Azigo puts individuals in control of the web by driving the adoption of user-centric technologies. Our primary professional duty is to be true to our commitments to the individual. Each member of our team – management, investors, board members, and advisors – offers Azigo a unique and special talent. Whether it be an expertise in technology, evolving business models or legal issues, our extended team helps us navigate the complexities associated with doing something really big.

Management Team

Jeff Carter, CEO

Jeff Carter joined Azigo in 2009 to lead a major transformation in the way businesses and consumers interact. Jeff brings a mix of leadership, strategic planning, technical expertise and deep domain experience in the banking vertical to his role as CEO.

Jeff founded the Center for Future Banking at MIT Media Lab, a first of its kind collaboration between the largest bank in the world with a premier research university, MIT Media Lab. Before this role, Jeff led an effort for Bank of America examining the future strategy for leveraging the company’s vast information cloud, stores and platforms. Prior to Bank of America he held executive roles in multiple venture backed startups with experience in an IPO and several liquidity events.

Jeff has been recognized in numerous publications for his business and technical leadership. He is involved in a variety of community service programs including the Arts and Science Council, Habitat for Humanity and the United Way.

Jack Connors, President

Jack joined Azigo in early 2007 to begin Parity’s transition from a research and development company to a consumer internet service provider.

Jack is a twenty-year software industry veteran who has focused on advanced data analytics and deployment of creative software service applications for retail and telecom. As VP of Retail Sales at Syncra Systems, Jack was responsible for retailer adoption of Syncra’s supply chain collaboration solutions, building deep relationships with Argentrics, and overseeing growth at dozens of retailers including Best Buy and RadioShack. As VP / GM of GetConnected’s Retail / Telecom business, Jack was responsible for creating new service revenue streams for merchants such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and AOL. Under Jack’s leadership, GetConnected experienced significant customer growth.

Paul Trevithick, CTO and Co-Founder

Paul Trevithick is the CTO of Azigo, setting the technical direction of the product. Azigo’s offerings are based on the open source Higgins Project, co-founded by Paul in 2003. Paul is frequently called on to advise industry, government, and academic groups on issues related to digital identity, privacy and security. He is the founder and chair of the Information Card Foundation, and a founder of other groups in the digital identity space. Prior to co-founding Azigo in 2000, Trevithick was president and co-founder of Bitstream (NASDAQ:BITS). Before that he was a research assistant at the Media Lab and has a BSEE from MIT. He blogs at http://incontextblog.com.

Brian Walker, VP Engineering

Brian Walker has over 20 years of technology experience. Since the late 90’s his career has focused in enterprise software market. He has lead virtually all lifecycle aspects of product software business to Fortune 500 companies. From his experience at Silknet (customer service solutions), Kana (enterprise CRM) and Fast Search & Transfer (enterprise search) Brian has led teams in Customer Support, Professional Services, Training, Sales Operations, Product Management and Product Development functions. His early technology career with Raytheon, Digital Equipment Corporation and Intel was focused on semiconductor process development, manufacturing/yield improvement management and quality and reliability.

Tom Carroll, VP Product Management

Tom has over twenty years of technology experience, with the last eight focused in Software-as-a-Service companies. As VP Product Management at PowerSteering Software (On-Demand Project Portfolio Management) and VP Product Strategy at Syncra Systems (Supply Chain Collaboration – since acquired by Oracle) Tom led efforts in Professional Services, Training, Product Management and Marketing. His early technology career at Polaroid Corporation focused on process development, new product development and quality, where he became certified as a Six-Sigma Black Belt. Tom earned SM and MBA degrees as a Fellow in the LFM Program at MIT/Sloan.

Board of Directors

Michael Phillips, Chairman of the Board

Mike is the chairman of Russell Investment Group, a global leader in multi-manager investing. He served as chief executive officer from 1993 to 2003. In addition, Mike is a member of Russell’s executive and management committees. Mike is a board member of Frank Russell Company, and Russell Investments Limited (London). In 2006 Mike was appointed by the White House to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), representing the U.S. financial services industry. He is chair of the Finance Economic Working group (FEWG) of ABAC. Mike is also chair of the Russell 20-20 Association. In 1981, Mike joined Russell in the London office and became the managing director in 1983. There, he helped build a European presence for Russell. In 1986, Phillips moved to company headquarters in Tacoma, Washington, U.S.A., to serve as director of international consulting. In that capacity, he led Russell’s efforts to establish offices in Toronto, Sydney and Tokyo. Mike became president of Russell in 1990. Before joining Russell, from 1971-1981, Mike was an investment analyst and a portfolio manager at Barclays Investment Management Ltd. in London, where he was responsible for managing internationally diversified pension fund assets. Mike also taught investment courses at City of London Polytechnic School of Business Studies.

John Henry Clippinger, Co-Founder

John is currently a senior fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a consultant to Parity, and the author of his most recent book, A Crowd of One. Prior to founding Parity, John co-founded LingoMotors, a software company for natural-language search. Previously, he was CEO of Context Media LLC, a knowledge management company, and Director, Intellectual Capital, at Coopers & Lybrand. He holds six software patents, and is the author of several books and papers on technology strategy and policy, artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics. John has received awards from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, and has served as an advisor to the Department of State, FCC, OTA, and the White House. John is a graduate of Yale University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Aspen Institute, the Highland Forum, and The Santa Fe Institute.

Advisors

John Bradley, Security Advisor

John has over 15 years of telco and security experience. Most recently he was the CSO at ooTao Inc. He is on the OASIS IDTRUST steering committee and serves on the OASIS IMI, SAML, XRI, XDI, and ORMS Technical Committees. He is a member and participant in the OpenID Foundation, Liberty Alliance, OSISand the Information Card Foundation as a proposer and contributor to the PAPE and openID InfoCard specs.

As co-founder, SVP and chief scientist at Group Telecom, John designed and implemented some of the first-ever metropolitan fibre optic networks to deliver gigabit Ethernet services – network models that have since been replicated all over the world. He also helped turn GT into Canada’s most successful CLEC – with 400,000kms of fibre, 1500 employees and a quarter-billion-dollar revenue run rate. He provided design and consulting services for Westel and helped develop Cyberstore Systems into one of the first commercial Internet service providers in British Columbia. Cyberstore later spun off Xcert systems one of the early PKI and identity software companies.

Esther Dyson

Esther is Chair, EDventure Holdings; Editor, Release 1.0; Author, world-recognized consultant and investor. She is also an investor in Azigo. Esther is chairman of EDventure Holdings, which publishes the influential technology-industry newsletter, Release 1.0, and sponsors two of the industry’s premier annual conferences, PC Forum and EDventure’s High-Tech Forum. She also writes a fortnightly column for the New York Times syndicate (Release 3.0). She focuses on emerging technologies and business models (peer-to-peer, artificial intelligence, the Internet, wireless applications), emerging markets and emerging companies. In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals’ lives, Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. She is a trustee to emerging organizations (Bridges.org, the Santa Fe Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Eurasia Foundation). She recently finished a two-year-term as founding chairman of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the international agency charged with setting policy for the Internet’s core infrastructure independent of government control.

John Sviokla

John is Vice Chairman at DiamondCluster and a former Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School. He is also an investor in Azigo. Recently, he has been focusing on CRM and big IT projects (and why they fail). He is a founding board member of Journal of Electronic Commerce, and an associate editor of Organization Science, as well as a member of the National Academy of Management and the Institute for Management Science. He is also Executive Director for Exchange, an interdisciplinary roundtable for senior executives working to use technology for value and innovation. John has authored several books and many publications.