Olivia Norton

Olivia Norton is a Canadian computer engineer and humanoid-robotics operator who co-founded Sanctuary AI in January 2018 and currently serves as the company's Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer. She holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering with a biomedical-engineering specialisation from the University of Calgary and a master's in electrical and computer engineering from the University of British Columbia. Before co-founding Sanctuary she led the Vancouver-based artificial-general-intelligence group at Kindred, the reinforcement-learning robotics company also co-founded by Geordie Rose and Suzanne Gildert, and is the only one of the four Sanctuary co-founders to have continuously held an operating role at the company from founding through 2026.

At a glance

• Education: Bachelor of Science (Eng) in computer engineering with a specialisation in biomedical engineering, University of Calgary (2011); Master of Engineering in electrical and computer engineering, University of British Columbia.
• Current role: Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Product Officer of Sanctuary AI since January 2018.
• Notable prior affiliations: Energy-industry consulting in Calgary; research and development at the Institute for Biomechanics at ETH Zurich; led the Vancouver-based artificial-general-intelligence group at Kindred prior to the Sanctuary spin-out in 2018.
• Key contributions: Hardware-and-engineering principal behind the Phoenix general-purpose humanoid platform through seven published generations from 2020 through 2024; one of the longest-tenured Sanctuary leaders following the November 2024 CEO transition.
• LinkedIn: olivia-norton-20791837

Origins

Norton was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, where her mother worked in geoscience and her father was an architect. She attended the University of Calgary for her undergraduate degree, completing a Bachelor of Science (Eng) in computer engineering at the Schulich School of Engineering in 2011. She has noted publicly that she was the only person in her undergraduate cohort to choose the biomedical-engineering specialisation within computer engineering, an early signal of the cross-disciplinary engineering trajectory that her career has followed.

She began her career in the Calgary energy sector before relocating to Switzerland for research-and-development work at the Institute for Biomechanics at ETH Zurich. The biomechanics work focused on engineering systems that interact with biological structures, an engineering domain that connects directly to the humanoid-robotics work she has subsequently led. She returned to Canada to pursue a Master of Engineering in electrical and computer engineering at the University of British Columbia, and joined Kindred during her graduate-school period.

Career

Norton joined Kindred during her UBC master's programme and subsequently led the Vancouver-based artificial-general-intelligence group at the company. The AGI group was the team focused on the more-cognitive-research side of Kindred's work, rather than on the warehouse-task-automation product line that drove the company's commercial revenue. When the AGI group spun out as Sanctuary AI in January 2018, Norton was a co-founder alongside Geordie Rose, Suzanne Gildert, and Ajay Agrawal.

Norton's role at Sanctuary has been the engineering-and-hardware principal of the company. While Gildert led the cognitive-architecture-and-AI side of Sanctuary as CTO and Chief Product Officer through 2024, Norton led the hardware-and-engineering organisation responsible for designing and building the Phoenix humanoid platform. The Phoenix line went through six published generations from 2020 through April 2024, with Generation 7 unveiled in April 2024 representing the company's most-current commercial-ready platform. The platform's distinctive five-finger end-effectors, designed for high-precision human-task manipulation rather than the gripper-style end-effectors of warehouse-focused competitors, are one of the most-visible engineering signatures of Norton's hardware-and-mechatronics work.

Norton's title evolved across the company's growth. She held the Chief Technology Officer title from founding, and subsequently took on the additional Chief Product Officer responsibilities following the broader leadership reorganisation that accompanied Geordie Rose's November 2024 departure as CEO. As of 2026 she holds the combined Chief Technology and Product Officer position at the company, working alongside interim and now permanent CEO James Wells. With Rose's departure and Gildert's earlier move to Nirvanic, Norton is the only co-founder still in an operating role at Sanctuary, anchoring the institutional continuity of the company's founding period.

She has been a regular guest speaker at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Calgary, and Science World in Vancouver, and has held advisory positions with the Vancouver Economic Commission. She is a founding member of the Frontier Collective, a Vancouver-area technology-and-entrepreneurship community.

Affiliations

• University of Calgary: Bachelor of Science (Eng) in computer engineering with biomedical-engineering specialisation, 2011.
• ETH Zurich, Institute for Biomechanics: Research and development.
• University of British Columbia: Master of Engineering in electrical and computer engineering.
• Kindred: Lead of the Vancouver-based artificial-general-intelligence group, through 2018.
• Sanctuary AI: Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Product Officer, January 2018 to present.

Notable contributions

• Phoenix humanoid platform engineering leadership. Principal engineering leader behind seven published Phoenix generations from 2020 through 2024, including the company's distinctive high-degree-of-freedom five-finger end-effectors designed for human-equivalent manipulation. The Phoenix platform is the central engineering output of Sanctuary's first six years of operation.
• Institutional continuity at Sanctuary AI. The only Sanctuary co-founder to have continuously held an operating role from January 2018 founding through 2026, anchoring the company through the November 2024 CEO transition.
• 2018 BC Business 30 Under 30 honour and 2019 Schulich School of Engineering Alumni Award. Two of the more-prominent early-career recognitions for Canadian engineering operators, both received during the early years of Sanctuary.
• Vancouver tech-ecosystem leadership. Advisory board member of the Vancouver Economic Commission and founding member of the Frontier Collective, with regular speaking engagements at the Vancouver-area universities (UBC, SFU) and the University of Calgary.

Open questions

• Engineering leadership of the post-Rose-and-Gildert Sanctuary. With Geordie Rose's departure as CEO in November 2024 and Suzanne Gildert's move to Nirvanic in 2024, Norton is the institutional anchor for the original founding-period engineering culture at Sanctuary. Whether the engineering organisation under her leadership retains the cognitive-architecture-and-five-finger-manipulation technical-differentiation posture that distinguished early-period Sanctuary, or shifts toward a more conventional humanoid-robotics platform aligned with the broader US cohort, is the central engineering-strategy question for the company through 2026 and 2027.
• Hardware-and-platform iteration cadence. The Phoenix line moved through six generations in four years (2020 to 2024). The cadence of subsequent generations under Norton's continuing engineering leadership, and the alignment of those generations with the Magna manufacturing-and-deployment relationship, will be the most informative signal on Sanctuary's commercial-deployment trajectory.
• Public visibility. Norton has been a substantially less-publicly-active co-founder than Geordie Rose was during his Sanctuary tenure. Whether she takes on a more public-facing position as the company's institutional anchor, or maintains a more operationally-focused profile, will shape the broader Sanctuary narrative going forward.

Sources

• Olivia Norton bio at Sanctuary AI. Sanctuary's official biography page for Norton.
• Olivia Norton, BSc (Eng) '11 Schulich School of Engineering Alumni Spotlight. University of Calgary alumni profile with her educational and early-career background.
• 2019 Schulich Entrepreneurship Alumni Award. Award citation with biographical details from the early Sanctuary period.
• This woman wants to make robots that are just like humans. BC Business 30 Under 30 profile from 2018.
• Meet the Team at Sanctuary AI. Sanctuary's team-introduction blog post.
• Companion profiles: Sanctuary AI, Geordie Rose, Suzanne Gildert, Ajay Agrawal for the Sanctuary co-founder cohort context.