John Kitchen
Past Chair
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For the past 22 years, John Kitchen has provided senior management (CEO/COO) expertise to organizations started by innovative and technologically savvy founders.
John is Vice President & General Manager of Esri Canada Limited, Canada’s leading geographic information systems (GIS) company. Founded in 1984, Esri Canada is a private Canadian company with a staff of over 300 employees in 16 Canadian offices. The company provides software, consulting services, training, technical support and integrated solutions to over 8,000 private sector and government customers. Esri Canada is the GIS standard for the majority of federal, provincial and municipal governments in Canada.
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Atin Gupta
Treasurer
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Atin Gupta, CA, CPA (CO) is MNP’s Technology Lead and a partner in the Private Equity Assurance group, delivering a range of accounting and business advisory services to technology companies or companies interested in going public or seeking private equity funding to fuel growth. With more than 12 years of accounting expertise, Atin provides assurance and related services around complex business structure transactions for companies in the technology, cleantech and investment sectors.
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Heather Whitten
Secretary
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Heather Whitten is a partner in the Business Law Group of Wilson Vukelich LLP. In addition to providing general business advice to clients, Heather has extensive expertise in negotiating and implementing commercial transactions including shareholder arrangements, acquisitions, dispositions, mergers, strategic alliances (including partnerships and joint ventures) and reorganizations.
Heather has acted for entrepreneurs, private companies, public companies and institutional clients.
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Pat Shaw
Executive Director
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As Executive Director of the YTA Pat is a community builder working to bring together members of the tech community throughout the Greater Toronto Region in support of a strong and healthy tech ecosystem.
Pat brings a strong management background built upon the ability to balance the people and economic perspectives needed to achieve business outcomes. His ability to engage stakeholders and his passion to advocate for the issues and actions that members most value help make the YTA the centre-point for the tech cluster in the GTA.
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Susan G. Bishop
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Susan Bishop is a Tax Partner and the National Leader of the Business Incentives Practice at Ernst & Young LLP. Susan has been fully dedicated to growing the Business Incentives Practice for the past twenty years, working with both large corporate and smaller private mid-market companies with a focus on the technology industry.
Her practice includes SR&ED tax credits, Digital Media tax credits, Apprenticeship credits and other business incentives. During her career at EY, Susan has offered scalable solutions for clients through the entire R&D lifecycle and brings the strength of the global R&D network to the table. Susan is also the Inaugural Chair of the Women’s Leadership Council for the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.
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David Burnett 
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David Burnett, Co-Founder of End to End Networks and father of 4, is a man of integrity, dedication and determination. He has contributed enormously to his local community and has made every effort to achieve both his professional and personal goals over the years. With David’s 35 years of experience specializing in operations and communications, he is responsible for the vision and long-standing relationships that benefit the growth of End to End Networks.
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Stephen Chan
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Stephen is CEO of DapaSoft Inc. an IT consulting and software development firm he established and has grown to prominence with more than 75 employees focusing on the health, manufacturing and recycling verticles. Mr. Chan is an active community member and supporter of innovation and business start-ups, serving in a senior capacity in several businesses including: President and CEO of Mayer Information Technology Inc; CEO of Fetal Medicine International Inc; Board of Directors and Founder, Catalyst Health Inc; Board of Directors, CEO Fusion Centre; Board of Directors, Cleantech Angel Network.
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Jinha Chung
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Jinha Chung is CEO of Miax Inc., a project management and technical solutions company based in North York, Ontario. The company specializes in flexible, cost effective solutions and delivers strategic initiatives for corporate clients in the technology and telecommunications sector.
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Jason Cottrell
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Jason Cottrell is the Founder & Director of Myplanet Digital- a design & technology company that uses open platforms to create meaningful user experiences on an enterprise scale.
After completing an undergraduate degree in biomedical science, Jason enrolled in a business administration program at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, where he started Myplanet in his last year (2009). From an original team of five—all of whom are still on board—Myplanet now has 55 employees with plans to be 100 strong by the end of 2012. The company’s clients include The Royal Conservatory of Music, Warner Music, the Ontario Power Authority and Carnegie Hall. |
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Johanna Delroy
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Johanna is the National Director of Marketing with Compugen, the largest privately owned Canadian IT solution and service provider. Compugen is a Richmond Hill based company that provides practical, real-world solutions and a comprehensive customer-focused portfolio of support services through 15 offices across the country.
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Paul Gragtmans
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Paul has more than 30 years of experience in the IT and AV technology industries and brings a practical and insightful approach to today’s technology environment. He is working with some of the largest Canadian companies in a consultative role, helping them sort through the collaborative technologies available to them. He has developed an Interactive Collaborative EcoSystem model which allows organizations to understand the dynamics of the collaborative and UC technologies; work with them to determine their current position in the use of the technologies and to create a roadmap to meet their goals for increased collaboration.
Paul has held leadership positions at both large corporate companies, e.g. IBM Canada – General Manager positions, and at several technology start ups. His results-oriented drive, real world insight and innovative leadership have spawned successful strategies, coupled with practical planning and implementation.
His focus at ET Group is to bring ongoing value to the customer
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Robert Hache
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Profile coming soon |
Roy Hart
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Roy Hart is the CIO for Seneca College and brings over 23 years of public sector enterprise IT experience, including senior level leadership positions for the past 12 years, to the YTA Board of Directors.
