Tobias Dengel

President TELUS Digital

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Tobias Dengel is President of TELUS Digital, the digital customer experience and IT services arm of the Canadian telecoms group TELUS. He arrived through an acquisition. He was chief executive of WillowTree, the Charlottesville, Virginia firm that designs and builds mobile apps and web products, when TELUS International agreed to buy it in October 2022 at an enterprise value of US$1.225 billion. After the deal he stayed on to run WillowTree inside TELUS, then led the wider Digital Solutions business, and he now holds the top named role at TELUS Digital. TELUS took the company fully private in October 2025. This was his second exit. Two decades earlier he co-founded a local search advertising company and sold it to the business that became Web.com.

Career Highlights

• President of TELUS Digital, listed first on the company’s leadership page.
• Appointed President of TELUS Digital Solutions effective 3 September 2024, in a leadership change that also saw the company’s long-serving CEO retire.
• CEO of WillowTree when TELUS International agreed to acquire it for a total enterprise value of US$1.225 billion. The deal closed on 4 January 2023.
• Built WillowTree to more than 1,100 team members, according to his TELUS Digital biography.
• Co-founded Leads.com in June 2003, serving as president and COO until Website Pros (later Web.com) acquired it in April 2005.
• Vice President of AOL Yellow Pages and Digital Cities at America Online, following several years in AOL’s business affairs unit.
• Chairs the board of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello.

Professional Journey

Dengel studied at the University of Pennsylvania, earning degrees from both the Wharton School and the engineering school. He began his career at America Online in the late 1990s. According to Website Pros’ 2005 IPO prospectus, he held several roles in AOL’s business affairs unit, including vice president and director, from 1997 to 2002. He was then vice president of AOL Yellow Pages and Digital Cities, AOL’s local search and city-guide businesses. His TELUS biography adds that he was General Manager of AOL Local and a vice president of AOL International based in London.

In June 2003 he co-founded Leads.com, a search marketing company that sold pay-per-click advertising and online yellow-page listings to local businesses on subscription. He was its president and chief operating officer. In April 2005 Website Pros bought Leads.com for stock. Dengel became an executive vice president of the acquirer, and the IPO prospectus listed him as a holder of more than 5% of its stock. Website Pros later took the name Web.com.

He went on to lead WillowTree, a digital product firm headquartered in Charlottesville. It builds native mobile apps and web interfaces for large consumer brands. His TELUS biography says he co-founded the company and grew it to more than 1,100 people. In October 2022 TELUS International announced it would buy WillowTree for a total enterprise value of US$1.225 billion, including assumed debt, and quoted Dengel as WillowTree’s CEO. When the deal closed in January 2023 he became President of WillowTree, a TELUS International Company. The plan was to pair WillowTree’s front-end design and engineering work with TELUS International’s large customer-experience, content moderation and data annotation operations.

TELUS International rebranded as TELUS Digital in 2024. That September a leadership change named an acting CEO who also ran the customer-experience business, while Dengel was named President of TELUS Digital Solutions, the digital product and IT services side. In 2025 TELUS offered to buy the TELUS Digital shares it did not already own. The deal closed on 31 October 2025 at US$4.50 per share, leaving TELUS with 100% of the company. TELUS Digital’s leadership page now lists Dengel as President of TELUS Digital, the first name on the team, with no chief executive named.

Outside the company he chairs the board of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the private non-profit that owns and operates Monticello, Jefferson’s home near Charlottesville. He lives in Charlottesville.

Education

University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School

Bachelor of Science, Economics (Finance)

University of Pennsylvania, School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Systems Engineering