Move the world

Founding story

The Routing Company was founded by a triad of transit leaders, rideshare experts, and cutting-edge academic researchers, brought together by a shared mission to move the world.

Our journey so far

From lab to streets

Our story begins in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and TU Delft Labs, where our co-founders Alex Wallar and Menno van der Zee developed a passion for the engineering and mathematical challenge of dynamic on-demand public transportation.

Their ingenuity, academic work, and improvements in computation inspired The Routing Company’s initial routing technology. This technology presented a radical improvement to the efficiency of existing on-demand transit systems, with up to 10x the passengers serviced per vehicle hour.

Once Alex and Menno realized what they had created, they decided to bring their solution to the world. They brought rideshare experts and transit leaders on board to help take The Routing Company from an idea to a critical solution to major real-world transportation problems.

Our team’s experience, technology, and passion for connecting underserved communities places The Routing Company in a unique position to solve the world’s transit problems, while delivering great user experiences and technology solutions.

Leadership

Chief Executive Officer

James Cox

Ridesharing pioneer, who built and launched uberPOOL across 41 cities, started UberX in Australia and was also previously Chief Product Officer at the EV innovator, Canoo.

VP of Marketing & Policy

Lindy Norris

Award-winning marketing and public affairs leader, with experience from the White House to the TEDx stage and who was formerly an executive at at New Flyer (North America’s largest transit bus manufacturer).

Chief Operating Officer

Pandora Shelley

Experienced startup executive, with a proven track record of scaling operations and who was the CEO of the largest startup incubator in the Southern Hemisphere.

Co-Founder & CTO

Alex Wallar

Optimization expert, who co-founded The Routing Company after his seminal PhD paper at MIT’s Computer Science lab led to the algorithm which redefined high-capacity ride-sharing.

Co-Founder & Director of Algorithms

Menno van der Zee

On-demand system entrepreneur, who co-founded The Routing Company after completing an MSc from TU Delft and driving international research into optimization algorithms.

Senior Advisor

Dick Alexander

Transit industry leader, with 40+ years experience in transport ranging from operations to executive management including interim CEO of Transdev and leadership at First Transit & ATE. Previously served as Chief Development Officer for TRC.