Our Story
We were trying to help a private school in Miami with IT problems after Hurricane Irma and quickly realized that their biggest issue was the lack of an intuitive, school wide emergency lockdown solution.
Looking at the marketplace, we were surprised by the lack of integrated solutions available and the high cost of existing stand-alone solutions. Our CTO/Co-founder knew that using his expertise he could leverage new and exciting AI and IoT technologies to deliver an advanced, integrated and reasonably priced security solution.
The core Simpliot Emergency Warning System (EWS) was initially developed and tested with direct input from the school. The system is lightning fast and provides users detailed Command and Control capabilities. After numerous discussions and even more coffee, we came to the simple conclusion that a perimeter and common-area detection system was also required and thus Simpliot CITADEL was born.
Having worked in the corporate world for many years, we feel that quite often companies do not go the extra mile to nurture their employees and take care of them. We want to go the extra mile with our staff and strongly believe that if we take very good care of our team members, they in turn will take care of our customers and business. We deliver cost-effective, advanced security systems designed to mitigate threats to facilities and campuses. We strongly believe in communitas; an inherently collaborative process (doing with, rather than for someone). Communitas concentrates on assets, skills, abilities and desires of all involved in order to deliver the very best results. The cornerstone of our corporate culture is the pursuit of and emphasis on alliances and long-term relationships
Our Team
James Woodyatt
Chairman and Chief Executive OfficerJames worked in the financial markets industry from 1990 to 2005, holding various positions in institutions including Nomura Bank (Japanese equities, convertible and warrant bond sales), Tradition SA (interest rate swaps, inter-bank dealing) and Decillion AG (convertible arbitrage fund marketing). In 2001, James joined the hedge fund arm of Spain's Grupo Santander where he was a Senior Vice President, head of International sales and marketing and a member of the company's management committee. In 2007 James became a board member of xG Technology Inc. (then a London AIM listed company and since 2013 NASDAQ listed) and served on the board of xG until 2013. James acted as Deputy CEO from 2007 and as President (2012) of xG Technology Inc. until September 2016. James is fluent in French, English and Spanish and is conversant in German.
Aaron McKay
President and Chief Technology OfficerAaron is an information technology industry veteran with over 20 years of experience. Initially trained as a network engineer in the mid-1990's, Aaron has designed, built and successfully managed numerous global data networks. He has been the network architect for financial firms with billions of dollars in assets under management and global technology companies. He has provided inter-networking expertise to many private and government entities. The various challenges of managing secure, wide-ranging data networks has provided Aaron the opportunity to stay current with constantly changing modern wired and wireless digital communications. Aaron has become a true believer in the Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) Neural Networks and the innovative capabilities these technologies can deliver. Aaron is fluent in English and Spanish.
Gregg Rodes
Chief Financial OfficerGregg has over 22 years of corporate finance experience working for publicly traded companies, and most recently served as Vice President of Finance at xG Technology, Inc. He has an extensive background working for start-up companies in medical, broadcast and cellular industries, focusing on SEC filings, manufacturing and operations. Gregg received his BS in Business Administration from the University of Florida and his MBA from Florida Atlantic University. As part of the first graduating class from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, making his investment in ITC both personal and professional.