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Albert Seah is an educator and mentor with consulting experience in business development. Through business consulting, he provides business development activities ranging from establishing standard operating procedures, market research, product research, and fund-raising for early-stage business organizations. His expertise is mainly focused on the optimization of an efficient retail system.
Prior to arriving in Vancouver in 2011, Albert had more than fifteen years of wide-ranging experience in business start-ups, restructuring,traffic generation, and traffic conversion in e-commerce. He combines a hands-on approach with an enthusiastic style that reaches out to the needs of his clients to succeed in their business ventures.
Areas of specialization:
Chris has 20+ years of experience helping organizations position for market entry, strategize revenue models, push through financial ceilings, and build foundations to become best-in-field.
A senior associate of CanadaStartUp.com, and a financial advisor for VolitionAdvisors.com, Chris supports ventures across a broad range of markets including construction management software, robotic welding, e-learning, workplace hygiene, therapeutic apparel, industrial automation, event technologies, and anti-counterfeit authentication platforms.
Prior to his work in the venture space, Chris Stairs began his career in tourism and sports marketing, working for such brands as the Vancouver Aquarium, NBA, Olympics and FIFA.
Venture Prize LeadLead VentureLabs Liaison
Dave Thomas is a Senior Partner with Rocket Builders. He was the General Manager of the Canadian Financing Forum, matching North American Corporate and VC investors with serious entrepreneurs looking to build world-class technology companies from 2003 to 2010. He is an executive, business consultant and advisor for a number of technology companies and manages the Rocket Builders “Market Readiness Program”. Recent positions and projects include; Mentor in Residence at Simon Fraser University Venture Connection and a guest lecturer at the New Ventures BC program.
Thomas has worked with a series of start-ups over the past decade and was a member of the management team for four venture-backed tech companies. He is currently an advisor to companies, an entrepreneur, an angel investor and a shareholder in angel seed funds. He has an MBA from UBC and was a member of the coaching staff for Canada’s Olympic Sailing Team on four occasions. An enthusiastic sailor, Thomas is a partner in two sailing schools, one at Jericho in Vancouver and a second initiated in 2010 in Shenzhen China.
Lead eCoop Mentor
Doug is the Chang Institute’s Lead eCoop Mentor, is a sessional instructor for the Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and directly mentors founders and ventures through Mentor Meet, SPARK, Venture Prize, and as lead mentor for many Venture Connection incubator teams.
Douglas enjoys coaching product-focused companies and sharing his experiences bending metal, writing code, building boards, and preparing for manufacturing.He is the Founder and Alchemist of Dark Water Tek, a consultancy that provides guidance to clients in navigating the fog of new product development.
He has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and is a Citizen of the Metís Nation of BC.Prior to founding Dark Water Tek, Douglas held the roles of CEO at Nyce Control, President of Spectrum Signal Processing, and Executive Vice President and Vice President of Research and Development at Vecima Networks Inc. Douglas joined Vecima in its early days and played several key roles in helping scale the company to success at 921 staff and top line revenue of C$120M.
Finlay MacNab is an accomplished research scientist with a broad understanding of the BC innovation ecosystem. He has over a decade of experience as a research scientist building novel telecommunications, microelectronic, and photovoltaic devices. Finlay holds a doctorate in materials chemistry and a graduate certificate in technology commercialization from SFU.
Life SciencesScience and Technology CommercializationScientific innovation
Ken Fielding’s more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry has been fully centred on innovation and change in the energy efficiency sector. He is now advising and being an ‘ear’ for founders of emerging growth tech/innovation-backed companies. Previous to this, Ken was the CEO of Delta-Q Technologies, a power electronics company he co-founded in 1999 supplying the electric vehicle industry.
From initial back-of-the-envelope business idea through to profitable growth and eventually a successful acquisition by an International company, Ken has been involved in all facets of growth. Along the way, Ken gained experience with raising capital from government sources, angel investors and private equity not to mention the many challenges in running a start-up through scaled growth and the commercialization of new technologies.
