Stewart Thornhill is Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship and Executive Director, Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Richard Ivey School of Business. Prior to joining Ivey, he belonged to the faculty in Entrepreneurial Studies at York University's Schulich School of Business in Toronto. He received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and also holds a B.Sc. (Eng.) in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA with a concentration in Finance. Before beginning his graduate studies in business, he worked as a production engineer in the manufacturing sector and as a radio journalist. Dr. Thornhill's research interests include strategic execution, leadership, competitive strategy, innovation, and corporate entrepreneurship. His published work has appeared in several top management journals and he currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Venturing and the International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. Professor Thornhill has taught in Europe, Asia and South America. Recent corporate training engagements include the Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group, Hutchinson Port Holdings, the Globe and Mail, and JD Irving, as well as ongoing development with Canada’s fastest growing companies through the Quantum Shift Executive Development Program. Dr. Thornhill is a Director of the Ontario Telemedicine Network.

Rick is a successful entrepreneur and an active investor. He has been founding, operating and developing businesses both private and public in a variety of industries for more than 40 years. Rick is currently the President and CEO of Greenrock Asset Management, a private merchant bank and investment firm. He is Chairman of Vitran Corporation, a company which he co-founded and operated for over 20 years. Vitran now generates over US$700 million in revenue with facilities across North America. Rick is a current director of C2C Industrial Properties Inc., a past Chairman of Zenn Motor Company, and a past Director of Catch the Wind, all companies which he helped take public. Rick is also a past Director and Chairman of Exco Technologies Ltd. Rick is involved with a number of other private and public company boards, including a strong commitment to several non-profit organizations. Rick has extensive capital markets and corporate governance experience. He has successfully created 4 CPC’s and played an instrumental role in their subsequent Qualifying Transactions. He has been involved in public market fund raising in excess of $250 million.

CPC Deals: Zenn Motor (ZNN), Catch the Wind (CTW), and recently C2C Industrial Properties (CCH)

Sectors: Clean Technology, Power and Infrastructure, Commercial Real Estate, Energy Storage, Transportation and Logistics, Manufacturing

Mr. Mazza is Managing Partner with Hallbrook Capital which provides growth capital to Canadian companies.  Prior to Hallbrook, Mr. Mazza spent over 10 years as an investment banking professional where he executed numerous public and private capital market transactions including mergers, acquisitions and equity offerings.  Mr. Mazza began his investment banking career with CIBC World Markets and later moved to National Bank Financial followed by Scotia Capital to head the firm’s healthcare and technology investment banking practice.  Mr. Mazza earned a B.Sc. from McMaster University, M.Sc. from University of Toronto and M.B.A. from the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto.

Kelly is a committee member of The Young Private Capitalists (YPC), a private equity industry association and a subset of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA). The YPC membership includes young professionals from Canada’s premier capital providers and is dedicated to fostering relationships among professionals working in all aspects of venture capital and private equity investing. Kelly has significant private equity experience having worked as an Associate at VG Partners, a major Canadian private equity fund, and investment banking experience having worked as an Analyst at Alluence Capital Advisors, a boutique investment banking and M&A advisory firm. Currently Kelly works as an Assistant Portfolio Manager where he is responsible for the stock selection and portfolio management activities of a private fund investing exclusively in Canadian public equities.

Jay began his fast food career at 22, when he and brother Hal founded the Cultures chain. The Gould brothers successfully grew the chain to 58 stores, eventually selling the company.

In 1983, while visiting Manhattan, the brothers discovered New York Fries in the South Street Seaport.  Recognizing the business potential, Jay bought the Canadian rights. Within two years, New York Fries had grown to 25 stores. Jay purchased the American company, acquired ownership of future royalties, and the ability to expand the concept with corporate and franchise locations.  Today, New York Fries has 180 locations across Canada, Hong Kong, U.A.E., Bahrain, Macau, Kurdistan and Korea and is regarded as a Canadian success story.

In March 2004, New York Fries became the first fast food chain to change their oil to non-hydrogenated, trans-fat free sunflower oil.  As a result of this change, Jay spoke in Ottawa at the House of Commons about the health effects of consuming Trans fatty acids.

