2,200 people, one industry, and a lot of opinions about where IT asset disposition goes next.

Every year I walk the floor at the ITAD Summit and come home with a different read on where this industry is heading. This year felt different. Not louder or bigger for the sake of it. Just further along, like IT asset disposition finally knows what it wants to be when it grows up.

If you spend your days moving used Dell servers, used Cisco networking equipment, and other refurbished enterprise IT off a data center floor, the ITAD Summit is basically your whole world under one roof. 2,200 people. 26 sessions. 87 speakers. And for the first time, most of what I heard on the floor was not about what one ITAD services company is doing on its own. It was about what the whole IT asset disposition industry is doing, together.

That shift is exactly why I wanted Darrell Fleming-Kendall on the show right after the show. Darrell is the Executive Director of the Global ITAD Alliance and one of the people who actually builds the ITAD Summit every year. He has spent more than a decade in ITAD and e-waste recycling, and he was still coming down off the week in Vegas when we recorded this.

Key Takeaways

• The ITAD industry spent this year's summit questioning its own name, debating whether a term like end of life still captures everything IT asset disposition and refurbished enterprise IT actually cover today.
• AI showed up in every one of the 26 sessions at this year's summit, a sharp jump from a handful of mentions the year before, and it now touches everything from data erasure to critical minerals policy.
• Only about 22 percent of electronic devices currently get put back into the resale stream, which means the AI driven data center buildout is opening real room for growth in data center hardware resale.
• Live selling is moving into ITAD services the same way it already reshaped ecommerce in China, and Darrell expects it to become a real channel for moving medium value equipment.
• Keeping critical minerals processing inside the United States will take real investment and regulatory support, and Darrell says the five year timeline everyone quotes only starts once someone actually decides to act.
• Darrell Fleming-Kendall said, "We're at an inflection point in the industry. The conversation has really evolved from what is my company doing, to what is the industry doing and what is our role within that."
• Darrell Fleming-Kendall said, "I love to use the metaphor of the pie gets bigger, everybody's piece gets bigger, and we don't have to cannibalize each other's business."

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and introducing Darrell Fleming-Kendall
01:31 Reflecting on this year's ITAD Summit
03:50 The ITAD industry identity crisis
07:19 AI's rapid rise across every summit session
09:21 The AI data center buildout and the secondary hardware market
10:45 Live selling hits the summit floor
13:27 Keeping critical minerals processing onshore
15:56 GPUs, trade policy and geopolitics
18:44 Why relationships still drive the ITAD industry
20:56 Growing the Women in ITAD community
24:11 The one takeaway from this year's summit
26:02 Where to catch Darrell next

Connect with Darrell Fleming-Kendall

Global ITAD Alliance: https://globalitad.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-itad-alliance
ITAD Summit: https://www.itadsummit.com/

What happens when a world-class ops builder steps into the ITAD world for the first time?

Most people in this industry have been in IT asset disposition their whole careers. Josh Jones walked in nine months ago from the outside and immediately started rewiring how remarketing gets done. That kind of fresh perspective is rare and it is worth paying attention to.

This episode matters because ITAD services are evolving fast and the operators who treat remarketing as a real business unit rather than an afterthought are the ones pulling ahead. If you are running a refurbished enterprise IT operation or trying to scale your IT asset disposition practice, the systems thinking Josh brings from global BPO work translates directly to what you are trying to build.

Josh Jones is the Chief Technology Remarketing Officer at Securus, where he oversees testing, data erasure, and the resale of refurbished enterprise IT equipment. Before stepping into the ITAD world, he built BPO centers in the Philippines that scaled to over 500 people and delivered more than 6 million dollars in annual cost savings. He has led mergers, redesigned workflows, and built accountability systems inside high compliance environments. Now he is applying all of that to IT asset disposition remarketing at Securus.

Key Takeaways

• Good operations today is about putting the right systems in place to make people successful, not just hitting output numbers.
• Being physically on site during BPO training in the Philippines was the difference between real understanding and a room full of yes answers.
• Securus structures its business into three distinct units including a dedicated remarketing department focused entirely on IT asset disposition, data erasure, and resale of refurbished enterprise IT equipment.
• The tension between purchasing and operations in ITAD remarketing almost always comes down to whether the material received matches what was anticipated, which is why vendor relationships and R2 grading standards matter so much.
• AI and robotics will reshape ITAD services within five years, from automated triage and e-commerce listing to 24 hour processing cycles that reduce dependence on manual labor.
• Josh Jones said, "ITAD gets a wrap of just a trash business or recycling business and there is constant education that hey we do more than just shred and recycle material."
• Josh Jones said, "I really see a future where e-commerce is really accelerated by AI and your ability to get things listed much more accurately will be primarily done by AI rather than individuals."