At Seneca College, Roy leads the delivery of IT services to one of the largest colleges in Canada, with some 22,000 full-time and 70,000 part-time students. Seneca College offers a diverse array of degree, diploma, and certificate programs from 10 campuses located in the GTA.
Prior to joining Seneca, Roy held a number of leadership positions. He was CIO for the Durham Catholic District School Board where he modernized their core systems, including building a new data centre, moving the 50 schools to a single network, and providing new services to students and teachers.With the Province of Ontario, Roy held senior leadership roles, including significant revenue accountability for central IT services, major project delivery, and negotiation of complex agreements.With the Federal Government, Roy held progressively more senior roles, including approximately 6 years as a Director, IT. During this time, he led a number of large projects and organizational change initiatives.
Roy received Bachelor of Science degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland and is active in the technology community, in particular the CIO Association of Canada and York Technology Alliance.
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Muneer Hirji
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Muneer is the founder of 3.0 Corp. a consulting firm focused on helping software and technology based professional service companies accelerate their growth strategies. For the last 25 years, Muneer has held executive positions with high-growth technology companies - start-ups as well as more established firms. He was Vice President of Marketing at SAP Canada, General Manager of i2 Canada, and most recently, President and CEO of Ideaca, a Systems Integrator with over 200 employees. At Ideaca, Muneer was responsible for all aspects of the business including corporate strategy, sales, marketing, consulting, finance and IT. The common thread running through these ventures has been the accelerated profitable growth these companies experienced under Muneer's leadership.
Muneer has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Guelph.
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Mike Kavanagh 
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As a member of the Board of Directors for York Technology Alliance (YTA), Michael seeks to support its objective of building a stronger technology sector in the region through actively engaging with industry participants to share experiences, resolve challenges, and help each other understand best practices.
With over 15 years' experience, Michael provides audit and assurance services to private and public technology companies. He is intimately familiar with the business and operating landscape, as well as, the evolving regulatory framework of this market. His experience includes providing audit and advisory services to companies at various stages of growth and life cycle in respect of financial reporting, regulatory compliance and general business advisory matters. He has also advised companies with mergers and acquisitions, setting up operations in other countries, and going public on the Canadian, U.S., and London (AIM) exchanges.
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Nasir Kenea
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Nasir has over 20 years of experience in the ICT/geomatics field in both private and public sectors. In his current role as the Chief Information Officer at the City of Markham, he provides leadership and strategic direction to all aspects of information and communication technology requirements that will enable the organization to provide high quality services to its citizens in a wide range of areas. In addition, he is also responsible to ensure the day to day information and communication technology needs are maintained in order to support the city's business operations.
Nasir holds a doctorate degree in geomatics field from Free University of Berlin, Germany.
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Krista LaRiviere 
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Krista LaRiviere is the CoFounder & CEO of gShift Labs, a software company with an SEO platform that provides business intelligence for organic search strategies. gShift is Krista’s third software start up having successfully exited from the previous two, cgk Technologies and Hot Banana Software in 2006 to Lyris.
Krista is an entrepreneur at heart thoroughly enjoying the thrill and risk of creating a business and software from scratch and proving its value to the world.
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Jeremy Laurin 
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Jeremy Laurin has been active in the technology sector as both an investor and an entrepreneur in Ontario for over 15 years.
Prior to joining ventureLAB Jeremy held leadership roles with both the Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Investment Accelerator Fund. where he was instrumental in helping to support a portfolio of 35 start-up companies. Jeremy was directly responsible for the ICT and digital media sector for the fund.
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Eric Leblanc
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Eric LeBlanc is Vice President, Commercial Financial Services – Knowledge Based Industries (KBI) for RBC. In this capacity, Mr. LeBlanc is responsible for leading the specialized KBI Commercial Financial Services teams based in Toronto, Mississauga and Kitchener-Waterloo in information technology and life sciences and healthcare services markets. Eric recently re-joined the KBI team in May 2012 after spending time with RBC’s Commercial Advisory Group in a leadership role, as Director - Specialized Industries. Prior to this role, Eric worked with the RBC KBI Teams in both Greater Toronto and Ottawa in both relationship management and financing roles. He has extensive experience in a wide range of financing to meet the unique and high growth needs of KBI companies. Eric also spent time with RBC in a senior national office role around its deposit portfolio and in business services. Eric is presently on the Board of Directors for the York Technology Alliance. Eric holds an Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from University of Victoria and a MBA from Saint Mary's University.
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Ruby Maini 
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Ruby established HR Strategies Consulting Inc. to focus on the revolutionary impact that high potential intellectual capital has in providing organizations with the competitive edge in the global marketplace. To accomplish this she furnishes organizations with the HR resources that can be mobilized to accomplish this objective.
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Terry Mocherniak 
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Terry Mocherniak is the Chief Operating Officer, Encelium Technologies. Terry has over 16 years’ experience in the advanced lighting technology sector and has been involved in two technology start-up companies. Prior to founding Encelium, Terry was Managing Partner of Value Added Ventures Corporation, a Toronto based venture capital fund and was also CEO and co-founder of Lumion Corporation, an electronic ballast and lighting control system manufacturer. Terry holds an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.
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Andrew Nunes 
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Andrew is a partner in the law firm of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. His practice encompasses numerous aspects of corporate/commercial law, including mergers & acquisitions, reorganizations, joint ventures, strategic alliances, financings, outsourcings and customer/supplier arrangements in a broad range of industries. Andrew acts for a wide range of clients from blue-chip corporations to leading-edge technology companies, including a number of U.S. clients engaged in cross-border transactions.
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