In 2005, Jay launched South St. Burger Co.; a premium burger concept that serves New York Fries French fries and poutine as side orders. Using the same dedication to quality ingredients, the burgers at South St. are made from fresh patties with no additives or preservatives, from cattle raised without the use of hormones and antibiotics. Today there are 16 South St. Burger Co. restaurants in Ontario, 1 in Alberta and 5 more in development.

Jay is acknowledged as an industry trailblazer and has been honoured with numerous awards, including the Franchisee Excellence Pinnacle Award in 2008, the Green Leadership Award in 2011 from Foodservice and Hospitality and 3 sustainable design awards from the Association of Retail Environments for the South St. Burger Co. concept.

Jay currently lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.   

Jason Zan is Senior Director at Rogers Ventures, the venture capital arm of Rogers Communications. He has over 15 years of investing, corporate operating, and startup experience and is currently responsible for investing in early stage companies within the mobile ad-tech, cloud  computing, mobile payments, and M2M sectors. Prior investments at Rogers include MetaTV (acquired by Cox Communications), Equator Technologies (acquired by Pixelworks), Coaxmedia (acquired by Continental Wireless), iBahn, and SmartSync. Prior to Rogers Ventures, Jason was the CEO and co-founder of Tokiva Technologies, a mobile VoIP app, and was part of the founding team at iMoney. (acquired by Quebecor).  Jason currently sits on the board of Scribble Technologies and is a board observer for Payfone and Gridcentric.

Jason has an Honours Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Dr. Amit Monga is the President and CEO of Northcore Technologies Inc., a provider of capital asset management and social commerce solutions. He is a successful angel investor who has previously worked as an investment banker at National Bank Financial where he covered companies in technology, media and telecom sectors. Prior to National Bank Financial, he worked as a venture capitalist at MDS Capital, focussing on healthcare IT investments. At MDS Capital, he also served as Chief Operating Officer of three early stage investment funds and was member of the investment committee that oversaw investments from family of funds totalling approximately $800 million. In 1999, Dr. Monga co-founded HigherMarkets Inc., a US based on-demand procurement software company that was acquired by SciQuest in 2002. He currently serves on the board of Northcore Technologies Inc. (TSX:NTI), Sprylogics International Inc. (TSX:SPY), Poynt Corporation (TSX:PYN) and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures. Dr. Monga received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta, specializing in advanced genetic algorithms and holds Executive Professor of Finance appointment at the University of Alberta Business School.

David Simpson is a London based financier with a broad range of business experiences and a passion for Entrepreneurship. He has financed and operated a diverse range of businesses including restaurants, golf courses, aircraft leasing, oil field serves and retail. He completed an undergraduate degree (Political Science) by part time study while he played professional hockey. Upon retirement from hockey, he completed an MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business in 1988. Upon graduation, he began his career as an entrepreneur engaging in all aspects of corporate finance in the small business sector. In 1989, he was the co-founder of The New Enterprise Workshop, one of the earliest attempts (supported by the Provincial Government) to support fledgling entrepreneurs. As an operator himself in a “Family Business,” he is keen to support Ivey’s efforts to understand and support learning in this vital sector of the Canadian economy. As a practicing entrepreneur, he has a passion to promote this lifestyle choice at Ivey.

Brian Kobus is a Senior Associate at Summerhill Venture Partners, where he focuses on early stage investments in North American companies in the areas of Digital Media, Communications and Information Technology.  Prior  to joining Summerhill in 2006, Brian was an Associate Director in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Bell Canada Enterprises where he was responsible for the evaluation and structuring of acquisitions, divestitures and strategic equity investments. Previously, Brian worked in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Group in New York where he was involved in a number of financial advisory assignments.  Brian holds an MBA and an Honours Business Administration degree both from the Richard Ivey School of Business.  Brian also holds a C.F.A. designation.

As President and CEO of Sleeman Breweries he successfully expanded the business across Canada by taking the company public in 1996. He currently remains as Founder and Chairman of the Board following its acquisition by Sapporo Breweries. John is a member of WPO, past Director and Chair of the Brewers Association of Canada, past Director of Brewers Retail, as well as the British Canadian Chamber of Trade and Commerce. John lives in the Toronto area with his family and has a passion for cars, football, wine and the art of distilling.

