Volta drops interim label, officially appoints Matt Cooper as CEO

Volta has officially appointed Matt Cooper as its CEO after serving in an interim capacity over the past year.

The appointment to Volta’s permanent CEO comes five months after Cooper took on the interim role in May. He replaced outgoing CEO Martha Casey, who announced her departure in April to work with the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Cooper brings more than two decades of experience in Halifax’s tech industry as a corporate executive and entrepreneur.

Casey joined Volta in 2018 as chief operating officer, taking over as CEO in 2020 from her predecessor Jesse Rogers.

Cooper has over five-years of history with Volta, starting out in 2017 as an instructor in product and marketing for Volta Academy, which helps founders at the idea stage build a business. Cooper was then hired as Volta’s chief innovation officer (CIO) last year, before being tapped to be Volta’s interim leader.

Founded in 2013 by Jevon MacDonald, Milan Vrekic, Patrick Keefe, and J Curry, Volta was created as a hub for tech founders to build and grow their ventures. Touting itself as one of Canada’s largest innovation hubs, Volta has been home to more than 50 tech companies, ranging from ocean technology to enterprise solutions.

As Volta’s new CEO, Cooper brings more than two decades of experience in Halifax’s tech industry as a corporate executive and entrepreneur. In 2014, he co-founded Swept, a SaaS provider for commercial cleaning and janitorial businesses. Cooper was Swept’s CPO until 2018, where he focused on the research, design, development, and implementation of the startup’s technologies.

Cooper has also previously held leadership positions in Halifax firms QRA Corp, BlueLight Analytics, ISL Digital Marketing, and SheepDog. He worked at Halifax-based tech firm Plan B Solutions for about eight years where he managed a team of 19 people to develop an application for the Department of National Defence.

Featured image courtesy Volta.