We help enterprises to draw upon their communities to better perform. Here are profiles of the members of that team that direct the success of Chaordix.
An introduction
Shelley Kuipers, CEO
Shelley is an accomplished and highly successful entrepreneur. Her first startup experience, Merak Projects, provided valuation and management software for the petroleum industry and was acquired by Schlumberger in 1999. In 2000, she co-founded Stormworks – a software development and online marketing firm, which was acquired by Solium Capital, a publicly-traded financial software company ranked among the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. She was a also a co-founder and partner in Adventure Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, and co-founder and partner in Material Insight a consultancy of growth agents that help to grow tech startups.
Jim Gibson, COO
Jim comes to the Chaordix team with 28 years of capital, technical and executive experience in the technology field throughout Canada. Most recently he was one of the founders and CEO of PURUS Technologies Inc which established one of the world’s first Collaborative Decision Management platforms in the industry. Prior to his role at PURUS, Jim was involved in private equity and management consulting. He started his entrepreneurial career at 27 when he helped start an information management and health care technology platform company which he sold 10 years later with 80 people. Jim comes to Chaordix at a key point in their history as they begin their transition into a global commercial and business success driven through increased market success and timely capital infusions.
Richard Einarson, VP Product & Client Services
Richard brings over 12 years of experience in the software industry in a variety of senior leadership roles with a wide range of responsibilities from sales and marketing to product management and client implementation. Over this time, Richard has built a keen understanding of how to communicate complex technical information to end users and decision makers with varying levels of technical experience and understanding. Through most of 2010, Richard was also the Communications Director for the recent successful Naheed Nenshi for Mayor campaign in Calgary, Alberta. For the duration of the campaign, he was responsible for the strategic direction and execution of the campaign’s highly effective social media engagement program that has gained worldwide recognition. The Nenshi campaign has been widely regarded as a model for successful use of social media, citizen engagement, and crowdsourcing strategies during an election campaign.
Randy Corke, VP Business Development
Randy is a serial entrepreneur who has helped lead numerous startup companies to success. Most recently, Randy was President and co-founder of RPM Communications, which created innovative mobile blogging/social media services. Previously he was founding VP of Marketing for SoundBite Communications (IPO 2007), pioneers in interactive voice messaging, and for Quack.com, which launched the world’s first voice portal in March 2000 and was subsequently acquired by America Online later that year. Randy has also held VP and CMO roles for enterprise software companies including Signiant and Praxis International (acquired by Lakeview Technology). Randy has been a featured speaker at a number of industry conferences and holds a MBA with Distinction from Cornell University and a BA from Middlebury College.
Chris Brawn, CTO
Chris is a serial technologist with 16 years of experience running development teams large and small. An experienced operational manager he specializes in growing early-stage technology companies, most recently with Paygea Israel Inc. Chris’s engineering successes range from broadcast-hardware to cryptographic primitives, financial-transaction engines to seismic data management. He is also a local and international disaster management delegate with the Canadian Red Cross. Chris holds a Honours Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo.
Richard Weston, CFO
Richard is an operational leader with an eye to detail. Richard has a proven track record of building and improving a company’s business processes, policies and management reporting systems in order to attain efficient and effective operations and real time reporting. Richard was a co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Teamplate Inc., acquired by Captaris Inc. (Nasdaq: CAPA) in the fall of 2003. Prior to Teamplate, Richard was the VP of Finance & Administration with Vertical Technologies Inc. (VTI) acquired by the Thomson Corporation (TSX: TOC) in 2004. Richard currently contracts himself out as a CFO for hire and is a Venture Partner with Emerging ISV Capital Partners. He is currently the CFO for 6 high tech companies in both Calgary and the United States.
James Smith, Legal Counsel
James is a partner that has worked extensively in the Ottawa, Toronto, and Waterloo technology communities since 1998. His practice focuses on corporate, securities and commercial law, and has included public and private financings and mergers and acquisitions transactions for a broad range of emerging enterprises. James recently completed a Masters degree in venture-backed firm corporate governance at the University of Toronto Law School through its Capital Markets Institute. James supports a number of technology and innovation clusters and initiatives, including Ottawa and Waterloo bar camps and startup camps and the Technology Venture Challenge, and is a regular speaker and attendee at events sponsored by OCRI (Ottawa), Communitech (Waterloo) and MaRS (Toronto).
