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Silicon Valley veteran DeWitt joins fraud-detection software firm MindBridge as CEO

January 16, 2024

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MindBridge Analytics has brought in a seasoned executive with experience at some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies to head its C-suite as it looks to drive momentum for its AI-driven auditing and fraud-detection software. The Ottawa-based firm said Tuesday it has hired Stephen DeWitt as chief executive officer to replace Bill Hewitt, who took the job on an interim basis last year. Hewitt will remain on the board of directors. DeWitt joins MindBridge as the company is pushing to broaden its reach after landing US$60 million in fresh venture capital last spring from a group of investors that included PSG Equity, PeakSpan Capital and Real Ventures. The firm, whose customers include accounting giant KPMG and multinational energy company Chevron, generated record revenues in 2023 and hired new senior sales and marketing executives in a bid to expand its customer base. “Stephen is the best of all worlds for MindBridge at this stage in the company’s growth,” Eli Fathi, chair of the company’s board, said in a news release. “His deep love of technology, track record of innovation and collaboration, and enthusiasm for AI-driven solutions are a perfect combination of skills and experience.” A graduate of Boston's Babson College, where he earned a degree in economics and finance, DeWitt is a veteran of more than three and half decades in the technology space. His resume includes stints as a senior executive at Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard. He also served as CEO of Cobalt Networks, guiding the firm through its initial public offering before the California-based company was acquired by Sun Microsystems. DeWitt later led San Francisco’s Azul Systems, New York software-as-a-service company WorkMarket and most recently California-based cloud computing company CloudBees, where he was chief executive from February 2021 to May 2022. DeWitt is also no stranger to Canadian markets – he was western Canadian sales manager of software firm Symantec in the early 1990s before serving as managing director of its Canadian operations in Toronto. He said he believes MindBridge’s platform, which uses artificial intelligence to find anomalies and accounting errors buried in customers’ financial spreadsheets, is a technology whose time has come. “Our AI-powered financial risk discovery platform, coupled with our ever-expanding repository of meaningful data and extensive market expertise, arrives precisely when the industry grapples with intricate regulations and immediate and continuous compliance needs,” DeWitt said in a statement. “MindBridge possesses the unique potential, technology, adept team, and seasoned experience to spearhead this market well into the future.”