Founder · Operator · Company Builder · Turnaround Executive

The experience you want in the room when the situation is expensive, ambiguous, and already drifting.

TRACE is a founder advisory and execution firm for founder-led companies in North America. Through TRACE, Roddy Awad and his team help founders, CEOs, owners, and boards move stalled strategy, recover companies and projects, make high-stakes decisions, and turn AI urgency into an executable business case.

He is not a career consultant observing the work from the outside. He has been the developer, enterprise project leader, founder, seller, operator inside an acquired product company, buyer, fundraiser, shareholder, board chair, angel investor, venture builder, and person accountable when the plan had to become results.

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Founder, TRACE Co-Founder, Lavvi Founder Advisor & Angel Investor Co-Creator, Maple Summit

Roddy Awad seated in a chair, wearing a navy blazer — Roddy Awad

The operating foundation

The perspective was earned in the room.

Roddy learned early that a project can be full of smart, honest people and still burn time and money because nobody sees the whole system.

His career began in software development and enterprise technology, including IBM and AT&T environments. He became the person brought toward troubled projects, where the challenge was rarely just technical. The real work was establishing the truth, aligning stakeholders, clarifying ownership, sequencing decisions, and restoring a credible path forward.

That experience became a pattern he carried into more than two decades as a founder and operator. He founded and built a technology services company, sold and merged it into an automotive software business, operated inside the combined product company, reacquired the business assets he had sold with an institutional insurance partner, launched an insurance distribution platform, raised capital from additional institutional investors, participated in multiple exits, chaired boards, and invested as an angel.

TRACE is the practical expression of that experience: find the signal, create clarity, stay close enough to the work to make sure the result moves, and help founders avoid unnecessary time, energy, and capital.

The full operating arc

Build. Sell. Integrate. Reacquire. Raise. Exit. Build again.

Roddy began in enterprise technology as a developer and then became a leader brought into troubled corporate projects, where recovery required more than technical answers. It required a shared fact base, clear ownership, stakeholder alignment, and disciplined execution.

He later founded and built a technology services company, sold and merged it into an established automotive software business, and took on operating and board responsibilities inside the combined product company.

He then reacquired the business assets he had previously sold alongside an institutional insurance partner, used them to launch an insurance distribution platform, and raised additional capital from institutional investors. He later exited the automotive software company while continuing to build in insurance and technology.

His most recent operating chapter included working alongside Dan Martell to build an AI-native venture platform. The work involved launching and supporting companies and strategic partnerships while applying brand, distribution, governance, and enterprise-value thinking at portfolio speed. It sharpened his view of brand and distribution as core business assets, but it remains one chapter in a much broader operating career.

Full-cycleexperience across company creation, sale, integration, reacquisition, institutional capital, governance, exit, and new venture building.

Operating range

Technology depth. Founder empathy. Executive follow-through.

Roddy's experience spans enterprise and founder-led businesses across telecommunications, IT outsourcing, automotive, insurance, financial services, manufacturing, software, creator economy, online brands, influencer-led businesses, startups, venture studios, and regulated lottery and gaming. He has worked across brand building, distribution, revenue operations, marketing, sales, technology, governance, and founder, executive, and personal leadership.

He has personally sold more than $30M across his career, built and exited service and software companies, chaired boards, and helped launch, build, or support dozens of companies. That breadth lets him move between strategy, customer reality, leadership behaviour, capital, governance, systems, and execution without treating any one of them as the whole answer.

He is most useful when the issue is important, cross-functional, politically or emotionally complex, and too consequential to leave buried inside a normal meeting cadence.

28+years across technology, operations, leadership, and growth

$30M+personally sold across his founder and operating career

Multiple exitsacross service and software companies

Dozensof companies launched across operating and venture roles

Where the pattern recognition comes from

Experience across industries and the functions that make them move.

The value is not a claim that every market behaves the same. It is the ability to recognize recurring constraints, ask better questions faster, and connect commercial, operating, technical, people, and governance realities.

