Ryan Hickey

Ensuring all aspects of our business operations are focused on customer delight. Chief Operating Officer

In the early growth phase of eleven-x my fellow co-founders and I felt it was important to have one of us lead sales because we were basically building the plane as we were taking off from the ground. During my time as the Head of Sales I had a fantastic opportunity to build a high performing sales organization. I enjoyed learning something new and I was amazed at how similar engineering is to sales. They both require a lot of problem solving, creativity, and robust processes.

Growing our sales during the pandemic when many of our target customers were in lock down and focusing on keeping basic infrastructure operational was a massive challenge. Meanwhile, at eleven-x, we were figuring out a successful business strategy and how eleven-x could make the biggest impact on our world. Due to sheer grit, perseverance, and continuous learning, we began selling less things and focused more on parking. Today we are focused almost exclusively on parking which has helped to accelerate our growth.

I am proud to say that during my four and a half years in this role, we grew our sales by much more than 11X. I had tremendous support from my two co-founders who believed in me and trusted me with this important role, my amazing sales team who fought with me in the trenches and whom I learned a great deal from, and the rest of the eleven-x team that makes the magic happen. I am grateful for all of it. Head Of Sales

As part of a world-class team, I led our company through significant growth for the first three years of its incredible life. During this time, we were profitable each year, grew to 20 employees, doubled our revenues year-over-year, and completed our first round of financing. We built a thriving design services business developing industry leading LTE technology and we successfully launched Canada’s first coast-to-coast wireless network built for IoT. Along the way I learned more than I ever could have imagined. I am very fortunate to have had the support and encouragement from my business partners, employees, mentors, family, and the greater Kitchener-Waterloo community including Communitech and the Accelerator Centre. Chief Executive Officer

I was an engineer in the research and development division at BlackBerry for 15 years. I began in the hardware team developing Digital ASICs and transitioned into software to develop RF Firmware. During my time at BlackBerry I developed strong technical and people leadership skills. I helped develop many products with over 100 million BlackBerry smartphones shipped with hardware or firmware that I contributed to. I really enjoyed the wild ride and learned so much.

My first permanent position after graduating from university. I got to learn from some extremely bright people about digital ASIC/FPGA design and verification. It was fun to work at such a small company in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia.