Masters of ITAD

What happens when a college senior project turns into the pricing engine an entire industry did not know it needed?

Four engineering students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo set out to answer one question: what actually happens to electronics once people are done with them. That question led them into ITAD, an industry that has run for decades on gut feel, spreadsheets, and hard won experience. Two years and a $125,000 investment later, that class project is GreenSight Technologies, an AI pricing and grading platform real ITAD operators use every day.

Mackenzie Kettwig is co-founder and Chief Product Officer of GreenSight, and they join Ryan Mezera to talk about what actually surprised them building AI for an industry built on relationships and instinct. They are blunt about where AI in ITAD earns its keep and where it does not, why the company built its grading tool on computer vision, and why they thinks AI has become a buzzword that scares off more operators than it helps. They also talk through real resistance GreenSight has met in the field, and why the answer is not replacing the people who already know the business.

Mackenzie Kettwig is co-founder and Chief Product Officer of GreenSight Technologies, an AI pricing and grading platform built for the secondary electronics and ITAD market. GreenSight began two years ago as a senior project at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, when Mackenzie and their co-founders, Jake Daniels, Diego Curiel, and John Ieng, started asking what happens to electronics once people are done with them. That question led them into hundreds of conversations with ITAD operators, recyclers, brokers, and wholesalers, and eventually into a first place win and a $125,000 investment at Cal Poly’s AngelCon competition. As CPO, Mackenzie leads product strategy and spends much of their time talking directly with the people quoting, grading, and routing devices on the floor.

Key Takeaways

• GreenSight’s core principle is augmenting ITAD operators, not automating them out of the job. The relationships and judgment stay with the people who built them.
• The platform prices devices using live data from marketplaces including eBay, Amazon, Back Market, and Google Shopping, refreshed daily for volatile categories and weekly for niche ones.
• Cosmetic grading runs on computer vision built out of co-founder Diego Curiel’s graduate research, scoring devices against a company’s own A through F rules from a few photos.
• Larger ITAD operators are ahead on data driven strategy, but smaller shops can move faster because they carry less organizational overhead.
• Mackenzie’s clearest warning for the industry: generic AI tools that do not understand a business’s compliance requirements and client relationships will give confident answers that are simply wrong.
• “We’re augmenting the work that people are doing. We’re not automating them out of it.” Mackenzie Kettwig, Co-Founder and CPO, GreenSight Technologies
• “Generic tools that don’t understand your business are going to give you confident answers that are just wrong.” Mackenzie Kettwig, Co-Founder and CPO, GreenSight Technologies

Timestamps

00:00 Meet Mackenzie Kettwig and GreenSight Technologies
01:15 San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and skipping the skis
02:35 From a Cal Poly senior project to a funded company
04:07 What hundreds of ITAD conversations turned up
07:11 What GreenSight actually means by AI pricing
08:52 Inside the cosmetic grading tool
09:58 Where the pricing data actually comes from
14:54 Big players versus small shops on AI adoption
16:40 What surprised them two years in
19:23 Industry resistance, and where AI earns its keep
21:56 Free demos, free trials, and where to find GreenSight

Connect with Mackenzie Kettwig

Website: https://www.greensighttech.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackenzie-kettwig-50a4981b7

What happens to your hardware after you're done with it matters more than you think.

Most companies treat old IT equipment like trash. Ben Cartwright thinks that is one of the most expensive mistakes in business. And after spending years in China watching how recovered components get reintegrated into manufacturing, he came back with a perspective that most people in IT asset disposition simply do not have.

This episode is for anyone who manages enterprise IT hardware and has ever wondered whether there is a smarter way to handle the end of life process. Whether you are running a data center, managing assets for a private equity portfolio, or sourcing refurbished enterprise IT for resale, the conversation around IT asset disposition is changing fast and Ben explains exactly how.

Ben Cartwright is a leader at Cirkadis, a company that started in technology manufacturing using repurposed parts in Shenzhen before evolving into a full lifecycle services provider. With roughly a decade in the IT hardware lifecycle space and fluency in Mandarin from years living in Beijing, Ben brings a genuinely different lens to ITAD services, data center hardware resale, and responsible e-waste recycling.

Key Takeaways

The ITAD industry started with dumpster divers and is now evolving into lifecycle strategy.

