As Vice President of Venture & Entrepreneurship at Invest Ottawa, I lead the support of Ottawa’s tech and entrepreneurial sectors, while supporting the local business ecosystem as a whole.
This includes the design and launch of various tech start up programs under IO’s Venture Path, including our Ignition, Flex, Accelerator and ScaleUp programs, while also supporting main stream entrepreneurial programs through our Entrepreneurship Centre and leading economic recovery programs such as Digital Main Street and the Downtown Ottawa Business Relief Program.
Overall, this involves running an extended team supporting these entrepreneurs and their staff, while managing a stable of Ottawa’s top business advisors ranging across all areas of technology and entrepreneurship. I also spend a good deal of time volunteering and mentoring in the business community with Telfer School of Business and ONEHub, among other organizations.
Previously at CellWand, I was co-founder and CEO driving all development, strategy and execution, where we pioneered the use of abbreviated dialing codes in North America with our award winning #TAXI (Pound Taxi) service and subsequently in the mobile transportation space, with The Ride app. Highlights included raising several million in capital, closing industry first deals with every major wireless carrier in North America and architecting a B2C marketing strategy that made #TAXI a national brand used over 19 million times (and counting), while propelling CellWand to profitability and millions in revenue.
CellWand won numerous business and innovation awards, including the 2010 Canada’s Top 10 Competition for Technology, Named one of the Hottest Innovation Companies in Canada, and one of the top 10 Wireless Companies to watch by IDC. I continue to support CellWand as a board member.
I’m most proud of the teams I’ve helped build and got to work with along the way.
Spent the first chapter of my career by starting a promotional company helping market Main Street companies, grinding out front line go to market sales and business development activities for a new satellite music service and then helped run one of Ottawa’s top web development firms.