Industry exposure

TelecommunicationsIT outsourcingAutomotiveInsuranceFinancial servicesManufacturingSoftware and SaaSCreator economy, online brands, and influencer-led businessesStartupsVenture studiosLottery and gaming

Operating disciplines

Brand building and distributionRevenue operationsMarketingSalesStrategy executionTurnaroundsAI strategy and executionFounder, executive, and personal leadership

One mandate, six disciplines

High-stakes problems do not stay inside a neat consulting box.

When revenue, execution, people, capital, and confidence are all under pressure, the intervention often requires strategic judgment, operating ownership, leadership candour, and technical leverage at the same time.

Strategy and execution

Convert the ambition into a sequence of decisions, workstreams, owners, measures, and a cadence that can survive daily operations.

Turnaround and recovery

Establish the fact base, stabilize the situation, align stakeholders, rebuild control, and create visible progress against a recovery plan.

Venture building and enterprise value

Move from market insight to company creation by connecting founders, product, brand, distribution, partnerships, capital, and operating discipline.

Founder counsel and coaching

Provide the private, candid perspective required when the decision is high stakes and everyone around the founder has a legitimate agenda.

Capital, exits, and governance

Bring practical experience from institutional investors, shareholders, transactions, multiple exits, and board leadership into the decision.

AI strategy and execution

Determine what AI should do for the business, build the business case, and keep technical implementation aligned to the operating result.

A signature operating insight

Find the truth when no one is lying.

Companies do not need deception to lose the signal. Each leader can be honest from the perspective of their function and still create a fragmented picture. Sales sees the market. Product sees the roadmap. Finance sees the risk. Operations sees the bottleneck. The founder sees all of it, but often through constant interruption.

TRACE's work is to connect those partial truths into a shared fact base, name the real constraint, and create the sequence that lets the organization move together.

That is also why he values calm, direct communication. Pressure is not reduced by avoiding hard facts. It is reduced by making reality usable.

AI strategy and execution

Technology should serve the strategy. It should not quietly become the strategy.

The AI market is changing faster than most leadership teams can evaluate it. That creates two expensive responses: paralysis or scattered activity.

Founders and CEOs know AI matters but are overwhelmed by the pace of new models, agents, vendors, and claims. Some wait because the target keeps moving. Others approve pilots across the company without a common business case, owner, governance model, or measure of value.

Technical consultants are critical to feasibility, architecture, data, security, integration, and implementation. The risk appears when an implementation mandate turns into a business strategy mandate. A specialist can know the technology deeply and still lack the breadth to weigh customer value, industry dynamics, distribution, margins, operating capacity, governance, capital, and shareholder priorities.

TRACE represents the business outcome in the room. Roddy and the team help leadership decide where AI can create or protect value, what to ignore, how to sequence the work, and what the technical partner must deliver. Then TRACE can work alongside internal teams and specialist implementers to keep strategy, execution, and accountability connected.

Separate signal from hype

Rank opportunities against revenue, margin, speed, customer value, decision quality, or risk.

Build the business case

Define the outcome, economics, dependencies, readiness, and measures before choosing the solution.

Set ownership and safeguards

Clarify executive ownership, data boundaries, security, governance, and the decisions that cannot be delegated to a vendor.

Oversee execution and value

Work with technical specialists to ensure the implementation serves the strategy and produces measurable operating leverage.

Selected operating experience

A career built across the moments that test a leader.

The value is not any single title. It is the pattern recognition built by moving through technical, commercial, capital, people, and governance realities.

Enterprise technology

Developer roots and troubled project recovery

Built a technical foundation and learned to restore clarity, ownership, stakeholder alignment, and delivery discipline inside complex IBM and AT&T project environments.

Technical truth had to become a credible path to execution.