• Ben traces how IT asset disposition grew from opportunistic resellers finding value in discarded equipment to sophisticated lifecycle companies that engage on day one of a hardware purchase.

The right moment to retire hardware depends on your business model, not a universal rule.

• Residual value curves are real, but Ben explains that the optimal refresh timing for refurbished enterprise IT assets varies based on financing strategy, depreciation schedules, and how aggressively a company wants to manage its hardware as a financial asset.

Market intelligence is what separates lifecycle companies from brokers.

• Cirkadis monitors secondary markets across the US and Asia in real time, tracking demand and price fluctuations on everything from used Dell servers to Nvidia GPUs coming out of decommissioned data centers.

Certifications are a starting point, not a shortcut.

• Ben argues that any company with a net zero goal should be following the full path of their hardware, not just checking a compliance box. He wants to see more transparency and collaboration between ITAD operators and certifying bodies.

The volume of e-waste has passed a tipping point and old solutions will not scale.

• Ben makes the case that the regulations and standards built around old cable boxes and monitors do not apply cleanly to three-year-old servers or retired Nvidia GPUs, and that the industry needs to differentiate between e-scrap and high-value technology assets.
• Ben said, "We are past that tipping point, and the old solutions are not going to work anymore."
• Ben said, "I am an ally of anybody who wants to improve the system, and I will be 100 percent transparent. But what I ask for in return is don't punish me for the transparency. Work with me and let's make the system better."

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and welcome
01:16 How Ben got into ITAD through language and a Chinese computer broker
03:48 Learning Mandarin in Beijing and going all in on a foreign culture
04:50 What Cirkadis learned from manufacturing with repurposed parts
08:47 What surprises Ben most about what companies discard
11:14 How the ITAD industry is shifting toward lifecycle services
13:20 Who is furthest ahead in understanding hardware lifecycle value
14:46 Residual value curves and how to time hardware retirement
16:05 How market intelligence and secondary market data factor in
20:23 Nvidia GPUs coming out of data centers
21:07 What it means to be a technology company, not a recycling company
22:27 PCB recovery R and D and the future of e-waste smelting
24:14 Is e-waste volume heading toward a crisis
25:57 What every CEO should understand about their old IT hardware
27:23 Data security and asset tags still on decommissioned equipment
30:44 What responsible recycling really means
32:39 Upcoming shows including ITAD Summit and AI4 in Las Vegas
34:04 What Ben wants to see change in the ITAD industry
40:15 Closing thoughts

Connect with Ben Cartwright

Website: https://cirkadis.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-cartwright-738319121/

What happens to your data when the equipment leaves the building?

Here is what I love about Brad Cohen's story. He did not stumble into ITAD. He built his way to it, company by company, deal by deal, over thirty years of figuring out what happens to technology at the end of use. That blind spot, the moment an organization unplugs a device and assumes the data is gone, is exactly where Brad has built his career. And the stakes are higher than most people realize.

IT asset disposition is one of the most underestimated risks in enterprise IT. Whether you are a data center manager, an IT reseller, an MSP, or a sustainability officer, the question of what happens to your hardware and the data on it when it is done is not optional anymore. ITAD services, data erasure, and responsible e-waste recycling are not just compliance checkboxes. They are the last line of defense in your cybersecurity posture.

Brad Cohen is the CEO of NexTech Partners, one of the country's leading full-service IT lifecycle providers. R2 certified, ISO accredited, and HIPAA compliant, NexTech operates across data destruction, e-waste recycling, ITAD services, and environmental compliance. Brad started his career building SIMOD Corporation from zero to seventy million dollars and one hundred and thirty employees in Jackson, Mississippi, then co-founded Southland, ran a fifty-million-dollar division at Exp@nets, and built the first nationwide IT asset management program at Presidio before launching NexTech in 2009. He became CEO in 2019 and has taken the company past fourteen million in annual revenue.

