Executive team
Tim Phillips
Chief Executive Officer & President, Founder
Tim Phillips has an impressive track record of delivering profitable results while building innovative power management businesses over his 30-year career in the semiconductor industry. In prior roles with the company, Tim has served as Chief Operating Officer and as SVP Sales & Marketing since founding Empower in 2014. Earlier in his career, Tim served as VP of North America for Infineon, where he was responsible for more than $600M in annual sales and founded the Enterprise Power BU at International Rectifier where he served as VP & General Manager, growing the business to more than $150M in annual revenue. Tim earned both his MBA and BSEE from the University of Rhode Island. He holds 29 US patents with several others pending.
Trey Roessig
Chief Technology Officer & SVP Engineering
Trey Roessig brings over 20 years of experience and 25 US patents in power and mixed-signal design to the Empower Semiconductor engineering team. In his role as CTO & SVP Engineering, Trey manages a team of analog, digital, power, and system architects. In prior roles, he has served in both technology and business roles in companies of various sizes, from Co-Founder at Integrated Micro Instruments (acquired by Analog Devices) to Director of Engineering at Volterra Semiconductor to General Manager of ADI’s Power Management business unit. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering / Controls & Dynamic Systems.
Kurt Redfield
Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer
Kurt Redfield serves as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Empower. He has over 25 years of financial management experience and has served as CFO/COO with a number of global high-tech firms. These firms include Libre Wireless (India), Plextek (UK), Simfy (Germany), BridgeCo (Switzerland), Neartek (France) and represent $300+ million in venture funding Kurt raised with investors such as Benchmark, Advent, Wellington, Accel, Earlybird, ETF, Fidelity, WTI and Samsung. Mr. Redfield holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in Philosophy from St. John’s College.
Steve Hertog
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Steve Hertog brings over 35 years of experience driving revenue growth and building high-performing sales organizations in the semiconductor and electronics industries. Prior to joining Empower, Steve served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Impedans Ltd, where he spearheaded global expansion efforts in plasma and RF measurement markets. During his career, Steve also held executive sales leadership positions at industry giants such as Keysight Technologies, Tessera, Avago Technologies, and Hewlett Packard. Steve earned both his MBA and BSEE from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Senior Management Team
Jianwei Liu
VP of Operations
Jianwei Liu brings over 20 years of experience in operations and technology development across consumer electronics and medical devices. Prior to joining Empower Semiconductor, he served as VP of Semiconductor Engineering at Xenter Medical. His career includes senior leadership roles at Xenter Medical, Butterfly Network, TDK-InvenSense and Qualcomm, where he helped bring innovative products to market, from handheld ultrasound probes to MEMS sensors and biometric devices. Jianwei holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and is named on 54 patents with 14 publications.
Simon Ward
VP of IC Development
Simon Ward brings more than 25 years of experience in telecommunications and semiconductor development. He has held engineering leadership roles at CommScope, Infineon Technologies, Wolfspeed and Qorvo, leading new innovative products in cellular network equipment worldwide. Simon has built and led teams developing LDMOS and GaN processes, high-power RF devices, linear power amplifiers and integrated remote radio units. He holds a BSEE from the University of the West of England and multiple patents.