A Foundation of Curiosity: Bryan Karp's journey to Geotab

Bryan’s connection to what would become Geotab’s routing technology started in 1996, when he worked as a dispatcher for what is now Wide Open West, a current Geotab customer. That frontline experience gave him firsthand insight into operations, customer needs, and the limitations of manual processes. Always eager to understand how things worked, Bryan began automating parts of his job using Visual Basic and Excel—a move that marked the start of his transition from operations to technology.

Driven by a desire to solve real-world problems, Bryan quickly expanded his technical skillset, diving into shell scripting, Oracle PL/SQL, and C++. He found purpose not just in building software, but in building software that mattered—tools that helped teams move faster, work smarter, and address customer pain points head-on.

Bryan’s career evolved alongside the technology itself. After years of growth through acquisition, he formally joined Geotab following the acquisition of BSM Technologies in 2019. He embraced change, stepping into roles that spanned individual contribution, technical leadership, and people management. His leadership style, rooted in mentorship and empathy, reflects his belief that growing people is just as important as growing products.

One of the moments that stood out most for Bryan was Geotab’s effort to bridge legacy experience with new beginnings after the BSM acquisition. “It was a profound acknowledgment of all the effort people had poured in,” he recalls. That culture of inclusion and appreciation made him feel seen—and cemented his commitment to helping shape what came next.

Since then, Bryan helped modernize parts of Geotab’s technology stack, supporting and guiding the team on early implementations of Kubernetes and Istio. “It was like replacing every part of a car while it was traveling at 85MPH, without taking away functionality or causing extended downtime.” This work unlocked the team's ability to build future solutions faster, more reliably, and at a massive scale. 

Ask him what he’s most proud of, and he talks about people. “My passion is growing talent and solving customer pain points. I want to build painkillers, not band-aids.” After hearing about the problem for a customer in the Public Works segment, Bryan’s team's initial instinct was to jump to a solution that would have been a classic "vitamin"—a nice feature, but not the core solution. Instead, the team was forced to address the customer's true pain points. They asked themselves what they are looking to solve for, beyond just creating a new report or capturing new signals. They came up with a completely different solution—a true painkiller—that will enable customers to find and mitigate their operational pain before it becomes debilitating.

As Geotab looks to the future—advancing with AI and scaling its global impact—Bryan is excited about what’s ahead. His focus remains the same: build great teams, meaningful solutions, and never stop learning.

Bryan Karp’s story reminds us that the people behind the platform are what make it truly powerful. In a company driven by data, it’s still curiosity, empathy, and leadership that drive real progress.