Our Leadership
The secret sauce to truly innovative work will always be the people
Check out our current job openings
Michael (@mjsikorsky) co-founded Robots & Pencils in 2009 with the then-contrarian view that mobile would be more transformative than the Internet. Since then, the firm has become a trusted strategic partner to some of the world’s best brands, helping its clients harness the power of mobile, web and frontier technologies to transform their businesses.
With a growth rate of 4,971% in the first five years, Robots & Pencils was named the 34th fastest growing technology company in North America by Deloitte. Michael credits Robots & Pencils’ success to talent obsession.
Michael is also a sought-after speaker on the topics of innovation, business strategy, and mobile and frontier technologies, having guest lectured at Harvard Business School, Stanford, MIT and Columbia University. He is an EY Entrepreneur of the Year award winner (2013). His insights, products and ideas have been featured in Wired, CNNMoney, Profit Magazine, ZDNet, and 9to5 Mac.
I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.
Tracey brings 18 years of expertise in marketing, technology and process improvement to her role at Robots & Pencils.
Since joining the company in 2015, Tracey has proven to be an expert at finding ways to grow the business while improving operations for the benefit of the company’s talent and clients. Her areas of expertise include cross-functional team leadership, project management, content strategy, business and process analysis, user experience and customer advocacy.
Tracey began her career as a software developer, analyst and consultant for multinational companies across the financial and medical sectors, including Bank of America and Siemens Healthcare.
Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card we expected; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
Dave brings more than 15 years of experience to his role of VP, Finance at Robots & Pencils, where he is responsible for finance, accounting, tax and treasury functions.
Prior to Robots & Pencils, Dave was an integral member of a number of oil and gas companies. He was Corporate Controller of Pure Energy Services Ltd. from 2009 until its sale to FMC Technologies in 2012 for $282 million, representing a 500% growth in the company’s market capitalization during his tenure.
Dave holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary as well as his Chartered Accountant designation.
The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.
Jason Tate is a passionate and forward-thinking executive with more than 25 years of strategic consulting experience. A self-described technophile, Jason has broad experience designing, implementing and maintaining IT environments. He has a deep understanding of data center architecture, software development, mobile solutions and service design.
Jason joins Robots & Pencils following a five-year stint leading Apple’s enterprise customers in Western Canada and 10 years developing award-winning managed services solutions at Long View Systems.
You can’t solve complex business and people problems by asking 'how can we innovate?' You must start by asking 'why?'
Rita Gunther McGrath is a globally recognized expert on strategy, innovation, and growth. In addition to teaching and speaking, she is an advisor to CEOs and senior teams and is regarded as unique in her ability to help them design and execute strategies in rapidly changing and volatile environments. Rita is valued for her rare ability to connect research to practical business problems.
Recognized consistently as one of the top 10 management thinkers by global management award Thinkers50, Rita also received the award for outstanding achievement in Strategy. She is a sought-after speaker and is often cited in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and NPR’s Marketplace.
Rita has recently founded Valize, LLC, a company focused on helping organizations get beyond innovation theater by unlocking the power of the Discovery Driven growth approach.
Rita joined Columbia Business School in 1993. Prior to that, she was an IT director, worked in the political arena, and founded two startups. She received her Ph.D. from Wharton and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
You can’t talk about strategy today without talking about innovation. And increasingly, you can’t talk about innovation without talking about digital!