As CEO and co-founder, Robert leads Chrysalis’ worldwide operations, focused on accelerating shareholder value, enhancing the quality and quantity of deal flow and delivering strategic guidance to several of Chrysalis' Resulting Companies.   

Robert actively manages the Chrysalis team and is involved in the day-to-day operations of the business.  A large portion of Robert's time is spent marketing and branding Chrysalis as the leader in taking superior private companies public via one of its Capital Pool Companies.

Prior to joining Chrysalis, Robert was Director, Data Essentials and Applications at Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest wireless network operator.  In this role, Robert managed a large team responsible for delivering over $400 million annually from a variety of wireless “data” services including email, text messaging, internet browsing, music, games, among others, in one of the most exciting and fastest growing areas of the wireless marketplace.  During his tenure, revenues from these services grew over 100% year over year, making it one of the fastest growing portfolios within Rogers.

Prior to Rogers, Robert was the founding Director of Venture Development with Exclamation from December 1999 to June 2002.   In this role, he was charged with analyzing all potential investments' value propositions, their products' attractiveness in the marketplace and their likelihood of success.   Robert also acted as interim management to several of Exclamation's partner companies, and was and was one of the original founders of Points International Ltd. – the world's leading reward-program management portal.

Robert is currently CEO, CFO and a Director of Chrysalis VIII and Director of Exclamation Investments Corporation.

CPC Deals: PharmEng International, Tangerine Payment Solutions, US Silver Corporation, Homeland Energy, Enssolutions Ld, Alexander Nubia,

Sectors: Pharmaceuticals, financial solutions, metals and mining, energy, clean tech

As a Partner at KPMG’s Transaction Services practice, John is responsible for the execution and coordination of our transaction services offerings to both domestic and international clients.  John has over 10 years of transactions experience including a corporate development role at an interactive software publisher.  In this role he assisted the company on acquisition activities such as identifying and assessing acquisition opportunities, performing due diligence and executing on post-acquisition integration.  John has also worked in the mergers & acquisitions group of a corporate finance dealer, advising companies on acquisition and divestiture mandates.

Private equity clients include Teachers’ Private Capital, Canada Pension Plan & Investment Board, OMERS Private Equity, Onex/ONCAP, Birch Hill Equity Partners, Clairvest Equity Partners, Tricor Pacific Capital, Torquest Partners and Trivest Partners.

John focuses on software, media, entertainment, gaming, manufacturing / industrials, seniors housing, retail, distribution.

John is a Chartered Accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto.

Probal Lala is a founding executive of About Communications a national provider of voice, data and internet communications solutions to small to medium sized businesses.

An accomplished Senior Telecommunications Executive with over 20 years of broad Industry experience, Probal has been retained to provide executive leadership to a variety of companies ranging from privately held High Tech Start-ups to publically traded telecommunications firms.

He began his career in 1989 and has held a range of diverse executive positions including the roles of Vice President Sales at Lucent Canada, CEO of AirRoamer Inc., Vice President and General Manager Internet Operations at Bell Canada and the roles of General Manager and Chief Technology Officer at Stentor Services Inc.

Probal holds a Bachelors of Engineering degree from McGill University and a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa. He is a member of Professional Engineers Ontario and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

A passionate believer in the role of entrepreneurs as well as youth in our economy, Probal spends much of his spare time on the promotion and development of young leaders and entrepreneurs. He is a founding member of the Toronto based Maple Leaf Angels organization and he currently sits on the board of Youth-In-Motion, a national not-for-profit organization.

Phillip Brown is a serial entrepreneur and has been president or advisor to over a dozen early-stage and mature companies in a variety of sectors. He has a long history of investing in start-up and operating companies as well as a deep understanding of finance, acquisition and operations.

In 2008 Phillip acquired Brown's Dining Solutions and has put that company on the fast track for growth as it is now Canada's largest privately owned dining and nutritional services company (www.browns.ca). It operates dining service facilities anywhere people gather to work, play, get educated, trained, entertained  or where they may reside in retirement. Currently 150,000 customers are served daily across Canada.

