TenXc Wireless named Joseph Hickey its new CEO this week and the former Nortel Networks executive says a recovering tech sector is likely to attract more management talent to Ottawa from south of the border.

The company is a two-year-old startup that specializes in radio frequency (RF) technology. TenXc's technology helps wireless service providers make the most of their costly blocks of spectrum to accommodate more paying subscribers and provide more reliable service. Callers are left with less static that either interrupts their calls or cuts them off altogether.

"It may not seem like a big deal, but when you have to spend $3 to $5 billion to purchase spectrum in the United States, and you can improve the efficiency of spectrum, let's say, two to three times, what that allows you to do is put twice the amount of voice traffic on your network ... getting more bang for buck in terms of what you've already invested in spectrum," Mr. Hickey said.

At this point, Mr. Hickey still describes TenXc as an "early stage seed startup" that has raised about US$2.5 million in financing. Contributing to that financing has been BDC Venture Capital and Venture Coaches. The company was also the first local firm to receive financing from the Accelerator Investment Program offered by Communications and Information Technology Ontario, or CITO, an initiative partially funded by the Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation. In September of last year, TenXc received $100,000 through the program.

The company has so far demonstrated its core technology and completed the architecture behind it. Mr. Hickey plans to bring the product to market in the coming year. At this point, he says it's too early to talk about revenue targets and profitability goals.

TenXc was founded in December 2001 by former federal research scientist John Litva and entrepreneur Raj Narula. From the start the two men approached the company with a bootstrap mentality and the realization that seasoned management talent was key to their success.

Mr. Hickey started off his career with Nortel in 1990 at its operations in Belleville, fresh from completing his undergrad in mechanical engineering at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Over the next nine years he worked his way up to management roles in the enterprise business at Nortel's operations in Toronto. He then did his executive MBA from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business.

The highlight of his career with Nortel came during the peak of the boom in the late 1990s. He led the acquisitions of Aptis Communications for $300 million, at the time the largest price paid for a non-revenue startup. That was followed by the $340-million acquisition of Shasta Networks. He subsequently headed to California where he held the position of VP and GM of Nortel's Shasta IP Services business.

After leaving Nortel, he worked as a consultant and served as president and CEO of TeraBlaze Inc., a fabless semiconductor company that he turned around.

TeraBlaze was acquired by Agere Systems in 2003 and he wasted little time looking for his next job. That led him to Ottawa through Pat DiPietro, managing general partner of VenGrowth Capital Partners, with whom he had worked at Nortel.

"Pat said, 'well, there's lot of new opportunities coming up in Ottawa. Why don't you come up and meet a few people'."

After meeting with a number of local venture capitalists, Mr. Hickey jumped on board with TenXc.

Even though TenXc only formally announced this week Mr. Hickey's appointment as CEO, he as been in town working with the company for most of the past year and has already relocated his family here.

Mr. Hickey said he is not alone. As VC activity picks up again in the nation's capital, and more early stage companies progress to the next level, more seasoned executives will come to Ottawa.

"My hope is the brain drain is reversing to be in favour of moving north of the border," he said.

Mr. Hickey said he is busily at work at securing the additional financing needed to bring TenXc's product to market and building the management team.

The company's dozen employees are located in Ottawa. At this point, there are seven vacant positions advertised on TenXc's website, mostly engineering-related.