AfternoonT - Stories from Successful Canadian Founders

Chris Albinson is the President & CEO of Communitech, Co-Founder & Managing Director of the BreakawayGrowth Fund, and visionary founder and past chairperson of the C100. Albinson has been an early investor in impactful companies, including Pinterest, Docusign, Newbridge Networks & Juniper Networks. Chris is a mentor and/or advisor for TechStars, Garage Capital, SAAS North, and the Canadian Innovation Exchange. Earlier in his career, Chris was a General Partner at JP Morgan Partners and earned an MBA from the Ivey Business School.

Toufic Boubez is a serial entrepreneur with three successful exits to his name. He was the founding CTO of Saffron Technology with a mission of building cognitive computing systems for Big Data which was acquired by Intel, Metafor Software where he developed next-generation machine learning analytics and anomaly detection for IT Ops and Security that was acquired by Splunk, and Layer 7 Technologies one of the most successful vendors in the API Management/ SOA Governance and Security space that was acquired by Computer Associates (CA)). Prior,Toufic was the Chief Architect for SOA at IBM's Software Group, and the Chief Architect for IBM’s Web Services tools. He holds a BSc and a Masters of Electrical Engineering degrees from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University. Toufic is currently the CTO and CPO at MacroHealth, helping to create Intelligent Healthcare Markets.

Michelle Zatlyn is co-founder, President, and COO of Cloudflare, the Internet security, performance, and reliability company on a mission to help build a better Internet. Prior to co-founding Cloudflare, Michelle held positions at Google and Toshiba and launched two successful startups. Michelle currently serves on the board of directors for Atlassian and the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Foundation. Michelle has been named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and was part of Marie Claire’s 7th Annual New Guard. She holds a B.S. degree, with distinction, from McGill University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was awarded the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship.

William Johnson is the founder and managing editor of the Vancouver Tech Journal. With a focus on business and technology, William’s writing has been featured in outlets including Maclean’s, The Globe & Mail, BCBusiness, and the Daily Hive. In addition, William has been a speaker on communications and innovation at events like the #BCTECHSummit, TechVancouver, Marketing Connect, and BC AMA’s Vision conference. Being an Ontario transplant, William studied political science at Carleton University and public relations at the University of Toronto.

Janet Bannister is the Managing Partner of Real Ventures, Canada’s preeminent early-stage venture capital firm.  In addition to leading Real Ventures and working with her large portfolio of rapidly growing tech companies, Janet is very active in the Canadian tech ecosystem; she is on the Boards of Communitech in Waterloo and Vector Institute in Toronto. In 2004, Janet launched Kijiji.ca and grew it to become one of the most visited websites in Canada.  This year, Janet became the co-chair of the C100… which is the leading global community of Canadian tech leaders, dedicated to supporting, inspiring and connecting the most promising Canadian entrepreneurial leaders, and a group I am very proud to be a member of. Personally, I am very excited to see the direction she will take the C100 through her stewardship.

Today is a special episode of the AfternoonT as I have Sarathy Niacker and Jason Smith co-founders of Klue - an AI-powered Competitive Enablement platform designed to help product marketers collect, curate, and deliver actionable competitor insights to empower revenue teams to win more business. Sarathy is an experienced software professional with a deep background in data processing, security, and design. Prior to founding Klue, Sarathy has played an important role with local tech firms Active State and Sophos. Meanwhile, Jason Smith is the co-founder, investor or early employee of 5 start-ups including acting as the former President of Vision Critical (startup to 500+ people), VP of Electronic Arts and co-founder of web applications pioneer- the Columbus Group which was acquired by TELUS.

Sunil Sharma is the Managing Director of the Techstars Toronto Accelerator, Techstars' first accelerator program in Canada. Previously, Sunil was founder of Extreme Startups, managed a Canadian Consulate in California, and worked as a venture capitalist. Sunil has taken on the co-organizer role for one of the largest tech and startup conferences in the world, Toronto’s own Collision and is the co-host of Web Summit in Lisbon where last month I witnessed him introduce some of the world’s biggest movers and shakers to the stage.

Web Summit is an annual technology conference held in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference's theme centers on emerging technologies and venture capitalism. Web Summit's partners range from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, with attendees representing all levels and sectors of the global high technology industry.  Since returning to Canada, Chris has been asked questions about the event by many people and the professionals he met there. So, we decided to host a special Web Summit Edition of the Afternoon "T" podcast to discuss the success/takeaways of the event, tech trends, and the experience of our five special guests: Anastasia Pash, Bruce Reynolds, Casey Lau, Damarys Zampini, and Michael Souza.

Cybele Negris is a serial entrepreneur, seasoned board member, speaker, mentor, and columnist. In 2000, Cybele became the CEO & Co-Founder of Webnames.ca, Canada’s original .CA Registrar. Cybele serves on multiple boards including Blue Shore Financial,Canadian American Business Council, Science World, BCAA, The Royal Canadian Mint, BC Small Business Roundtable, Riverview Lands Redevelopment, and Women get on Board. A Hall of Fame Inductee of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women and nine-time winner of PROFIT W100, some of Cybele’s other recognitions include BC Business Most Influential Women in Business  and Business In Vancouver’s Influential Women in Business and a Top 40 Under 40.   Cybele is a columnist for Business in Vancouver, Marketing News Canada and a regular contributor to Forbes Business Council. She speaks at dozens of events each year including TEDx and Level Up Conference with former Prime Ministers Harper & Chretien.