Momentum at MaRS

Dennis is an experienced C-suite executive, who has led and implemented short term and strategic plans for companies ranging from startups to $50 million high growth organizations. Most recently, Dennis was CEO of TransGaming Inc., now FinDev Inc. (TSX-V: FDI), a leading digital media company in the cloud-based game market which he helped start and take public. In the past 10 years alone he has been involved in over $150 million of financing and M&A transactions — an activity he continues today as a Partner with DCF Capital Partners​. He is also a CEO member of AceTech Ontario and currently serves as the CEO of The Southwestern Ontario Angel Group. Dennis is a Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Business Valuator and holds a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Scale-up experience: CEO of Argus Software

• Scaled to $60M ARR/$15M EBIT
• >80,000 customers in nine countries with 40,000 SMB users
• Transitioned company to SaaS model

• Company in turn-around; stabilized and refocused business to supporting 2.4M daily travelers
• Launched an innovative customer experience

• Ranked Wall Street analyst, Managing Director RBC Capital Markets. Covered B2B, B2B2C and other tech companies
• President, Rogers New Media
• BS/MS Engineering MIT; MBA from Harvard
• Creative Destruction Lab Mentor

• Optimizing your value proposition, demand generation and product value pricing strategies
• Positioning your company for success in public markets and late-stage financing, including understanding and managing investor and board stakeholder perspectives

Scale-up Experience:

• Global CMO of Ceridian
• Scaled Dayforce from $0 to $20M leading to acquisition by Ceridian
• Led Ceridian marketing team to most successful tech IPO of 2018 and $1B in revenue
• Restructured marketing organization into Revenue Center of Excellence leading to 40% of revenue driven by marketing
• VP Marketing of Workbrain
• Scaled Workbrain from $10 to $200M leading to acquisition by Infor
• Grew marketing organization from team of two to 20 people

• Founder of ACCELLE Women in Leadership, which accelerates the personal and professional success of women
• Board member of Orion Talent, Trios College

• All things pre-sales and marketing: brand, awareness, demand generation, PR, performance marketing, etc.
• Sales and marketing operations
• Leadership, organisation structure and team engagement
• Corporate scorecards, metrics and analytics

Scale-up experience:

• Area Vice President at Gartner driving double-digit growth for 30+ consecutive quarters
• Managing Partner at ValueSelling Associates, driving sales transformation from start ups, mid-size and Global 500 companies with reliable and predictable sales processes

• During his tenure at Gartner, the company grew to $3.3B with 30+ consecutive quarters of double-digit growth.

• Sales operations and process playbooks
• Sales leadership strategy
• Sales pipeline management and forecasting
• Client retention and expansion

Scale-up Experience: Head of Drug Development at Allelix Biopharmaceuticals

• Successful product development partnership with multinational Pharma
• Team member raising venture capital financing and eventual IPO
• Early-stage research through to clinical development

• Growth of drug development programs from 10 staff to over 200.
• Successful regulatory approval and marketing authorization

• Founder of Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering Consortium - industry-academic partnership
• Integrated multi-site contract manufacturing and clinical development facilities

• Biotech strategic partnerships
• Therapeutics product development strategies
• VC interactions and financing
• Product licensing (in-/out)

Scale-up Experience:

• President of Grapevine6. Led the sale of Grapevine6 to Seismic, a unicorn and leader in Sales Enablement Software
• Scaled an enterprise SaaS company by 10x over 3 years

• Advisor and Member of the Investment Committee at Luge Capital
• Spearheaded the enterprise innovation team at RBC

• Business Operations Strategy, Planning and Execution including financial planning, strategy development, corporate development and business operations optimization
• Go-to- market, channel development and partnership strategies and execution
• Building and scaling a successful Customer organization - Services, Success, Support

Katie brings extensive experience in finance, venture capital and startup operations to her role as a startup advisor at MaRS. She has worked in venture capital in both Canada and the U.S. investing in companies ranging in scale from seed to Series E and has worked closely with founders and boards to manage capital raises, budgets, headcount growth, market headwinds, regulatory approval processes and product launches. Her experience as an early employee and business unit leader at hyper-growth seed and Series A startups has also driven a passion for helping founders find balance and wellness so that they can make the best possible decisions for themselves and their businesses.

Jon is an experienced founder, executive, and board member of private and public entities in energy, mobility, and alternative fuels. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of Venture Services at MaRS. Prior to leading the Venture Services Team, he was the Managing Director of the Cleantech Practice. He is also the founder of the MaRS Advanced Energy Centre.

Prior to joining MaRS, he led business development for Hydrogenics Corporation (now Cummins) through the launch of the company’s fuel cell and hydrogen generation divisions. He also co-founded Sustainable Energy Technologies (now Eguana Technologies), a leading Canadian provider of power electronics for the solar power industry. He has also served on the Energy Transformation Network of Ontario, on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Clean Water Agency, and on the investment committee for Arctern Ventures fund 2.

Christine currently leads government affairs for the MaRS Discovery District and is responsible for managing government relationships and driving public policy initiatives. Christine brings extensive experience managing complex public policy issues across the charitable, government and corporate sectors and is recognized for developing public policy responses to pressing environmental and social issues including food waste reduction, product and packaging stewardship, and food insecurity. Christine served as director, strategic business initiatives with Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue organization. Her work there led to the release of The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste, a ground-breaking report that identified the scope and scale of food waste in Canada. Christine was also senior director of public affairs with Walmart Canada, where she led government affairs and sustainability and community involvement activities.  Her accomplishments in that role include identifying strategies to reduce food waste across the company’s supply chain. Christine’s record of public service includes serving as a founding director of the board of Canadian Stewardship Services and recently served as a director on the Resource Productivity Recovery Authority.