Technology Executive

Bill Cromie

Identity & Trust Infrastructure · Civic Technology

22M+ active identities credentialed globally OEM security-cleared; in-vehicle deployments 28+ NYC co-designed civic ventures launched/funded

Executive Summary

Technology executive and civic operator with 20 years building high‑trust digital platforms and the teams and operating cadences behind them.

I’m currently CTO of BeRecognized, responsible for both technology and go‑to‑market: engineering, security, reliability, and product delivery, alongside customer development, enterprise sales, partnerships, and strategic business development. The platform has credentialed 22M+ active identities globally on user‑held architecture designed to verify without centralized PII databases, issuer callbacks, or deep cross‑system integrations—reducing breach risk and improving privacy and resilience by design. We’ve passed stringent OEM security screening and are deployed in connected vehicles in the U.S. and Europe.

Previously, I co‑founded and led Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood, where we embedded community governance directly into discovery and delivery through the Design Insight Group (DIG). DIG wasn’t feedback theater: it was a standing, compensated mechanism where low‑income New Yorkers shaped priorities, requirements, success criteria, and harm flags while leadership retained accountability for budgets, legality, timelines, delivery quality, and outcomes. We launched or funded 28+ civic‑tech ventures serving millions of New Yorkers, including Propel (5M+ served) and Upsolve (~$1B in consumer debt relieved).

I also led HelpKitchen (2.2M+ hot meals served to 45K households via a fully automated, dignity‑preserving pickup workflow) and built/exited high‑scale consumer platforms (Selectable Media, CoPromote). My bias is operational: boring is smooth; smooth is fast—tight security discipline, clear incident response, and systems that modernize without breaking.

  • High availability and incident discipline across production systems (on‑call, postmortems, reliability improvements)
  • Built and led a 12‑engineer organization (BeRecognized)
  • CoPromote: 800K users, 320M+ follower reach, $3.6M raised
  • Selectable Media: top‑10 US video ad network, 400M+ monthly video views, 45M+ US uniques, $4.6M raised, exit to Meredith

Executive Competencies

Cybersecurity & Risk Management

Security architecture reviews, threat modeling, secure SDLC, vulnerability remediation, incident response readiness, hardware‑backed authentication, audit logging/traceability, enterprise security questionnaires and OEM security screening

Privacy & Data Governance

Data minimization, retention policies, audit trails, consent frameworks, no‑centralized‑PII architecture

Digital Service Delivery

Reliability engineering, SLO mindset, accessibility (WCAG), multilingual delivery, modernization without outages

Identity Infrastructure

User‑held credentials, selective disclosure, delegated authorization, verification without issuer callbacks, cross‑boundary interoperability

AI & Autonomous Systems Governance

Human‑in‑the‑loop controls, permissioned autonomy, policy‑aligned deployment, credential‑based agent identity

Organizational & Operational Leadership

Team building to 20+ engineers, multi‑million‑dollar budgets, vendor/partner management, requirements discipline, escalation, portability/exit‑friendly architecture

Education

Bachelor of Science

New York University

Dual Major: Economics & Philosophy; Minor in Computer Science

2000–2005

Study Abroad — KU Leuven, Belgium

Philosophy & International Economics/Politics

2003–2004; self‑designed year‑long program