Don Simmonds

Don Simmonds (Donald E. Simmonds) is a Canadian serial entrepreneur. After being involved in more than 30 business ventures in a career spanning 40 years, Don oversees Blyth Group strategy and is personally engaged in providing Strategic Advisory and Mediation services to select clients.

Don is also the current Chancellor of Crandall University, a Christian University in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Spending most of his life in the rural area of Uxbridge an hour northeast of Toronto, Ontario, Don Simmonds has forged a career centered around integrity in the private and public sectors. He has held a variety of leadership positions, from founder to President and Chief Executive Officer to Director, at companies that include The Blyth Group, Baylin Technologies (“BYL.TO”), AirIQ, Airnet Services, Youth Unlimited, MOCO Canada, Brooktel, Clearnet, Shobrook, Uxcom, and Faydon Enterprises. During the span of his career, he has led privately-held and publicly-traded entities, in industries such as renewable energy, technology, telecommunications, financial services, agriculture and media.

Don was a founding partner in The Lenbrook Group in 1977, a private business incubation company perhaps best known for having created Clearnet, one of Canada’s wireless networks sold in 2001 to Telus.

In 1997, Don founded AirIQ, a company leading the development of wireless GPS tracking for various types of vehicles. While serving as Chief Executive Officer of AirIQ, the company earned a number of industry accolades, including being recognized as one of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies in the Deloitte Canadian Technology Fast 500 Program. It was also ranked 12th and 17th in PROFIT magazine’s ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies for 2005 and 2006. Don was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Awards in 2005.

Recently, Don served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CTS TV and Crossroads Christian Communications, positions which had him leading and in many ways reimagining how a Christian message can be incorporated into our modern, digital media advances.