Phillip attended Carleton University and was selected as one of the first 40 Canadian entrepreneurs to attend the inaugural year of Quantum Shift at The Richard Ivey School of Business 

He is a founding investor in a Boston-based early-stage investment fund, has executed more than 10 acquisitions in the past 10 years and has access to an exceptional pool of talent and capital. 

Phillip has extensive experience with competitive sports and global adventure and is a requested speaker on leadership, succession planning and business exit strategies. 

Mr. Jacob has 23 years experience in the motion picture exhibition industry.  In his current position as President and Chief Executive Officer of Cineplex Entertainment, Mr. Jacob leads Canada’s largest motion picture exhibition company. Prior to the acquisition of Famous Players and the creation of Cineplex Entertainment, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Cineplex Galaxy LP.  In 1999 he co-founded Galaxy Entertainment Inc.  Before founding Galaxy, Mr. Jacob represented Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. as Head of Integration from September 1998 to the summer of 1999.  From 1987 to 1998, Mr. Jacob held various positions with Cineplex Odeon Corporation culminating in the role of Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. Jacob is a Director and Trustee of Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund as well as a member of the Board of Directors and a member of the Audit and Finance Committee for the Toronto International Film Festival. He is a Director of the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) in the United States and a member of NATO’s Executive Committee. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Audit Committee for Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. and a member of the Board of Directors and a member of the Audit Committee for Dundee Corporation.  He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Baycrest Centre for Geriatrics, a member of Baycrest’s Strategic Planning Committee and he is the Chair of Baycrest’s Finance and Audit Committee.  He is a member of the Board of Governors for Mount Sinai Hospital.

Mr. Jacob holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and is an FCA and CMA.

Larry Wasser is Vice Chairman, Genuity Fund Management, a unique investment management firm. He is the Entrepreneur in Residence, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is also President of L. W. Capital Corporation, a private investment firm which offers strategic, advisory and consulting services. Mr. Wasser has an H.B.A. from the University of Toronto (1978).

Wasser was previously, Chairman and CEO of Beamscope Canada Inc., one of Canada’s largest sales, marketing and distribution companies of consumer electronics products and computer products.  He founded Beamscope in 1982 and built it to over $600 million in annual sales.  The company went public in 1993 and expanded internationally through a joint venture in Latin America.  

Mr. Wasser was the Founder (1994) and joint venture partner of Electronics Boutique (Canada) Inc., a retailer of video game related products.  The Company currently has over 330 locations across Canada.  Electronics Boutique U.S.A. purchased this interest in 1999. 

Mr. Wasser was the Founder (1995) and member of the Board of Directors of Ironside Technologies Inc., a company that specialized in creating business-to-business Internet electronic commerce software solutions.  Ironside was acquired in June 2003 by SSA Global.

Mr. Wasser was a member of the Board of Lavalife (2001), one of the first social networking websites in North America and represented the equity interest for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  In 2004 as part of the deal committee, Mr. Wasser assisted in the sale of Lavalife, a privately-held company, to Vertrue, a U.S. public company. 

John S. Varghese is the president & CEO, nanoCAP Partners Ltd., a fledgling asset management company that he co-founded with the goal of raising a $150 to $250 million fund targeting nanotechnology opportunities in Canada, the Northeast and Northwest of the United States.

Prior to launching nanoCAP, Mr. Varghese was CEO and one of the co-owners VentureLink Innovation Fund Inc., (“VL”).  At it peak, VL had over $275 million under management making both equity and debt investments in alternative energy, technology and financial service sectors.  He is past Chairman of Ventus Energy Inc, Orion Securities Inc. and MCCI Communications Inc, all successful exits for VentureLink. He continues his role as independent Chairman of Sprott Power Corp, a TSX listed company.

Mr. Varghese’s has over 20 years professional experience ranging from venture capital and investment banking to senior management and board of director roles in various industries. He has held COO and CFO positions at start-up organizations, as well as senior management roles within multinational corporations including Royal Bank Capital Corporation, Midland Walwyn Capital Inc. (Merrill Lynch Canada), Dell Computer Corporation, Jim Pattison Industries Ltd and KPMG Peat Marwick. Currently Mr. Varghese is an observer or board member on numerous investee companies. 