Associate Lead, Life Sciences
Rachel Chase is a healthcare founder and innovator. She is a co-founder and former CEO of Zennea Technologies, a medical device company that developed a treatment and management system for mild obstructive sleep apnea using novel neuromodulation and sleep-tracking technology. She has a background in hardware and financial product sales. Rachel loves diving into problems, and through that passion, she was a teaching assistant for introductory entrepreneurship classes at SFU.
She learned how to build a business and scale a startup from world-renowned accelerator programs such as SOSV’s HAX, Google’s Inaugural StartUp Accelerator for Women, Johnson and Johnson’s JLABS, Creative Destructions Labs, and was a graduate of SFU’s Venture Connection. Rachel really enjoys working with companies interested in understanding the pain point to not only create a customer-centric product/service but to create informed marketing decisions.
Creative and Digital Lead
Lynn Warburton, Managing Partner at Emdoubleyu Communications + Design, is an expert in engaging stakeholders in values-based conversations. She empowers those she works with to develop their voice through strategic communications to inform, persuade and influence behaviour. Her clients are municipalities, institutions, businesses and non-profits. She’s an advocate for social innovation through sustainability, diversity and health care. Through award-winning materials, online campaigns, branding and public relations tactics she addresses issues with sensitivity and authenticity to raise awareness and strengthen communities.
She develops brand platforms, campaigns and messaging for the City of Surrey and signature projects at the University of British Columbia. She recently facilitated dialogue to advance Indigenous housing issues with the federal government for the Aboriginal Housing Management Association. She’s a compulsive volunteer and fundraiser who sees generosity almost everywhere.
She loves epic road bike rides, lively dialogue and eating outdoors.
Tim brings over 30 years of experience in business, sales, general management, executive leadership as well as personal development. During his career, Tim has worked and contributed to the success of both start-ups and seasoned businesses from nominal to $ 250M in annual revenues. He has held significant roles at “for profit”, “not for profit” and “charitable” organizations and has experience in the tech, lighting, disability, government, education, foundation and personal development sectors. Tim is very comfortable in strategizing with organizations for early and late-stage growth, identifying and removing barriers, people and culture as well as organizational planning.
Dr. Anthony Marotta, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur and a proven scientific and clinical leader whom also has a very strong business and operational acumen which is key in delivering shareholder value. As part of his professional tenure, Marotta has co-founded companies including Augurex Life Sciences Corp and Peqish Group and has been a business and clinical advisor for various companies including DueNorth BioDev, Network Immunology and SignalChem Life Sciences Corp.
During Marotta’s eleven-year tenure at Augurex he was responsible for the development of the 14-3-3η biomarker programs, and the successful approvals and launching of the blood tests in Canada, Europe, Australia and United States. At Peqish, Marotta has played a critical role in assisting the business in differentiating itself from other food vendors centered on the concept that “food is medicine”. Marotta has also been key in assisting the Peqish team to operationalise business processes and achieve double digit profitability on EBIDTA.
Prior to Augurex and Peqish, Marotta served as the Director of Business Development for Stressgen Bioreagents where he tactically grew the product portfolio by 30% through developing strategic collaborations. He also played a key role in training lab, sales and technical staff and was involved in several aspects of the day-to-day operations of the whole business.
Marotta holds several patents, has co-authored, and presented at various international conferences, and has strong relationships with clinicians worldwide. Marotta began his career in research at Kinetek Pharmaceuticals whilst pursuing his Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
Romain Roux, an accomplished R&D engineer specializing in bioengineering, boasts a robust educational background with a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University and a Master’s in Translational Medicine from UC Berkeley & UCSF. His professional journey has been marked by significant contributions at Theranova LLC, where he played a pivotal role in the development of various medical devices. Notably, his tenure at Theranova led to the co-founding of Alsus Medical, where he spearheaded the creation of cryogenic microfluidic catheters for BPH treatment, underscoring his adeptness in guiding products from conception through clinical trials.