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and guest introduction
01:55 How Josh grew into an operations mindset
02:38 First real ops role and early career path
03:46 What good operations looked like then versus now
05:01 Building and scaling BPO operations in the Philippines
07:49 Why being on site changes everything in training
08:29 What a Chief Technology Remarketing Officer actually does
10:06 Tensions between purchasing and operations in ITAD remarketing
12:26 What a good week versus a hard week looks like
13:13 The role of e-commerce in IT asset disposition
14:56 Data security versus value recovery in refurbished enterprise IT
17:54 AI inventory tracking and how it changes the remarketing equation
18:50 What people consistently get wrong about ITAD services
20:11 First gen AI servers coming out of data centers
21:55 The ITAD landscape in five to ten years
24:49 Advice for scaling operations in high compliance environments
25:37 EOS Traction and the right person right seat framework
26:37 Upcoming industry events

Connect with Josh Jones

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshjones
Company: https://www.securusitad.com

What if the secondary market for used servers finally had a Kelley Blue Book?

The IT asset disposition industry has run on gut instinct and tribal knowledge for decades. Two product managers, same piece of refurbished enterprise IT, two completely different numbers. That is the problem Garima Oza set out to solve, and it is a bigger deal than most people in ITAD realize.

For anyone working in IT asset disposition, refurbished enterprise IT, or data center hardware resale, this episode hits close to home. Pricing used servers and networking equipment has always been more art than science. Garima and her team at PixTech are changing that, and the timing could not be better given the AI driven surge in data center buildout and the sustainability pressure that comes with it.

Garima Oza is co-founder and COO of PixTech, a company she helped build from a five-person garage operation in Pune, India starting in 2018 to a team of 80 plus employees today. Her background spans enterprise IT services and product development, and she leads the execution team behind Pixarm, an AI powered platform designed to bring fair market value pricing to the secondary market for IT equipment buyback, ITAD services, and data center hardware resale.

Key Takeaways

• The secondary market for refurbished enterprise IT has long been the last unpriced market, and AI is finally changing that.
• PixTech's platform Pixarm helps ITAD operators, OEMs, resellers, and retailers acquire, route, and monetize used IT assets using AI-generated fair market value across 12 global markets.
• Enterprise pricing complexity is far greater than client devices because one server can have multiple processor, memory, and drive configurations, each affecting value differently.
• Sustainability regulations and the AI data center boom are accelerating adoption of IT asset disposition technology and responsible recycling practices.
• Growth begins the moment you step out of your comfort zone. Garima went from never wanting to be an entrepreneur to co-founding a company in 24 hours, driven by relationships and a clear customer-first mission.

Guest Quotes

Garima said, "This industry has been the last unpriced market, and that is where we built our AI powered platform with the vision to bring a financial trust layer into this ecosystem where ITAD buyers and sellers can trade efficiently, transparently, and with fairness."

Garima said, "The minute you show the customer that this is the fair market value and this is how it is getting calculated, it just brings that transparency and that trust into the whole ecosystem."

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and guest introduction
02:30 Garima's background and co-founding PixTech in 2018
07:00 Building from five people to 80 plus employees
11:00 Relationships, compassion, and company culture
15:30 The AI powered platform Pixarm and Pix FMV explained
22:00 Who uses the platform: OEMs, ITADs, resellers, retailers
27:00 Strategy to execution: understanding enterprise IT pricing complexity
33:00 Innovation in a traditional industry and the role of AI
39:00 The future of the tech secondary market and IT asset disposition
44:00 Advice for stepping into the unknown and embracing change
47:30 Where to connect with Garima and PixTech

Connect with Garima Oza

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garimaoza
Website: http://pixtech.com

Welcome to "Masters of ITAD," a podcast dedicated to exploring the crucial world of ITAD (IT Asset Disposition). Launching in early January 2025, this show champions and supports individuals and companies leading in electronics sustainability, data protection, and environmental standards (R2v3, eStewards, ISO). Join Ryan Mezera as he delves into topics like reuse, recycling, refurbishment, reverse logistics, ALM (Asset Lifecycle Management), eWaste, electronics sustainability, circularity, and the circular economy. The podcast maintains a championing, supportive, and admiring tone, elevating ITAD companies working ethically. Since Alta partners with ITADs rather than competing, the show can promote the industry without self-promotion.