Dr. Andrew Cromarty is President of Distributed Systems Technology, providing expert product and IP advisory to leading-edge firms; past President of Heath Company (Heathkit®); a past corporate VC & tech M&A i-bank CTO; and a many time tech firm CTO/CIO. His issued patents comprise 100 awarded inventions.

He is highly experienced as a software forensics expert and testifying expert witness in patent, copyright/trade secret, and contract dispute matters. He advises startups and tech firms on operations, technology, corporate M&A due diligence, R&D, investment management, IP, and product strategy. His client engagements have included small businesses, e-commerce giants (QVC, Victoria’s Secret, Avon, Walmart) and major tech industry firms such as Apple, IBM, Comcast, Microsoft, Hulu, Netflix, Cisco, GoDaddy, and Google/Youtube.

Dr. Cromarty’s technical expertise includes software development, Internet/networking, distributed computing, multimedia, wireless/telecommunications, and eCommerce. His business expertise includes extensive contract, corporate and team management, IT operations, R&D management, market identification and evaluation, and product/service definition and development.

Dr. Cromarty’s expert witness engagements have included patent and contract matters in areas including streaming media, networking, cable Internet service, eCommerce systems, mobile, telecommunications, software development, client/server systems, database systems, storage and security systems, radio/electronics, and streaming media. His expert work includes successful forensics on, in total, approximately five million (5,000,000) files of digital discovery production.

Dr. Cromarty’s consulting practice services include due diligence, post-investment product plan refinement, IT operations, R&D management, and corporate and product strategy.

He has been corporate CTO/CIO for a billion-dollar public broadband corporation, for a $100 million wireless firm, for the principal provider to Hollywood’s film/TV industry of secure multimedia digital asset management services, and for an investment bank specializing in tech industry M&A.  Dr. Cromarty has also been a corporate scientist and corporate marketer for several corporations. He served on the Board of a corporate VC, and has performed due diligence on over 60 opportunities for investments, mergers, and acquisitions.

Dr. Cromarty recently applied his corporate, startup and recovery skills as the new President of Heath Company (Heathkit). He brought this century-old former $100 million manufacturing company out of bankruptcy and restored it to successful operations, developing and overseeing all R&D, product design, manufacturing, staff development, product development, back office and fulfillment operations, product support, supply chain, IP development/protection, and marketing and sales. Under his leadership, Heath has shipped thousands of new Heathkit® products to thousands of customers worldwide.