Executive Team

Vern Brownell, President and Chief Executive Officer

Vern Brownell joins D-Wave from Egenera, where he held various executive roles including CEO.   Egenera is a global leader in delivering computing solutions that simplify datacenter infrastructure and operations. Over 350 enterprises around the world trust the Egenera BladeFrame hardware and PAN Manager software to run their most important business applications and achieve higher resource utilization, faster application time to market and lower total cost of ownership.  Egenera was founded by Mr. Brownell in 2000 based on his experiences as the Chief Technology Officer at Goldman Sachs, where he and his staff of 1,300 were responsible for worldwide technology infrastructure including computing platforms, datacenters, data networking, telecommunications and trading-floor operations.

Prior to his tenure at Goldman, Brownell served in various management and engineering roles at Stratus Computer, Ztel and Digital Equipment. He holds an MBA degree from Anna Maria College and a BEng. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Warren Wall, EVP, Chief Operating Officer

Warren Wall joins D-Wave after 14 years in senior executive positions at Electronic Arts. His experience includes positions as Chief Operating Officer of EA Canada, VP Global Online Studios and VP Technology for EA World-wide Studios. Mr. Wall was instrumental in bringing professional project management methodology to game development as team sizes grew from single to triple digits. His most recent responsibilities encompassed the technology groups that created and maintained the core math, physics, graphics and animation systems utilized in the majority of games published by EA. Prior to EA, Mr. Wall held technical, sales and senior project management positions in various Vancouver-based high technology companies such as Sydney Development Corporation, Epic Data and Dynapro Systems.

Mr. Wall holds a BSc. degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Geordie Rose, Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Geordie Rose is a founder and CTO of D-Wave. He is known as a leading advocate for quantum computing and physics-based processor design, and has been invited to speak on these topics in venues ranging from the 2003 TED Conference to Supercomputing 2008.

His innovative and ambitious approach to building quantum computing technology has received coverage in MIT Technology Review magazine, The Economist, New Scientist, Scientific American and Science magazines, and one of his business strategies was profiled in a Harvard Business School case study. He has received several awards and accolades for his work with D-Wave, including being short-listed for a 2005 World Technology Award.

Dr. Rose holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia, specializing in quantum effects in materials. While at McMaster University, he graduated first in his class with a BEng in Engineering Physics, specializing in semiconductor engineering.

Jeremy P. Hilton, Vice President, Processor Development

Jeremy Hilton was previously Director of Intellectual Property and was responsible for managing the transfer of intellectual property from D-Wave's global collaborative network to Vancouver. In under three years, he grew D-Wave's Intellectual Property portfolio from 13 to 126 patents filed. Mr. Hilton has accepted several awards on behalf of D-Wave, including the 2003 British Columbia Technology Industry Association (BCTIA) award for “Most Promising Pre-Commercial Technology.” He is a member of the Langara College Computer Science Program Advisory Committee and the BCTIA Research & Development Committee.

David Pires, Vice President, Hardware Engineering

David Pires was previously Director, Product Engineering at D-Wave, responsible for turning D-Wave’s technology into a deployable product.  Mr. Pires brings with him over 18 years of experience in R&D, multi-disciplinary product development and engineering management.

He spent 11 years at Creo (acquired by Kodak in 2005) where he was a Principal Engineer, holding various positions in product engineering and project management.  At Creo, Mr. Pires was a key contributor in the development of high precision imaging systems and successful product introductions.  Prior to joining D-Wave, Mr. Pires was the Engineering Manager at a cleantech startup developing chemical saving industrial processing equipment and he has previously worked on the development of medical device and laboratory automation systems.

Mr. Pires is a P. Eng. and holds a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. William Macready, Vice President, Software Engineering

William Macready joined D-Wave from NASA's Ames Research Center, where he was a Senior Research Scientist. At NASA, Dr. Macready formed a group in Machine Learning and built intelligent algorithms for high-performance scheduling, the automated design of satellite antennae, and learning algorithms for the automated extraction of knowledge from NASA satellite and deep space imagery.

Prior to joining NASA, Dr. Macready was Vice President of Science and Research for Prowess Software and was responsible for the design and prototyping of a multi-dimensional matching engine for electronic marketplaces. Before that, he was Vice President of Science for BiosGroup, a Cap Gemini Ernst and Young–funded consulting company applying complexity science advances to the solutions of complex business problems. Dr. Macready has managed the delivery of numerous projects to Fortune 500 customers.

Dr. Macready holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Toronto and has over 30 peer-reviewed publications in physics, machine learning, optimization, economics, and theoretical biology journals. Articles discussing the implications of his work have appeared in New Scientist and The New Yorker magazines.

Tanya J. Rothe, General Counsel & Director of Intellectual Property

Tanya Rothe holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering (Chemistry Honours) and a Bachelor of Law from the University of British Columbia. Following law school, Ms. Rothe was selected to clerk for Madam Justice McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada (now Chief Justice of Canada), and subsequently worked as an associate at Bull, Housser & Tupper, where she specialized in engineering and complex commercial litigation.

Prior to joining D-Wave, Ms. Rothe worked as Intellectual Property Counsel at Ballard Power Systems, where she was responsible for managing a significant portion of Ballard's intellectual property portfolio, including all of the intellectual property developed by Ballard's US materials and electric drive and power conversion divisions. In 2003, Ms. Rothe obtained her designation as a registered patent agent.

Roslynn Drewitt-Lange, Controller

Roslynn brings to D-Wave Systems over 20 years of senior management experience in financial planning, accounting and system implementation.  Prior to D-Wave she spent 15 years at Electronic Arts, holding various positions from Studio Asst Controller/Manager of FP&A, Director of Financial and Strategic Planning for Worldwide Studios and most recently as Head of Studio Finance at the Black Box Studio.   At EA, Ms. Drewitt was a key contributor in the standardization and implementation of global studio procedures and systems.  She was the lead contributor in developing global lifetime franchise reporting which enhanced executive decision making.  

Ms. Drewitt is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).