The new CEO of Thales Canada says the federal government’s recent pledges to boost defence spending and forge closer ties with European allies will be a springboard to even more growth for the Ottawa-based company as it gears up to expand its local footprint and hire dozens of additional workers. Ian Krepps, who took the […]
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The new CEO of Thales Canada says the federal government’s recent pledges to boost defence spending and forge closer ties with European allies will be a springboard to even more growth for the Ottawa-based company as it gears up to expand its local footprint and hire dozens of additional workers.
Ian Krepps, who took the reins as chief executive three weeks ago, said the moves signal a “reawakening of Canada’s commitment to defence” under new PM Mark Carney.
Canada joined NATO allies that agreed in late June to dramatically boost defence spending to five per cent of gross domestic product over the next decade.
That decision came just days after Carney signed on to a new defence and security partnership with the European Union that opens the door for Canadian firms to take part in the $1.25-trillion ReArm Europe program.
“All of these dynamics really create an environment for optimism, an environment for being enthusiastic about the future,” said Krepps, who spent the last three and a half years as Thales Canada’s vice-president of growth before being promoted last month following the departure of former CEO Chris Pogue, who left to join fellow Kanata defence industry stalwart Calian Group. “And I think we’re just excited about the opportunities that are ahead.”
Krepps brings a wide-ranging background to his new role.
After earning an electrical engineering degree at Royal Military College, he spent two decades in the Canadian Army, eventually attaining a master’s degree in software engineering at RMC.
Krepps held a number of key army leadership posts, including a two-year stint as commanding officer of a signal squadron at a Canadian Forces base in Shilo, Man., where he was responsible for delivering IT services to several army bases.
Krepps joined Thales Canada after retiring from the army in 2010. Since then, he’s overseen programs to develop support system software for the Canadian military and helped the company tap into new markets as VP of growth.
He takes his seat in the CEO’s chair as Thales is preparing to consolidate its Ottawa operations into a single office at 500 Palladium Dr. in Kanata and go on a hiring spree, fuelled by surging demand for its defence, digital identity and cybersecurity products.
Thales’s 400 local employees currently work in three separate offices at 1 Chrysalis Way as well as 14 and 20 Colonnade Rd. The new space boosts the firm’s total office footprint in Ottawa by about 25,000 square feet, giving it more room to grow as it looks to hire at least 50 additional workers in the next year, Thales Canada vice-president of strategy and government relations Carla Salci recently told OBJ.
While the National Capital Region has been a major R&D hub for Thales for decades, it became even more important to the company’s overall operations in 2019, when its parent company, French defence giant Thales Group, acquired Netherlands-based digital security firm Gemalto for about $7.3 billion.
The deal effectively doubled the size of Thales’s local workforce overnight, adding new expertise in digital security and cybersecurity to the company’s existing local programs that included providing systems integration and software development services for the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Krepps believes Thales – which moved its Canadian headquarters to Ottawa from Toronto last year and now has about 400 local employees – is “uniquely positioned" to bring its experts in defence, AI and cybersecurity technology together “under a single roof” and create cutting-edge solutions for military customers in Canada and beyond.
In particular, he points to areas where Thales already has a strong track record of being a key technology provider, including ground-based air defence systems, air surveillance radar and underwater solar systems that help Canada defend its Arctic territory.
While the company is already poised for significant growth, Krepps says he sees opportunities to “accelerate” that trajectory by forcing new partnerships with other “agile, innovative” local defence and security companies.
He also thinks Thales can get more mileage out of resources such as Area X.O, a 1,900-acre testing ground for autonomous vehicles, drones and other emerging technologies in Ottawa’s south end.
As an example, he suggested Thales might work with other local partners such as Invest Ottawa to put drones through their paces at Area X.O in an effort to find new and better ways of deploying the unmanned vehicles in combat.
“I think we’re well-positioned there, and we’re ready to deploy those systems at the pace that our customers can absorb,” Krepps said, adding he hopes Thales can “contribute to a revitalization of defence in Canada, both from a sovereign perspective in the Arctic and also meeting our NATO commitments.
“I think it’s a really exciting time to be in defence.”