Arlene Dickinson, Director
Arlene is one of Canada’s most renowned independent marketing communications entrepreneurs. After joining Venture Communications as a partner in 1988, Arlene took over sole ownership in 1998 and has grown Venture from a local firm into one of Canada’s largest independent marketing firms, with offices in Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa with a blue-chip client list. Venture has been selected as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies for three consecutive years. Her instinct for emerging trends and opportunities has led to her role as a panelist on the Gemini award-winning CBC hit series, the Dragons’ Den. Arlene has received many honours and awards including Global Television Woman of Vision; PROFIT and Chatelaine magazine’s TOP 100 Women Business Owners; the Pinnacle Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence; Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Hall of Fame; Ad Rodeo’s Lifetime Achievement Award; and McGill University’s 2008 Management Achievement Award.
Carol Leaman, Director
Carol Leaman is the CEO of 17muscles Inc., a web based interval reinforcement platform for corporate enterprise. Carol recently joined the company after selling PostRank Inc. to Google in June 2011. PostRank was founded in 2007 and aggregated social media interaction with content across more than 20 social networks. She’s the veteran of a number of early stage technology companies that she’s successfully grown and sold to strategic acquirers over the last 12 years. Carol also advises many technology companies in Waterloo region and sits on the board of directors of several charitable and for-profit organizations. Carol was the 2010 winner of the Sarah Kirke award for Canada’s leading female entrepreneur, and is the 2011 recipient of the Intrepid Award for technology in Waterloo Region. She is a Chartered Accountant and UW Grad.
Ken F. Wilson, Director
Ken Wilson is the Senior Vice President, Long Range Planning and an Officer of Coril Holdings Ltd., a privately held company headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Ken has over twenty years of experience in senior management and leadership positions of both private and public corporations ranging in size from small to large. Wilson was previously President and CEO of InQuent Technologies, a private-label web hosting company owned by SBC Communications. Before joining InQuent, Wilson was with Sprint Canada as President of their Enterprise and Consumer Services Business, leading the organization’s expansion from 600 to 1,500 employees and from $329 million to $1.1 billion in revenue over four years. Wilson was also Senior Vice-President at Oracle Corporation Canada, President of Amdahl Canada Limited, and held various sales and management positions with IBM Canada.
Margot Micallef, Director
Margot is founder and President of Oliver Capital Partners Inc., a private equity investment and advisory firm offering corporate and mergers and acquisitions advisory services to public and private companies. She is also an Adjunct Professor in governance and ethics for the MBA Program at the University of Alberta and is on the Faculty of the Directors College, a joint venture between McMaster University and the Conference Board of Canada. Margot was formerly a Senior Vice-President of Shaw Communications Inc. and a Partner with Russell and Dumoulin (now Fasken Martineau DuMoulin) in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ms. Micallef was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2002.
Brian Craig, Director
Brian was Solium’s President and Chief Executive Officer from 2002 to 2006 and is currently a Managing Director. He has been on the Board of Directors since 2001. Prior to joining Solium full-time, Brian founded and was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Stormworks Ltd., a privately held e-business services company that was acquired by Solium. Brian is a principal at a Calgary-based venture capital company, Adventure Capital. Through this vehicle Brian invests in many early-stage companies, including energy and technology startups. Brian has acquired board and audit committee experience at several businesses he has been involved with, including public and private companies. Brian is an engineer and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in engineering from the University of New Brunswick in 1981.
Allan MacKenzie, Board Advisor
Allan has an exceptional investment and operational track record within the high technology and other industries. Allan is a high profile investor in the Calgary community having led or participated in the financing of several successful start-ups. (Exits include Teamplate, Sonic Mobility, WestJet Airlines, Quack.com, SideStep.) Along with this, Allan has also had the personal experience in building a rapid growth technology company. Allan was the CFO at Quack.com which was sold to AOL for $200 million one year after it was incorporated. Allan is presently a partner in Calgary based Octane Venture Partners.
Chaordix advisory board
Chaordix’ Advisory Board provides on-demand advice, expertise and insight in the areas of financing and go-to-market, building upon the company’s intellectual capital.
Chuck Davis
SVP Sales, Scalable Network Technologies
Mark Dowds
Founder, CEO, Brainpark Inc.
Kelly Graves
CTO, Loa Networks
Owner, Ideas First
Erin Liman
Principal, Design Thinking Practice, Intuit
Marcos Lopez
Managing Director, Solium Capital Inc.
Sharon McIntyre
Founder & Marketing Consultant, ShelfLife C&D Inc.
Assistant Professor (Marketing), Mount Royal University
Claudia Moore
Advisor / speaker: brand strategy, entrepreneurship, and technology marketing
William Shutkin
President, Presidio Graduate School, San Francisco, CA
Partner, Aravaipa Ventures
Lew Turnquist
Managing Partner, Kirchner Private Capital Group