS. He joined Canadian firm iNovia Capital as a venture partner and then partner, backing early-stage software companies, and now invests from NYX Ventures. He holds multiple patents, speaks and writes often, and has published a science fiction trilogy.

Highlights

• Co-founder, Call Genie Inc. (taken public in Toronto)
• President and CEO, Ditech Networks (NASDAQ: DITC), from 2007
• Chief of Innovation, Mozilla; Chief Strategy Officer, AVG Technologies (2014)
• EVP, Innovation Partners, InterDigital (2013-2014); Partner, Inovia Capital
• Board member, Armored Things and KNØX Industries; advisor to Spatial, PEX, Boosted