Forthlane Fridays Guest Bios Alex Norman
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Forthlane Fridays Guest Bios Session 12: The Canadian Tech Ecosystem Alex Norman PARTNER AT N49P, TECHTO CO-FOUNDER & ANGELLIST CANADIAN PARTNER Alex is focused on building the Canadian tech ecosystem and has several active roles within the ecosystem. Alex is the Canadian Partner of AngelList, the most successful startup investing platform in the world with over $2bn USD AuM. Alex launched the platform in Canada in late 2015 and is responsible for $100m+ AuM and 250+ investments. Alex is the co-founder of TechTO which is focused on developing the technology and innovation economy in Canada by increasing the level of awareness, talent, and connectivity of the ecosystem. Alex also runs N49P, a pre- seed venture capital fund where he advises and invests in early stage Canadian funds. Prior to his current activities, Alex co-founded HomeSav, one of Canada’s leading home furnishings ecommerce site, acquired by Rebellion Media in 2014. He has had senior roles in technology companies in San Francisco, New York and London. Alex also has significant experience in professional services, working for McKinsey & Company in London, UK and Toronto, Canada and in the technology mergers and acquisitions group at Lehman Brothers in New York. Eva Lau FOUNDING PARTNER, TWO SMALL FISH VENTURES Eva is a well respected entrepreneur-turned-investor and one of the few women leading a venture fund in Canada. She is the Founding Partner of Two Small Fish Ventures, a venture fund that invests globally in early-stage, transformative tech companies with strong network effects. The fund is backed by many high net worth individuals, family offices, institutional investors and the Creator Circle, which is composed of many top product and company creators who can leverage their experience to help Two Small Fish Ventures portfolio companies become successful. Before starting Two Small Fish Ventures, she was Wattpad’s Head of Community and Content. She helped nurture and scale the Wattpad community from its infancy to become one of the largest online communities with tens of millions of monthly users around the world. With a sharp focus on investing companies with strong network effect as their defensibility, Eva has created the ASSET framework that many entrepreneurs and accelerators have adopted in their developing business strategies. Eva is regarded as an expert in this area. Prior to Wattpad, she was Director of Product Development of Brightspark Labs, a Toronto based accelerator. During her tenure at Brightspark Labs she mentored and helped many tech startups in Toronto. Eva is also involved in many incubators and accelerators, such as Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, Ryerson’s DMZ, University of Waterloo’s Velocity and Techstars. She also serves on the board of Branksome Hall and a number of startup companies. Eva has a bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Toronto and an MBA from Schulich School of Business. Her husband constantly teases her that the two degrees offset each other. John Ruffolo FOUNDER, OMERS VENTURES & CO-FOUNDER, COUNCIL OF CANADIAN INNOVATORS John Ruffolo is the Founder of OMERS Ventures and the Co-founder of the Council of Canadian Innovators. Over the course of John’s leadership, OMERS Ventures had invested over $500 million of capital in over 40 disruptive technology companies across North America, including growth investments in Shopify, Hootsuite, Rover, Desire 2 Learn, Hopper, DuckDuckGo, Wattpad, TouchBistro and League. John also formed Platform Investments, OMERS’ innovation arm, where he led investments in Purpose Financial, PointNorth Capital, District Ventures, OneEleven and ArcTern Ventures. The Council of Canadian Innovators is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping high-growth Canadian technology firms scale up globally. As Canada’s business council for a 21st century economy the Council is made up of CEOs from Canada’s most promising technology companies. The Council’s position is to promote, share, and collaborate with public policy leaders on key policy levers to optimize the growth of Canada’s innovation-based sector. John currently sits on the boards of a number of leading innovative organizations including ArcTern Ventures, Canopy Rivers, Continuum Residential REIT and Ether Capital. John has also previously served on the boards of Hootsuite, Wave, Desire 2 Learn, Purpose Financial, MMM Group, Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), OneEleven and Communitech. In addition, John sits on the board of a number of not for profit organizations including the David Suzuki Foundation as Vice-Chair, the Royal Ontario Museum, Caldwell’s Top 40 Under 40 and The Dean’s Advisory Council for the Schulich School of Business. John was a Partner at Deloitte, as well as the Global Thought Leader, the Global Tax Leader and the Canadian Industry Leader for Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice. He was also a member of the firm’s Tax and TMT Global Leadership teams and a member of Deloitte’s Board of Directors. A certified public accountant, John was formerly a partner with Arthur Andersen LLP and has also spent time as an instructor for both the Chartered Professional Accountants Canada and York University’s Schulich School of Business, from which he holds a Bachelor of Business Administration. In 2018, John was honored with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic which made him a 5 class Knight. The highest ranking honour of the Republic, it is awarded for "merit acquired by the nation" in the fields of literature, the arts, economy, public service, and social, philanthropic and humanitarian activities and for long and conspicuous service in civilian and military careers. Randall Howard GENERAL PARTNER,VERDEXUS Now an investor and active in the social sector, Randall started his career as a technologist building innovative products, moving on to building innovative companies based on technology. The common theme is a passion for working with great people to harness the power of technology to transform. Today, applying many of the same technologically-driven entrepreneurial approaches to the social sector holds exciting promise. Randall is a partner and co-founder at VERDEXUS, a transatlantic boutique fusing a network of serial technology entrepreneurs with investment in a proactive and hands on methodology to build world leading, high growth technology organizations. He serves as “hands-on” Chairman at recent VERDEXUS portfolio investment, iotum. As well, Randall is CEO of Middlebrook Corporation. From its May 2004 acquisition to April 2006, he was CEO of VERDEXUS portfolio company, Software Innovation, where I continue to serve on the board of directors. In 1984, Randall co-founded MKS (TSX: MKX) one of Canada’s leading enterprise software vendors and whose products optimize internal software development within large corporations. As Chairman and CEO, Randall led growth to over $40 million revenue and 375 employees worldwide, including seven acquisitions. He recently became member of the Board of Directors of Gore Mutual Insurance Company, where he serves on the Audit, Pension and Governance Committees. He is a board member and advisor, having worked with many technology firms including Necho Systems Corp (acquired by Cybershift), GoodContacts (acquired by Reunion), Whitehill Technologies (acquired by Skywire Software), Waterloo Maple Software, Arise Technologies and Nanodesign (acquired by SignalGene). Randall is a member of the MaRS Wireless Advisory Panel, helping to launch Golden Triangle AngelNet as a Board member, member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Laurier School of Business and Economics and past service on the Communitech Board, which he helped to found. Randall holds an Honors B.Math from University of Waterloo and was the 1997 High Technology Entrepreneur of the Year and the 2005 recipient of the Impact Award from Communitech. .