Executive Team

mBlox is fortunate, and proud, to have a strong, experienced leadership team in place. Composed of distinguished telecom and business experts, these officers have years of pioneering experience with mobile messaging technology—as well as an end-to-end understanding of our customers' business needs.

Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman

As co-founder and Executive Chairman of mBlox, Andrew provides the strategic vision for mBlox and is responsible for driving forward the company’s role in the value chain. He has a long record of achievement in many facets of the mobile industry, and is widely recognized as an expert in the areas of mobile content, billing and enabling services.

Prior to assuming the role of Executive Chairman in 2003, Andrew was the CEO of mBlox Ltd, which he co-founded in 1999. He created the company’s unique business model and led it to profitability and merger with a US company in 2003 to create mBlox Inc.

From 1988 to 1996, Andrew was head of mobile technology for Olivetti SpA in Italy. There he led the European development of DECT (the predecessor of WiFi), and launched Europe's first wireless LAN system. In 1994, while at Olivetti, he became the founding technical head of Omnitel (now Vodafone Italia). Between 1996 and 1999 he was a Director at Connect Communications Group, a leading European provider of corporate telecommunications services, and was the Group Marketing Director with Azlan plc, the £200m European distributor of internet technology. His earlier background was in mobile technology R&D.

Andrew is Global Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), which he helped found in 2001 and to which he was re-elected in 2003 and 2005. He was elected global chair in 2008.

From 2005 to 2008, he served on the Board of PhonepayPlus, the UK regulator of premium-rate telecoms services.

Andrew is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET, with a degree from Cambridge University.

Andrew Dark, Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer, Andrew is responsible for driving company efficiency and growth. He will lead the company’s geographical expansion and entry into new vertical markets that compliment mBlox’s existing managed services. Andrew brings a wealth of experience in building and operating high volume, mission critical, managed services which guarantee the secure delivery of digital transactions to the world’s leading mobile and banking networks.

Andrew has led a distinguished career and has become established as a respected industry leader. Prior to joining mBlox as CEO, he was Chief Executive Officer of London based DataCash Group Plc. During his tenure at DataCash the company grew from a market capitalization of £45M to £325M and increased profits 7 fold. He also held the position of Chief Operating Officer at DataCash. Previous to this post, Andrew was the Chief Operating Officer and Group Sales and Marketing Director at Dione plc. Andrew has extensive, international experience of high volume transaction and payments markets and has served as Retail Sales Director for NCR and other leading technology companies.

Andrew has been supplying solutions to the retail and payments industries for over 20 years and served as founding chairman of Microsoft’s ActiveStore initiative in EMEA. He is also a non-Executive Director of ZBD Displays Limited, a world leader in the design and manufacture of zero powered, wireless, shelf edge labels.

Ken Elmer, Chief Financial Officer

As CFO of mBlox, Ken is responsible for leading the global finance, human resources and facilities functions of the company. Ken brings financial leadership and a diverse background heading finance teams in companies ranging from a small angel-backed private business to several large subsidiary/divisions within a multi-billion dollar public entity.

Ken’s industry concentration has been in telecommunications and software applications but he has also been with restaurant and broadcasting businesses after beginning his career with Price Waterhouse. Prior to joining mBlox, Ken was the senior vice president of finance & administration for Tiburon, Inc., a public safety solutions company.

Ken also was division-level chief financial officer for several Pacific Telesis Group subsidiaries and was chief financial officer for Visionael Corporation, The MapFactory, Xpede Inc. and TCSI, Inc. At TCSI, Ken stepped into the CEO position working with the board to pursue an exit strategy, which resulted in a successful acquisition by Rocket Software in 2003.

Ken graduated magna cum laude with a bachelors in business administration from the University of North Texas and is a certified public accountant.