Mr. Peter Sutherland has had a distinguished diplomatic career as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Yemen and Nepal. He also served in various capacities at Canadian missions to the United Nations in New York, Ivory Coast and Hungary and as an attorney in the Inter-American Development Bank, Washington. In Canada, he held senior executive positions responsible for international business development with the departments of Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Industry, & Agriculture & Agri-Food. He is a member of the Asia Advisory Council of Alberta, the International Advisory Council of Schulich School of Business, and Director of Royal College of Canada International. Mr. Sutherland was Senior Business Advisor- Asia at Aird & Berlis LLP in Toronto, Canada.

LinkedIn

Matt is a Madrid-based communications coach who has helped more than 300 organisations, including Roche, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Coca Cola, Accenture and the European Commission, identify their essential story and sell it to clients through a concise, exciting elevator pitch. Matt was a leadership consultant in Deloitte for several years, during which time he worked on hundreds of client bids and presentations and managed the Major Projects Leadership Academy for Oxford Saïd Business School and the Government of the United Kingdom. For five years he delivered training in public speaking to charity volunteers in the UK, Kenya and Uganda. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Communication at IE University (Instituto de Empresa) in Madrid.

LinkedIn | Website

Nathan Gold, also known as The Demo Coach, hails from the San Francisco Bay Area where he spends his days coaching people around the world on how to prepare for high-stakes speaking opportunities and how to harness speaking anxiety. Through keynotes, workshops, and 1:1 sessions, both in-person and online he has personally delivered thousands of presentations along with thousands of hours of professional coaching. Nathan has worked both in and with small and large companies, including GetAround.com, Glue Networks, Bill.com, Education.com, Ensafer, Innovation Norway, SanDisk, Kaiser Permanente, and IBM.

LinkedIn | Website

Since 2008, Claudio has been training and coaching professionals, prepping them for high-impact presentations. From startups to corporate giants like Ricoh, Sony, IBM, and even Shark Tank hopefuls, Claudio has given them the tools to captivate audiences. His secret sauce is a mix of humor, expertise, and a dash of emotional appeal. When not coaching, catch him on PitchZone – a weekly live show to dissect, discuss, and fine-tune the art of presenting together with a special guest. Claudio is also author of The Founder’s Guide to Presenting.

LinkedIn | Website

Dennis is a tech executive with over 19 years’ global go-to-market and a decade of leadership experience at funded startups, scale-ups, and multinationals. Previously an Executive in Residence for the Swiss government’s startup ecosystem building programs in Vietnam and Eastern Europe, and an award winning mentor who has coached 400+ founders from all seven continents, including for the world's leading VCs: 500 Global & Plug and Play.

Dennis has advised for government innovation programs across Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as accelerators, venture funds, and business schools internationally. He's also a speaker at startup-related events and was in the top 1% of 25,000+ mentors nominated for the Founder Institute ‘Global Startup Mentor of the Year’ awards.

LinkedIn

Lean is an expert in Prototyping, Design Thinking, and Agile methodologies. She specializes in Complex Problems and Systems Thinking Leadership. She is the Lead of Prototype Design and Development at Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), and recipient of the CBSA President Award for Innovation and Guiding Change.

LinkedIn

Andrew is the Founder and Managing Director of Boardroom Labs, a venture studio building and investing in startups with the potential to shift industry paradigms. He and his team have collectively worked with global institutions including Under Armour, TD Bank, Loblaws, PepsiCo, IBM, Audi, and more. As a founding member of the Innovation function at OMERS and Strategy & Operations Manager for ADG, Andrew has led complex corporate innovation projects and diverse teams in the creation of disruptive new products, services, & platforms including a $10M venture exit. The Association of Professional Futurists recognized his work on The Future of Personalized Healthcare. His original research into Design-Led Corporate Innovation was presented at the Design Management Institute’s ADM Conference and published in dmi:Journal, Volume 16.

LinkedIn | Website

Liz is the CEO & Founder of HR Continuum. Based in Alberta, Canada, HR Continuum provides full-service and project-based solutions designed specifically for your unique business. Liz is a Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) and an Organizational Development Expert. She’s a Human Resource Consultant offering programs that work for small & medium-sized entrepreneurial companies.

LinkedIn | Website

Michael Haynes is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Listen Innovate Grow. For over 25 years, Michael has worked with companies ranging from micro-businesses to large corporates across Australia, Asia, Canada and the USA to develop and implement customer strategies and programs to drive business growth. His passion is helping CEOs and Business owners of small and medium-sized businesses operating in B2B markets to achieve the growth and impact they seek. Michael is also an avid traveller and is regularly invited to be a guest speaker and panellist for an array of SME events and podcasts across Australia, Canada and the United States.

LinkedIn | Website

Harel is an entrepreneur, product manager, consultant, teacher, and engineer with years of experience in the semiconductor industry and deep knowledge of semiconductor processes and SoC lifecycle. He is versed in many aspects of electrical engineering with wide system knowledge of both hardware and software. He has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering working in ASIC/FPGA Verification and Design, with vast experience in UVM Methodology, SystemVerilog, and Test Bench Arhcitecture.

Some of his protocol experience includes Ethernet MAC, DDR and PCIe, the latter two with a focus on Machine Learning.

LinkedIn

Dave is the founder of Futureforth and author of the acclaimed books “New Business Networking” and “The Nice Method.” He is a communication connoisseur and the creator of The Nice Method. Delaney is a popular speaker and trainer on corporate communication, leadership, and professional networking. His presentations are humorous, educational, and engaging for in-person and virtual events of all sizes.

LinkedIn | Website

Jay has been a full-time professor at Durham College in the Faculty of Business, IT and Management since 2010. He is also the faculty lead for FastStart DC. Jay holds a B.B.A. from Wilfrid Laurier University and an M.A. in Adult Education from Central Michigan University, as well as certificates related to business, entrepreneurship, and social enterprise building from Harvard University, Babson College, and Common Good Solutions. Jay spent over 20 years in the software technology industry, in both large and start-up companies. Jay has been a coach, mentor, and advocate for hundreds of business owners and social innovators, and promotes a sustainable and inclusive approach to entrepreneurship.

LinkedIn

Mohsin always dreamed of a world where people play to learn and is passionate about game based learning, gamification and games in general. He uses games and technology to change the way learning happens by creating real and authentic life-like learning experiences that ultimately lead to realization and then change. Currently, Mohsin is helping learning practitioners and facilitators use games to facilitate virtual and classroom ILTs. Mohsin has facilitated learning experiences for Marsh, Netflix, Flipkart, Uber, Siemens, Bayer, JP Morgan, Capgemini, GIA, GroupM, JLT and many others. He created the immersive leadership game Evivve.

LinkedIn | Website

Jimmy is a former UberEATS launch associate, growth hacker and passionate advocate for leadership, culture and tightly aligned missions. Helping startups go-to-market, Jimmy drives efficiencies operationally and executes growth hacking strategies through products.

LinkedIn | Website

Grant Thornton LLP is a leading Canadian accounting and advisory firm providing audit, tax and advisory services to private and public organizations.

Website

Boast helps companies easily capture more of their eligible R&D tax credits with its scalable, intelligent software and expert services. Governments give away $20 billion in R&D tax credits each year but applying has been difficult and slow. Not with Boast. Thousands of innovative companies leverage Boast to get more money, faster, and with less risk.

Website

Smart & Biggar is the common name and brand for the Canadian law firm Smart & Biggar LLP and the patent and trademark agency Smart & Biggar IP Agency Co. Smart & Biggar is widely regarded as one of Canada's highest-ranked intellectual property law firms.

Website