He is also an active member of the venture capital industry, sitting on the Executive Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Venture Capital Association and is the Chairman of the Retail Venture Capital Association sits on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX).

Jeremy Gutsche, MBA, CFA, is an innovation expert, the award-winning author of Exploiting Chaos, host of Trend Hunter TV, "one of North America's most requested keynote speakers", and the founder of TrendHunter.com, the world's largest, most popular trend website, attracting more than 500,000,000 total views.

Routinely sourced by the media, Jeremy's broad appeal ranges from The Economist and CNN to Entertainment Tonight and The New York Times. He has been described as "a new breed of trend spotter" by The Guardian, "an eagle eye" by Global TV, an "Oracle" by the Globe and Mail, an "intellectual can of Red Bull" by Association Week and "on the forefront of cool" by MTV.

Jeremy studied innovation at Stanford, holds an MBA from Queen's University, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and graduated as a Chancellor Scholar from The University of Calgary, where he was later awarded Graduate of the Decade. Prior to Trend Hunter, Jeremy was one of Capital One's youngest Business Directors and innovation leads. At age 28, he led his team to grow a $1 billion product portfolio. Prior to Capital One, Jeremy spent several years as a Management Consultant at the Monitor Group.

Jacoline Loewen is a Partner of Loewen & Partners, a private equity investment banking firm that helps provide private companies access to all types of private capital, including equity, debt, and mezzanine from Canadian, U.S. and European fund managers. Ms. Loewen is responsible for new investment opportunities, developing strategy and marketing for both Private Equity funds and business owners.  She sits on the Board of various companies as well as the Exempt Market Dealers Association.

Jacoline holds a B.A. in Industrial Relations from McGill University and a MBA from the University of Witwatersrand School of Business, where she was an Entrepreneurial award winner and was invited to present her MBA thesis by Cambridge University, UK, at the European Strategy & Operations Conference which was then published by Cambridge’s Engineering faculty. She is the author of three books, the most recent, Money Magnet (Wiley), was selected by the Richard Ivey School of Business as a MBA text book.

Evan is an entrepreneur and international speaker. At the age of 19, he became an owner and Chief Operating Officer in Redasoft, a biotechnology software company. The company quickly grew to over 300 organizations as clients, including NASA and Johnson & Johnson, in 30 countries. After selling the company he went into venture capital working with Northern Crown Capital to help entrepreneurial companies raise between $500,000 and $15 million to grow their businesses.

He started Evan Carmichael Communications Group and created www.EvanCarmichael.com with the goal to give entrepreneurs the motivation to follow their passion and the strategies they need to succeed. EvanCarmichael.com has helped over 14 million entrepreneurs so far and has over 750,000 monthly visitors, 5,750 contributing authors, and 295,000 pages of content.

Evan has also delivered over 100 keynote presentations to entrepreneurs in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured as an entrepreneurial expert for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television and is a recognized small business authority. Recent mentions include the New York Times, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal.

He works with brands to help them connect to the entrepreneur community. Some of the companies he's worked with include: Microsoft, Xerox, Google, Telus, SAGE, SAP, BlackBerry, Staples, LinkedIn, and Network Solutions.

Evan has also followed his passions for dancing salsa and baseball history. He is an instructor for Toronto Dance Salsa (teaching Tuesday evenings with his wife who founded the company) and created The Entrepreneur Blog to share some of his thoughts on entrepreneurship. Evan graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelors degree in Commerce and Finance.

Dr. Leslie Roberts is President and Founder of GoForth Institute (GoForth), where she uses her unique insights to train small business owners across Canada. She is passionate about combining technological advances with real-world skills to give small business owners the best possible foundation for success. 

GoForth is an educational and small business research firm that provides comprehensive, best practices training for Canada’s new and existing small business owners. GoForth launched Canada’s first national online education program for entrepreneurs, as well as the largest resource-based website in Canada for entrepreneurs. 