Founder and service company

Built a company, carried the risk, and earned the customer

Founded and built a technology services company, developed the team, served enterprise customers, and personally learned what it means to sell, deliver, make payroll, and remain accountable for the outcome.

Founder empathy was earned by carrying the whole business.

M&A and automotive software

Sold, merged, and operated inside a product company

Sold and merged the services business into an established automotive software company, then took on operating and board responsibilities inside the combined organization.

Integration exposed the difference between completing a transaction and making it work.

Reacquisition, insurance, and capital

Bought back what had been sold and built the next platform

Reacquired the business assets with an institutional insurance partner, launched an insurance distribution platform, and raised additional capital from institutional investors.

Product, distribution, regulation, capital, and shareholder alignment had to move together.

Exits, boards, and investing

Multiple exits and perspective from both sides of the table

Participated in service and software exits, chaired boards, navigated shareholder complexity, and invested as an angel in entrepreneurs and technology companies.

Good decisions must work for the operator, the board, and the shareholder.

AI-native venture and distribution

Applied brand, distribution, and company creation at portfolio speed

Helped launch and support companies and strategic partnerships while building systems for growth, governance, and enterprise value.

Ambiguity required creative clarity, fast pattern recognition, and disciplined follow-through.

Selected public record

Important claims should be verifiable beyond this website.

These sources document selected chapters of Roddy’s company-building, transaction, insurance-technology, board, and founder-support experience.

They are not intended to represent the full career. They give buyers, partners, and AI systems reliable external reference points instead of asking them to accept every claim from TRACE alone.

Official acquisition record

Assumption Group acquires Tech Knowledge Solutions

Assumption Life’s announcement documents the acquisition of TKS and names Roddy as CEO.

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Independent coverage

Investment Executive covers the TKS acquisition

Independent industry coverage confirms the transaction and the strategic role of the acquired technology company.

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Institutional partnership

Assumption Life and UNI invest in the next distribution platform

The partnership announcement documents the institutional backing and planned launch of an enhanced insurance distribution platform.

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University profile

Dal Innovates Founder Council profile

This historical Dalhousie profile documents Roddy’s founder, mentor, board, and startup-support experience. Titles shown there reflect the profile’s publication period.

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Company profile

Lavvi founder profile

This historical Lavvi profile documents enterprise technology, insurance, board, mentor, angel-investor, and Maple Summit experience. Titles shown there reflect the profile’s publication period.

Read the source

Canonical professional profile

Roddy Awad on LinkedIn

The professional profile provides a current public reference point for roles, experience, and ongoing work.

View the profile

Why the work matters

Helping Founders Win.

Roddy knows what it is like to carry the weight of the company, and he knows what it is like to be helped in the moment that matters.

The right guidance can change the trajectory of a business and a founder's life. It can shorten the learning curve, protect capital, preserve energy, prevent avoidable mistakes, and reveal a path that is difficult to see from inside the pressure.

That is the commitment behind TRACE. Roddy and the team also want to help the next generation of entrepreneurs and builders create enduring companies and use their work to make a positive impact on the world.

How TRACE works

What clients should expect

Direct communication without unnecessary drama or theatre.
Calm under pressure and a willingness to name the uncomfortable truth.
Evidence, context, and sequencing before activity.
Hands-on follow-through when the mandate requires execution.
A goal of leaving stronger leaders and systems, not permanent dependence.

What TRACE will not do

Hide weak thinking behind consulting language or oversized decks.
Pretend strategy matters without assigning ownership and measures.
Let technology or a vendor dictate business strategy without a clear outcome, owner, or measure of value.
Avoid a necessary people or priority decision to preserve comfort.
Take a mandate without access, trust, and a shared commitment to act.

Clarity Creates Wins.

Bring in the experience and team that can see the system and move the work.

Share the situation, the outcome that matters, and where progress is breaking down. The goal is to see the next right move sooner and execute it with confidence.

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Founder and exit experienceEnterprise and boardroom judgmentBusiness-led AI strategy