William V. Powers

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Cambridge Mobile Telematics

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

William V. “Bill” Powers is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), which describes itself as the world’s largest telematics and AI company for safer mobility. He founded the company in 2010 alongside MIT professors Hari Balakrishnan and Sam Madden, supplying the commercial side to a research programme that had begun at MIT six years earlier. He came to it from the traffic-information business: he spent the 2000s at Traffic.com, where he was Senior Vice President of Sales when the company went public in 2006. Under his leadership CMT has grown into a platform used by insurers, automakers, mobility companies and public agencies, and in March 2026 it announced a USD 350 million strategic investment led by TPG and Allianz X.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Cambridge Mobile Telematics in 2010 with MIT computer scientists Hari Balakrishnan and Sam Madden, building on their CarTel research project.
• As CEO, announced a USD 350 million strategic investment in March 2026 led by TPG’s The Rise Funds and Allianz X, with State Farm participating, alongside long-term commercial agreements with Allianz Group companies.
• Oversaw the October 2025 launch of DriveWell Atlas, a suite of telematics foundation models; the same month CMT’s DriveWell Fusion platform was named to TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025, according to the company.
• CMT reports that its platform has protected 55 million drivers in 25 countries through 140 programmes and prevented more than 100,000 crashes.
• Senior Vice President of Sales at Traffic.com from October 2003, having joined in 1999; the company completed its IPO in January 2006 and was acquired by NAVTEQ in March 2007.

Professional Journey

Powers began in radio advertising sales. According to Traffic.com’s 2006 registration statement, he was an account executive with American Radio Sports from 1996 to 1997 and then with Westwood One, the radio news and programming provider, in its Shadow Traffic Boston office from 1997 to 1999.

That traffic-reporting work led directly to Traffic.com, which he joined in 1999. He became Senior Vice President of Sales in October 2003 and was listed among the company’s key employees when it registered for its initial public offering, which priced in January 2006. Traffic.com was acquired by NAVTEQ, the digital map provider, in a merger completed on 6 March 2007 for approximately $177 million. CMT’s own biography of him also names Swoop among the organisations he helped build, and describes him as a leader in emerging media and technology.

Cambridge Mobile Telematics grew out of the CarTel project, which Balakrishnan and Madden started at MIT in 2004 to collect and draw inferences from sensor data on mobile devices, working with Boston taxi companies to measure road surface conditions and traffic. In 2010 they started the company with Powers. The firm launched its first smartphone-based usage-based insurance product in 2012, began measuring phone distraction in 2013, introduced a wireless in-car DriveWell Tag in 2014, and added impact detection and alerting, fleet safety and crash reconstruction over the following years. By 2022 its Premium Score had regulatory approval in 49 states, and it expanded in Europe through the acquisition of Amodo.

Its more recent work has centred on AI. In October 2025 CMT launched DriveWell Atlas, which it calls telematics foundation models, trained on driving data to learn the physics of force, motion and trajectory. In March 2026 it announced a USD 350 million strategic investment led by TPG, through The Rise Funds, and Allianz X, with participation from State Farm, alongside long-term commercial agreements with Allianz Partners and Allianz Versicherungs-AG. Announcing the round, Powers said CMT was “applying the full power of AI to transform mobility on a global scale to help save lives, reduce costs, and support more sustainable transportation.”

Outside the company, he established the Luke Vincent Powers Foundation, which supports disadvantaged children, and serves as its President.

Education

No education record was found in a first-party source or filing.