Previously, Dr. Roberts founded Mercatus Research Ltd., a market research consulting firm serving the needs of small and emerging businesses. She was a sought-after consultant to government and industry, especially relating to home-based business and micro-enterprise development; and also a lecturer at both Mount Royal University's Bissett School of Business and the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business. 

Dr. Roberts earned a Master of Business Administration degree in entrepreneurship and new venture development. She won the Julius Schulich Award for Entrepreneurship for her master's thesis on the contributions of home-based businesses to the City of Calgary. She received her PhD in Management, specializing in entrepreneurship and corporate strategy, from the University of Calgary. This was the first PhD in entrepreneurship to be awarded in Canada – out of only four.

Brad currently oversees all operations and finances for Lynx. Brad works with the team to define strategy and goals. On a day-to-day basis, Brad oversees deal negotiations, deal sourcing, investor relations and fundraising.

Brad possesses over 18 years of experience in the financial and merchant banking community. In his previous role as President of Succession Capital Corporation, he grew the business to $40 Million in sales by acquiring over 15 acquisitions over 9 years. Prior to that, as Vice President at Rothschild Canada, Brad participated in over 10 transactions that had cumulative returns averaging over 50 per cent. Brad has worked on a variety of management disputes, management buyouts and next generation succession transactions. He also has a wide variety of experiences with companies ranging in size from owner-operated to public multinationals in a variety of industries. In 1999, one of the investments ranked 13th on Profit Magazine’s – Canada’s 100 Fastest Growing Companies. He previously held positions with Price Waterhouse, Grant Thornton and Coopers and Lybrand (IMBA Internship – Paris, France).

Brad received his BA (Psychology) from York University and IMBA from the Schulich School of Business. He was awarded his CA designation in 1995, ranking in the top ten percentile in Canada. Brad is on the Board of the Toronto Wildlife Centre.

Susan J. McArthur is Managing Director of Jacob Securities Inc, an investment banking firm specializing in renewable energy, oil & gas, mining and infrastructure. Ms. McArthur has advised corporate clients on a broad range of transactions including acquisitions and divestitures, public and private equity and debt financing, capital restructuring and other strategic initiatives. Ms. McArthur has held positions with Rothschild Canada Limited in Toronto, Lazard Freres & Co in New York and Paris and The First Boston Corporation in New York.

Susan currently Chairs the Board of Management of the Canada Revenue Agency and sits on the board of directors of First Capital Realty, Wind Mobile, Luminato, the Canadian Club of Toronto and Les Jardins de Metis Inc. Susan has previously served as director on a number of boards including UBS Bank Canada, Orvana Minerals Inc, Bonus Resources Services and the Toronto International Film Festival. Ms. McArthur has two sons, is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and speaks French fluently.

Rick Nathan is Managing Director of Kensington Capital Partners Limited, a leading Canadian private equity investor. Kensington invests across the private markets in buyout, venture capital, growth and infrastructure assets through both direct investment and fund investment programs. Rick currently serves as a Director of Public Mobile Inc. and Mobile Knowledge Inc., and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Novacap funds.

Prior to joining Kensington, Rick was Managing Director of Goodmans Venture Group, a division of Goodmans LLP. In that role, he acted as legal counsel and strategic business advisor to entrepreneurs, emerging growth companies, and private equity investors in the Canadian market, and also had responsibility for a related investment portfolio. In 1999, Rick was a founding partner of Brightspark, an innovative early-stage venture capital fund focused on incubating entrepreneurs in the software, digital media and information and communications technology sectors. Prior to founding Brightspark, Rick spent more than 10 years as a corporate and securities lawyer at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, including as leader of the firm's Technology Business Group.

Rick is the current Chairman of CVCA - Canada's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, and the Co-Chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange. He is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Toronto Region Research Alliance.

Rick is a graduate of Dartmouth College (Computer Science) and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.

Named by Inc Magazine as one of North America’s top young entrepreneurs, Sarah Prevette has garnered attention for cultivating new technology innovation and investment across the country.

The creator of Sprouter, a platform facilitating strategic connections and knowledge sharing, Prevette has created a vibrant community of startup founders and investors and is at the epicenter of what many are calling Silicon Valley North.

Prevette is frequently in the media discussing new technology and has been featured in many publications including The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Post.