Demonstrating a sharp eye for detail and a fervent commitment to problem-solving, Romain has a distinguished track record in device ideation, modeling, prototyping, and testing. His expertise encompasses CAD modeling, proficiency in multiple programming languages, and hands-on experience in conventional machining, CNC machining, and additive manufacturing techniques.
Rhonda helps start-up and growth-phase life sciences companies build value and access capital by developing and executing operational plans and strategic alliances. She serves as a mentor, advisor, and executive for multiple emerging biotechnology companies, with work spanning business operations, market research, sourcing and executing partnerships, governance, and team growth and development. She previously led and supported cross-functional deal teams for transactions including platform technology licenses, R&D collaborations, and M&A at Zymeworks Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.
Dr. Wideman holds a PhD from UBC, where her research focused on novel approaches for treating diabetes using cellular therapy, and a MBA from SFU.
Angel in Residence
Bob de Wit is a mentor, advisor and investor in start-up and growth-stage technology companies.
Bob’s career began in university technology transfer then, transformed by entrepreneurship, evolved into angel investing. Along the way, Bob gained C-level leadership experience with start-ups, public companies, and not-for-profit societies. Areas of specialized knowledge include corporate development (M&A strategy and execution), corporate finance (raising equity capital) and corporate governance.
Bob has served on numerous boards and advisory boards of private and public companies as well as societies and foundations. He holds a BBA (marketing) and MA (economics) from Simon Fraser University and lives with his family in British Columbia.
Business Librarian
Mark Bodnar is passionate about helping others understand and uncover the information they need to move forward with their projects and dreams. In more than twenty years as a Business Librarian at SFU, Mark has taught hundreds of sessions on research strategies and resources. He has also consulted on thousands of complex and frustrating market research problems with people throughout the SFU community.
Mark is an SFU alumnus with a BBA degree. He also holds an MLIS degree from UBC.
Contact Mark by email at mark_bodnar@sfu.ca if you’d like to discuss the information you need for your plans and pitches.
Director of Entrepreneurship
Sarah Lubik is SFU’s Director of Entrepreneurship and is focused on aligning and accelerating entrepreneurship support across faculties within SFU and with SFU’s partners, including pre-SFU partnership, education and early-stage incubation. Her background is in university entrepreneurship, commercialization, innovation ecosystems and incubation. Sarah is a lecturer in Entrepreneurship & Innovation in the Beedie School and the co-champion of Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU.
Prior to joining SFU, Sarah worked in the Centre for Technology Management at the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge. She has also worked as a business coach, specializing in market analysis and strategy, and project manager and coordinator on a number of international European projects aimed at supporting start-up firms through incubation. She is also the co-founder and Marketing Director of a high-tech manufacturing startup, Lungfish Dive Systems. Sarah has a BBA (honours) from SFU and her Masters and PhD in Technology Commercialization from the University of Cambridge.
Diversity and Inclusion Stream Lead
Trish Mandewo is a multi-award-winning, experienced entrepreneur, mentor, board professional, politician and author. She was elected to the Coquitlam City Council in 2018. She is the President & CEO of Synergy Executive & Boards Consulting Group, a recruitment, HR and leadership consulting company that supports the advancement of Black, Indigenous and Visible minority subject matter experts and senior-level executives seeking to take their voices and expertise to the boardroom, c-suite and other decision-making tables.
With an impressive early career in microbiology & embryology followed by nearly 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, governance and as a small business advisor / mentor, Trish has a passion for working with startup and growth phase entrepreneurs. She is the author of “Growth Strategies for the hungry entrepreneur.
Trish has served on more than 20 boards. She currently sits on the Women’s Enterprise Center Board, Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Indigenous Relations Committee (chair), UBCM Economic Development Committee, Metro Vancouver Indigenous Relations Committee and The Black Opportunity Fund Governance Committee.
Trish’s roots are from the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe. Her totem is Shava Mhizha / Mhofu (Eland Antelope) from Chivhu reserves. She is a first-generation settler and is humbled and grateful to live and work in the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of Kwikwetlem Nations.