Grant A. Kirkwood is the Founder & CEO of Unitas Global, a facilities-based IT and network services integrator, providing unified IT service outsourcing to companies around the world. Mr. Kirkwood founded Unitas because he saw a need for managed, end-to-end IT outsourcing solutions for enterprise organizations that rely heavily on IT and network infrastructure, but don’t want to focus on it as a core function of their business. The company’s mission is to deliver high performance, highly-available IT and network infrastructure as a single, comprehensive service. Mr. Kirkwood brings over 10 years of senior management and entrepreneurial experience in Internet infrastructure companies to Unitas Global.

Prior to founding Unitas Global, Mr. Kirkwood served as CTO at PacketExchange, a global network service provider headquartered in London with operations throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As CTO of PacketExchange, Mr. Kirkwood oversaw all aspects of its technology vision and execution, driving towards the successful execution of the company’s business objectives and customer commitment. PacketExchange was acquired by Global Telecom & Technology in May 2011.

Prior to PacketExchange, Mr. Kirkwood was the founder and President/CTO at Mzima Networks. Created to serve the unique needs of media, entertainment and online content providers, Mzima built a reputation as the performance leader in Internet bandwidth solutions. He grew the company’s network presence globally, negotiated peering interconnect agreements reaching over 100 countries, and lead the company to a successful exit by acquisition in February 2010. Before founding Mzima in 2002, Mr. Kirkwood was the CTO at Netixs, a managed hosting service provider. His entry into the Internet technology industry was in 1997, as one of the founding partners of Vision Imaging Internet Services, a web application development and infrastructure engineering consultancy. Customers have included Internet leaders such as Yahoo, Netflix, Mozilla, Sony Online and Comcast.

Mr. Kirkwood is an accomplished speaker and industry analyst, having published writings in the mobile communications, social media networking and international telecommunications spaces. He is passionate about the intersection of technology and people’s lives, and believes that the proliferation of technology and global communications can be harnessed to improve the quality of life of people around the world.

In addition to his role at Unitas Global, Mr. Kirkwood is on the Board of Directors at Web Wise Kids, a national non-profit dedicated to educating kids and their parents about Internet safety. Through a series of innovative, challenging games, kids learn to detect and protect themselves from predators, and how to be wise, responsible citizens in a connected world.

Mr. Kirkwood is a member of the World Affairs Council, the British American Business Council, and a patron of Global Impact. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.