Key Takeaways

• R2 certification and ISO accreditation are not just credentials, they are the guardrails that transform a buy-sell operation into a disciplined, professional ITAD services business.
• Hidden data is a real and underestimated risk, including hard drives inside office printers that store copies of every document ever scanned or printed.
• The pivot from transactional resale to relationship-based ITAD services took years, cost Brad colleagues and friends, but created a far more defensible and consistent business model.
• End user sales cycles in IT asset disposition can take up to a year to close, but once you are in, the relationship is sticky and the equipment flow becomes predictable and repeatable.
• Brad runs a daily stand-up with his entire operations team, reminding them to treat every device as if it contains their own family's information, because that mindset is what separates serious ITAD operators from the rest.
• Brad Cohen said, "Just because you unplug a computer or any device does not make it safe anymore."
• Brad Cohen said, "It is the last thing you do from a cybersecurity standpoint before you turn out the lights, and it is absolutely the most important thing."

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and Brad Cohen bio
01:42 Welcome and early career origins
02:05 Building SIMOD Corporation in Jackson, Mississippi
04:53 How SIMOD financed its first year without inventory
07:16 What Presidio taught Brad about scale and national IT asset management
09:58 The pivot from buy-sell-recycle to ITAD services
12:52 Why R2 certification and ISO accreditation matter for ITAD partners
14:59 HIPAA compliance and the hidden data problem
16:37 The law firm printer story and transferring liability
18:36 Serving end users, VARs, and MSPs differently
19:35 Becoming CEO in 2019 and shifting to a relational sales model
22:54 Where the ITAD industry is headed over the next five years
24:22 The law enforcement hard drive shredding story
25:44 Are clients more sophisticated about data security today
26:51 Advice for building a career in ITAD
28:46 Upcoming shows and where to connect with Brad

Connect with Brad Cohen

NexTech Partners: https://www.nextechpartners.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradcohen

What happens when honesty becomes your competitive advantage in enterprise ITAD.

Most people never think about what happens to a company's IT equipment until they absolutely have to. And when they do, the questions get serious fast. Who touches this equipment? Where does it go? What happens to the data? That moment of reckoning is exactly where Chris Maglio lives.

This episode matters because ITAD is not just a logistics problem. It is a trust problem. And in an industry where the gap between what gets promised and what gets delivered can be enormous, the way a provider handles accountability is everything. If you are evaluating ITAD partners, managing enterprise IT asset disposition programs, or just trying to understand what responsible IT asset disposition actually looks like from the inside, this conversation is for you.

Chris Maglio is Senior Client Success Manager at CentricsIT, a global ITAD leader operating in over 90 countries with 155 secure logistics centers and ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, and R2v3 certifications. He started as an intern at CentricsIT in 2018, worked his way up through project coordination and department management, and has spent years managing large scale ITAD programs for Fortune 500s, financial institutions, and global enterprises. He is also a student of leadership and history, a father of two, and someone who believes that real service is something bigger than a job title.

Key Takeaways

• Trust is the only currency in ITAD that cannot be recovered once it is lost, and Chris has built his entire career around protecting it.
• White glove ITAD service is not just about dedicated trucks. It starts at program conception, runs through on site execution, and ends with same day documentation and zero excuses.
• The ESG conversation in enterprise ITAD is becoming real. CFOs and sustainability officers are now asking for proof of environmental impact reporting, not just asset value recovery.
• Focusing exclusively on financial recovery from retired IT assets is a short term mindset. The providers who win long term are the ones who specialize in protection, chain of custody, and genuine partnership.
• The same values Chris teaches his kids, speak the truth, own your mistakes, face problems head on, are the exact values that have defined his professional reputation in ITAD.
• Chris Maglio said, "Trust is one of the few currencies that you can't get back once it's lost."
• Chris Maglio said, "Be of stewardship. Take care of some of your clients, take care of your team, and the rest of the things will follow."

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and guest bio
01:47 How Chris stumbled into ITAD from a steel mill to CentricsIT
04:05 The moment ITAD revealed its complexity and meaning
05:00 The philosophy: tell the truth, take ownership, face it head on
06:46 What a day actually looks like as Senior Client Success Manager
08:34 What white glove ITAD service really means
10:53 Bridging ITAD and ESG: how real is the conversation with clients
13:31 The one thing Chris would fix in the ITAD industry right now
16:06 Leadership books shaping how Chris leads today
17:25 Fatherhood and how it shows up at work
19:00 Advice for anyone entering the ITAD industry

Connect with Chris Maglio

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-maglio
Company: https://www.centricsit.com

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.