Kanbay History

The name Kanbay is a whimsical combination of the first and last syllables of the home country and city of two of the founders, John Patterson and Dileep Nath—Canada and Bombay. In 1989, Raymond Spencer took charge and Kanbay was officially transformed from a concept into an operating business.

Formed our first strategic alliance and won our first offshore project. Began our largest, longest client relationship with a leading global financial services institution.

Established an office in India to support delivery of our software development services.

Opened an office in Hong Kong and expanded services to the Pacific Rim. Won our first major custom development project.

Held our first client discussions on building a long term, strategic offshore relationship and started building what would become our Spectrum6 governance model to support it.

Signed a deal to establish our first client-specific offshore development facility based in Madras, India.

Established our first proprietary offshore development center in Pune, India. From this new center, equipped with state of the art computer and communications technology, we honed our multi-site project management approach.

Won our first round of formal funding from venture capital firm Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. which helped fuel our growth. We also opened an office in Singapore to further expand the Kanbay footprint in the Pacific Rim.

Established an Australia office in Melbourne and opened a UK office in Cambridge. Kanbay also signed our first multi-million, multi-year service level agreement.

Key clients acquired an equity interest in Kanbay giving “partnering for success” a new meaning.

Achieved ISO 9001 certification which demonstrates our commitment to quality services and solutions for our clients. We expanded our campus in Pune by adding the first building that the company built and owned outright. 

Ranked #212 on the “Software 500”, Software Magazine’s list of the world’s foremost software and services providers.

Honored as a Finalist for KPMG’S Illinois “High Tech Award,” the only awards event in Illinois that exclusively honors the achievements of the high tech industry.

Named a finalist for The Chicago Software Association (CSA) “Lighthouse Award,” a prestigious award presented to the company which through sustained growth, national reputation and recognized excellence in product and services best represents the Silicon Prairie’s stature as home to leading quality information technology companies.

Listed on CRN’s “List of Fast Growing Solution Providers.” The software magazine ranks Kanbay as one of the world’s largest software and services companies.

Selected as one of the “Best Places to Work in Information Technology (IT)” by IDG’s Computerworld, the newspaper for IT leaders.

Reached $100M revenue mark.

Expanded India operations to Hyderabad and achieved our first CMM Level 5 certification for project work.

Raymond Spencer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, is selected as a finalist in the 2003 Illinois Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur Of The Year^®” (EOY) awards program.

Awarded one of the first global assessments for CMM Level 5 which validated our global development approach and methodologies, ensuring the Kanbay global experience is the same regardless of geography.

Celebrated our 15 year anniversary and became a publicly traded company, listing on the NASDAQ under the symbol KBAY.

Acquired Accurum, an IT services provider to the capital markets industry. The acquisition gave Kanbay strong expertise in trading systems, risk management and data management for capital markets firms and brought a strong client base for the Securities & Investments practice.

Named to Forbes list of the 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies. In addition to the Forbes ranking, Kanbay was named the #9 fastest growing small company in America by BusinessWeek magazine, and was also recognized for our innovation in financial services technology by American Banker’s FinTech 100, Global Services magazine’s Global Services 100 and IT Week’s Top 50 Technology Innovators.

Recognized by CMP Media’s VARBusiness magazine as one of “North America’s top technology integrators” in its annual “VARBusiness 500“ list. Kanbay was ranked #154 overall and #13 in the “fastest growing companies” category.

Raymond Spencer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, named Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur Of The Year 2005” for the Illinois Region.

Kanbay earned the LOMA “Excellence in Education” Award for educational excellence in the insurance industry.

Acquired Adjoined Consulting, ranked #9 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Hot 100” List of the Fastest Growing Entrepreneurial Companies in the US. The combined firm offers more formal management consulting focused on customer value and operating efficiency while deepening our ERP implementation capability. Kanbay’s core strength in Financial Services is broadened into Consumer & Industrial Products, giving us a second strong vertical of focus. The addition of Adjoined also gives Kanbay a presence in the Communications & Media and Life Sciences industries.

Named a leader in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ first ever ranking of the world’s top outsourcing service providers, “The Global Outsourcing 100.”

Opened an office in Dublin, Ireland to service our growing presence in Europe.

Inaugurated our new state-of-the-art Hyderabad campus with the capacity to host approximately 4,000 associates.

Launched the Kanbay Research Institute, KRI, an operating unit focused on delivering industry-specific, consumer demand research.

Won “Best MIS & IT Organization” Award in Third Annual International Business Awards (Stevies) in recognition of our consistent efforts to drive toward accelerated growth through innovation in professional services.